In this lesson, you’ll learn how to implement a workflow to send a wake-up email to dormant customers to increase repeat sales.
Take advantage of your database to boost sales among contacts who are already customers. With Connectif, you can create email flows that target your customers with products they’re interested in, to boost traffic and conversions.
Objective: Reactivation.
Elements used: Email.
Implementation time: 1.5 hours.
We recommend following all the steps and implementing this strategy from scratch in your account. However, if you need a shortcut, you can use the Re-engaging dormant customers template in the Workflows Templates Directory.
Lesson summary
In this lesson, you’ll learn:
- About the different types of Contact segments, to learn how different contact groups work
- About the "On entering segment" and "On leaving the segment" nodes, to check if a contact has left without completing a purchase in a given period.
- How to create a Dynamic Plus segment, to group contacts precisely based on activities, metrics and characteristics.
At the end of the lesson, you will have created in your account:
The dormant customer re-engagement strategy contained in this workflow, through which you’ll send automated personalized emails to customers who have not made a purchase for 30 days.
Strategy configuration
STEP 0. Workflow creation
How to create the workflow for this strategy
1. In your Connectif account, click "Workflows > Create new workflow" and then Create blank workflow.
2. Click (Edit) and name it "Reactivating dormant customers".
3. Click Apply to save the new name of your workflow.
STEP 1. "Start" node
How to configure the "Start" node for this strategy
(This node will establish the target audience for the workflow).
4. Click (Edit node settings) for the “Start” node.
5. Under Select a limitation, check "All my list" and select "Contacts with email".
6. Under Select data source, check “All existing and new”.
7. Click Update.
In this step, we have told Connectif to activate the workflow for all contacts that visit the website, both new and existing, whose email we have.
STEP 2. "On entering segment" node
How the "On entering segment" and "On leaving the segment" nodes work
The "On entering segment" and "On leaving the segment" nodes are used to react when a contact is added to or excluded from a segment, respectively.
In the node interface, you can establish which segment the contacts must be added to in order to trigger it.
How segments work in Connectif
In Connectif there are different types of contact segments, which give you three ways to create audience groups:
- Static segment: to group contacts by manual classification, either by importing one or more contacts to the segment, or by their behavior within a workflow. These segments are not configured by conditions.
- Dynamic segment: to automatically group contacts by conditions indicated at the time of their creation, based on the characteristics to be taken into account. These segments are always active and up to date.
- Dynamic Plus segment: to group contacts into much more precise segments as it allows filtering by activities and their metrics in addition to contact fields. Additionally, it has more operators and filtering options.
How to create the Dynamic Plus segment for this strategy
(In this step you’ll create a Dynamic Plus segment where you’ll group sleeping customers).
8. Save the workflow and go to “Contacts > Segments”.
9. Click Create new segment, select the Dynamic Plus segment type and click Go to segment editor.
10. In the editor, add the conditions for contacts to be included in the segment. In this case, you’ll add two filters to include contacts who are subscribed to the newsletter and made their last purchase 30 days ago:
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Click the "Select field or activity" drop-down and, in the "Contact profile" group, choose "Newsletter subscription status".
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In the interface, locate the operator selector to be created, select "Is equal to" and indicate "Subscribed" in the value dropdown, which will appear next.
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On the right, click "AND" to add the next condition to the previous one.
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Click "Select field or activity" in the drop-down and, in the "Purchases" group, choose "Last purchase date".
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In the selector that will be created in the interface, locate the operator selector and select "Is in the last", type "30" and select "Days" in the value dropdown, which will appear next.
11. Create the exclusions for the segment. In this case, you'll add a filter to exclude contacts who have made a purchase in the last 29 days:
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Click Add exclusion group.
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Click "Select field or activity" in the drop-down and, in the "Purchases" group, choose "Last purchase date".
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In the interface, locate the operator selector that will be created and select "Is in the last", type "29" and select "Days" in the value dropdown, which will appear next.
12. Click (Edit), give the segment a name, and click Apply. In this case, "Purchasers 30d"
13. Click Save and return to the workflow for this strategy..
How to configure the “On entering segment” node for this strategy
(This node will activate the next step of the workflow – in this case to obtain the contact's last cart – at the moment they enter the "30d Purchasers" segment).
14. In the node selection menu, go to "Triggers > Contact" and drag the "On entering segment” node into the editor so that it connects to the "Start" node.
15. Click (Edit node settings) for the “On entering segment” node.
16. Under Select a segment, choose the segment created.
17. Under Limitations, uncheck the "Deactivate after triggering" box.
18. Click Update.
In this step we have told Connectif to activate the flow when a contact who is subscribed to the newsletter has not purchased for 30 days (and, therefore, when they enter the segment we have created).
STEP 3. “Fetch last cart” node
How the "Fetch last cart” node works
This node is used to collect the data referring to the last cart for each contact. In the node interface, you can configure the properties of the cart and how the products will be fetched:
- Select the cart status. To choose active, abandoned or purchased carts, or any cart (the default option).
- Configure the order in which the products in the cart will be obtained. To select the order in which the products will be obtained, generally ascending or descending by price, priority or valuation, while the quantity can only be ascending.
How to configure the "Fetch last cart" node for this strategy
(This node will fetch the last cart purchased by the contact).
