Our win-back emails were discounting regular shoppers, not lost ones.

We tracked 35,000 active and inactive customer accounts across a 14-month period.

Users redeeming win-back discount codes who were already active: 64%

Truly churned users who opened emails after 60 days: less than 5%

Median days between replenishment purchases for loyal customers: 42

Customers were not returning because of a discount code. They were returning on a natural replenishment schedule. Our win-back emails, which fired automatically at day 45, were giving arbitrary discounts to people who were about to buy anyway.

We stopped sending blanket 45-day discount emails entirely and instead surfaced a "Restock in 1-Click" SMS reminder tailored to each user's purchase cycle. Unnecessary discount redemptions dropped 38%, and repeat order margins rose 15% because we stopped paying for purchases that were already going to happen.

What customer behavior are you paying to incentivize that is already happening naturally?