Re-engagement campaign: a practical guide to wake up inactive subscribers

A re-engagement campaign wakes up parents who stopped opening your emails, lifts your engagement and protects your reputation. Here is how, step by step.

1. Find your inactive contacts

Common signs:

• No opens or clicks for several months, usually 3 to 12 depending on how often you email.
• No visits to your pages or downloads of your guides, and no response to recent offers.
• Repeated soft bounces, or no activity across many campaigns.

2. Clean your list first

• Remove invalid addresses with a verification tool such as ZeroBounce or NeverBounce. These cause hard bounces.
• Remove contacts with no activity in over 12 months. If you must keep them, set them to Unsubscribed.
• Remove generic or fake addresses, such as test@test.com.
• Check your tags and custom fields are correct, so your segments stay accurate.

3. Decide your goal and message

What do you want parents to do: open, click a link or offer, or stay on your list?

Choose a tone which fits your brand: warm and caring, light and playful (always respectful), or built around a gift.

Offer a reason to come back:

• A discount code on a sleep package.
• A free resource, such as a new guide or checklist.
• Early access to a workshop or offer.

4. Build the campaign

Subject line: short, warm and personal. For example: "We miss you", "Still up at night?" or "A little gift for you".

Email body:

• Remind parents what your emails bring: tips, support, offers or resources.
• Mention you noticed they have been quiet, and you care.
• Give one clear action: click, reply or confirm they want to stay.

Call to action: impossible to miss, for example "Yes, keep me on the list", "Send me my gift" or "Show me the new guide".

Timing:

• Start small. Send to part of the group first and adjust.
• A/B test your subject lines, content and buttons. See How to set up an A/B test for your newsletters.
• Send a follow-up 3 to 7 days later to those who did not respond.

5. Automate and track

Set up an automation to sort parents by their response:

• Re-engaged (opened or clicked): move them back to your active list.
• Still inactive after two emails: consider removing them.

Track your open rate, click rate, unsubscribes and bounces. Use what you learn to refine your segments, content and timing.

6. Protect your deliverability

• Start with 10% to 20% of your inactive contacts. Email providers watch new sending patterns closely, and a gradual start builds a reliable reputation.
• Increase the volume over days or weeks, checking opens, clicks and bounces each time.
• Lead with value, not hard selling: tips, guides and reminders of what parents gain.

7. Review and improve

• Move parents who opened or clicked back to your active segments.
• Note which subject lines and content worked best.
• Remove parents who still do not engage after several follow-ups. This lifts your engagement, protects your reputation and lets you focus on families who want to hear from you.