19. In the node selection menu, go to"Actions > Ecommerce" and drag the "Fetch last cart" node into the editor so that it connects to the “On entering segment” node.
20. Click (Edit node settings) in the “Fetch last cart” node.
21. In Select cart status, choose the “Purchased” option from the dropdown. No other configuration is necessary as in this case we are interested in obtaining the entire cart to export that information to the next node.
22. Click Update.
In this step we have told Connectif to fetch the last cart purchased by the contact, to obtain recommended products based on this purchase in the next node.
STEP 4. “Fetch products” node
How to configure the "Fetch products" node for this strategy
(This node will fetch products related to the last purchase).
23. In the node selection menu, go to "Actions > Ecommerce" and drag the "Fetch products" node into the editor so that it connects to the "Fetch last cart" node.
24. Click (Edit node settings) in the “Fetch products” node.
25. To select the use cases, drag “Automatically related to a cart” to the block on the right and “Best sellers”. Click Next .
26. Under Main use case settings:
- Select "12" under Number of products to fetch to fetch up to 12 items of this type.
- In Select related cart, choose the cart "Internal Cart ID (Fetch last cart)" to fetch 12 products related to that cart.
- Click Next .
27. Under Additional use case settings:
- Select "12" under Number of products to fetch to fetch up to 12 items of this type.
- Under Select the time period of the visits, choose "Best sellers of the last month" and check the "Shuffle the fetched products” box.
- Click Next .
28. In Summary, locate the Number of products to fetch section and indicate “12”. Then activate "Exclude the products exported by the nodes before this one". This way, 12 products will be obtained in the node, preferably those of the first case, excluding products from previous nodes.
29. Click Finish .
In this step we have told Connectif to fetch 12 products related to the last purchase by the contact who’ll receive the email, to personalize it. If there aren’t 12 products with these characteristics, Connectif will complete the list with the best-selling products from your store in the last month. In addition, the products in the previous node are excluded from this result, i.e. those that the contact has already purchased.
STEP 5. "Send Email" Node
How to configure the email for this strategy
(In this step, you will create and send an email with recommended products).
30. In the node selection menu, go to "Actions > Email" and drag the "Send Email" node to the editor, so it connects with the "Get Products" node.
31. Click on (Edit node settings) of the “Send Email” node. Click on Create new content to create a new email.
32. In the Tools panel, click on the General tab to edit the general appearance parameters of your email.
33. In the Components tab, configure the composition and add the elements you want to your email by clicking on them and dragging them to the editor.
If you need it, all the steps to create an email are available in this lesson.
34. Once you have configured the text and images of your email, add a Product element and edit it.
36. In Template, select the second option.
37. In Structure, configure the rows and columns to display and activate the Show incomplete rows checkbox. In this case, we have chosen 2 rows and 3 columns on desktop, and 3 rows and 2 columns on mobile.
38. Click on Save and return to the content list.
How to configure the "Send Email" Node for this strategy
(This node will send the email with the products).
39. Select the email you just created and click on Next .
40. In the Send to section, select "Contact".
41. Indicate the type of email "Newsletter".
42. Configure the Send to contact parameters section.
43. In Google Analytics, click "Enable Google Analytics" and then on Next .
44. In Variables, drag the Name contact field to match the variable {{name}}. This way, this variable will include the name from the contact's record.
45. In Variables, drag to the Dynamic Content area to complete the variables with the data obtained from the "Get Products" node which gets the recommended products related to the cart:
- Drag the Literal field to match the variable {{buttonText}} and enter the text you want to display on the button. This way, this variable will include the text of the button you have defined.
- Drag the Unit Price product field to match the variable {{price}}. This way, the price appearing in the product record will appear in the email.
- Drag the Detail URL field to match the variable {{buttonUrl}}. This way, this variable will include the address of the product page in your catalog.
- Drag the Name field to match the variable {{buttonUrl_utmContent}}. This way, this variable will include a UTM to monitor in Google Analytics the visits to the product page coming from this strategy. You can also match this variable with another field, such as ID, if you want to track through other product data.
- Drag the Image URL product field to match the variable {{imageURL}}. This way, the image appearing in the product record will appear in the email.
- Drag the Name product field to match the variable {{title}}. This way, the name of the product added to the cart by the contact will appear in the email.
46. Click on Finish .
In this step, we instructed Connectif to send a personalized email to the contact with the products obtained in the previous nodes, to show them products they might be interested in (either because they are related to their last purchase or because they have been popular among our customers this month) and thus encourage them to buy again.
Result
After completing the steps, you will have created your strategy to send a reactivation email to your customers who have not made a purchase in the last 30 days, with recommended products for them.
Continue your journey
Now that you have completed this lesson, continue with the next one, where you will create a weekly push campaign with recommended products.
Congratulations!
You have reached the end of the lesson.
Return to course
Access the complete course index and the explanation of each lesson here.
Related readings
If you want to deepen your knowledge of any of the learnings from this lesson, you can access the guide documentation:
- Introduction to Customer Lifetime Value, to learn about these metrics that allow you to estimate the value of your customers and make strategies of this type.
- Dynamic segment, to delve into this type of segment and its properties and learn how to create them.
- Dynamic segment plus, to learn in-depth how these groups work and manage the interface.