Reactivation works on members the program still has. Their account is open and their points are still there. The email address on file still reaches them. That is the line between reactivation and win-back. Win-back goes after customers who have left, by closing an account or losing their balance.
What is a reactivation campaign?
A reactivation campaign is a planned series of contacts that brings an inactive member back to buying and earning. The same work is also called a customer reactivation campaign, or lapsed customer reactivation. In a loyalty program, it leans on what the member already holds. A points balance and a reward within reach are reasons to come back that cost the program little up front.
Some programs build reactivation into their terms. Starbucks Stars for Green members expire six months after the month they were earned. A qualifying purchase in the month before expiry pushes that date out by one month. Redeeming a reward or a digital reload of $30 or more does the same (Starbucks Rewards terms). Each expiry date is a reminder with a deadline the member can act on.
How is reactivation different from a win-back campaign?
The difference is whether the member still has something to come back to.
| Reactivation campaign | Win-back campaign | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it targets | Members still enrolled who stopped buying | Customers who left the program or the brand |
| What they still hold | An open account, often with points or status | Little or nothing in the program |
| First lever | The balance, an expiry date or a reward within reach | A new reason to return |
| Channel | Channels the member still opens | Any channel that still reaches them |
| Deadline | Before the terms take the balance away | None, since the balance is already gone |
Marriott's terms mark the line. If an account is inactive for 24 months in a row, it forfeits all its points. Forfeited points cannot be put back, though the member can earn new ones (Marriott Bonvoy terms). Before that date, the program is reactivating a member with a balance. After it, any campaign is a win-back campaign.
When does a member count as lapsed?
No program sees the day a member stops. A standard family of models treats that moment as hidden. They assume customers buy at a steady rate for a while, then go quiet. They need two facts per customer: when the last purchase was, and how many purchases there were (Fader, Hardie and Lee, Marketing Science).
So lapse is a judgment set against each member's own pace. A weekly coffee buyer gone a month has broken a habit. A traveler gone a month has not.
Companies draw the line in different places. Starbucks has reported its US Rewards base as 90-day active members, 34.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2025 (Starbucks). Its terms let it unregister an account after two years in a row with no Stars earned (Starbucks Rewards terms). Marriott's clock runs 24 months. The lapsed member entry covers how programs define the term.
How do you time and design a reactivation campaign?
Work back from the program's own deadline, and step up the offer in stages.
- Set the trigger from the member's pace. Flag members once the gap since their last purchase runs well past their usual gap. Do it well before any expiry date in the terms.
- Lead with what they hold. A points balance or a reward within reach gives a reason to return. It costs nothing until the member acts.
- Step up in stages. Send a free reminder first. Add a modest bonus only for members who did not respond, and hold out a random slice at each step.
- Target the members who respond. A study by Eva Ascarza used data from a phone carrier and a membership group. In simulations on that data, picking members by how likely they were to respond cut churn more than picking those most likely to leave (AMA).
- Check the channel. Yahoo warns that email sent to people who are not reading it hurts a sender's delivery and reputation. It suggests a reconfirmation email to inactive subscribers from time to time (Yahoo Sender Hub).
How do you keep reactivation costs under control?
Reactivation has two costs. The first is the bonus. The second is easy to miss. Under IFRS 15, expected breakage is booked as revenue in step with the rights customers do use (paragraph B46). Points a dormant member was expected to leave unused sit inside that estimate. Bring the member back, and those points become redemptions with a real cost. The guide to points liability accounting explains the books.
Partners can share the bill. Kroger's retail media arm pitches its coupons to brands as a way to win back lapsed households (Kroger). Chase tells brands its campaigns can bring back lapsed customers. It charges brands only when a customer sees a campaign and buys (Chase).
Inside the program, a few rules hold spend down. Use the holdout's return rate to find segments that come back on their own, and skip them. Cap the bonus per member. Send one offer per member per window, and stop when the window closes.
How do you measure a reactivation campaign?
Some lapsed members come back with no contact at all. A random holdout counts them. Draw it from the same flagged list and leave it alone. Then compare return rates over the same window.
For illustration, a program flags 100,000 members who have not bought in 90 days but still hold points. It holds out 10,000 at random. Over the next 60 days, 8% of the holdout return on their own. In the contacted group, 11% return. Each one gets a 500-point bonus worth $5.
That is 9,900 returners and $49,500 in bonuses. But 8% of the 90,000, or 7,200 members, would have come back anyway. The campaign brought back 2,700 members, at about $18.33 each. A report that counts every returner shows $5 each.
Track what happens next as well. A member who returns for one bonus and then goes quiet again has not been won back. The useful read is whether the contacted group is still more active than the holdout 90 days later.
How GRAVTY handles reactivation campaigns
GRAVTY is the Loyalty Juggernaut platform. It runs 500M+ members in production. Its rules engine, GRAVTY Visual Rules, is patented and needs no code. Loyalty teams use it to write reactivation rules and put them live without an IT ticket. GRAVTY captures every earn, burn, tier change and offer response as a timestamped event tied to a member. That record dates the moment a member went quiet, and it backs the holdout read.
Member 360 pulls a member's behaviors and transactions into one view, household included. So lapse is judged on the whole relationship. Scores such as churn risk sit on the member record, where offers can act on them. Agentic AI Compass tests offers and runs a simulation before a campaign goes live.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good reactivation rate?
A good reactivation rate is one that beats a random holdout by enough to pay for the bonus. Raw rates mislead, because some lapsed members return on their own. Compare the contacted group with the holdout over the same window.
How soon after the last purchase should reactivation start?
Start once a member's gap since the last purchase runs well past their own normal gap. For a weekly buyer that is a matter of weeks. For a traveler it is months. Either way, start well before any expiry date in the program terms.
Is a points expiry reminder a reactivation campaign?
Yes, an expiry reminder is often the first and cheapest step of one. It gives the member a reason to act and a date to act by. Starbucks terms, for example, push a Green member's Star expiry out by a month after a qualifying purchase in the month before (Starbucks Rewards terms).
Can a reactivation campaign hurt a program's finances?
Yes, in two ways. It can pay bonuses to members who would have returned anyway. It can also turn points expected to go unused into redemptions. That changes the breakage a company books under IFRS 15 (paragraph B46).
Should lapsed members get a bigger offer than active members?
Only when a test shows a smaller step failed. Start with a reminder of the balance, then add a modest bonus for members who did not respond. Raise the offer for a segment only if its gap over the holdout pays for it.