Lapsed customers and email engagement, by trade area
The short answer
Lapsed customers who still open your emails are the cheapest lapsed group to win back, because the channel still reaches them. For each store's trade area, count customers with no purchase in 12 months and at least one email open or click in the last 90 days, then give them a local reason to return.
Why it matters
Lapsed customers in a store's trade area stay invisible to store teams unless someone names them. Those still reading emails have not tuned the brand out, so a local offer or event reaches them at low cost and gives the store a measurable reactivation target.
The question to ask
Copy this into Lexi as written.
What the answer looks like
Illustrative output on sample data
Illustrative example: how Lexi answers this for one store of a home improvement retailer. It finds customers in the store's trade area with no purchase in 12 months who opened or clicked an email in the last 90 days.
- Lapsed customers in the trade area: 9,800
- Still reading email: 2,300
- Excludes customers already in a winback journey.
What the data shows
About a quarter of the store's lapsed customers still open its emails.
What it means
These customers have not tuned the brand out, which makes them the best first target for a local winback.
What to do
Invite the 2,300 to a local spring workshop with a store credit.
Want me to build the list for each store and push it to Klaviyo?
Frequently asked questions
What counts as a lapsed customer?
A customer who has not bought in any channel for longer than your lapse window, often 12 months for categories bought a few times a year. Set the window from the typical gap between purchases, and check store and online records together, so a customer who switched channel is not counted as lapsed.
Why do opens alone overstate email activity?
Mail privacy features can record opens that never happened, so some lapsed customers look active when they are not. Use clicks as well as opens, and favor recent activity. A lapsed customer who clicked in the last 90 days is a stronger prospect than one with an automated open.
What works best for lapsed customer reactivation through a store?
Give lapsed customers a local reason to come in: an event, a workshop, a service or an offer tied to what they used to buy. Name the nearest store and its team. Measure reactivation against a holdout, since some lapsed customers return on their own.