Future Campaign: Reactivate Lost

One annual reach-out to your Lost members — strongest offer, plus a survey that earns its keep either way

Cheat sheet — a Future Campaign, ~10 minutes

Route — Filter members → audience Tags contains any of RFM:Lost → One-time action.

Step 1 — Kind is Future Campaign; name it Reactivate Lost <year>.

Step 2 — Audience pre-filled with RFM:Lost; set the fire time (now or a chosen date).

Step 3 — Stack two actions:

• Send asset → your strongest one-time offer.
• Send SMS / email → a template with a survey magic link.

Step 4 — Save, set Active before the fire time.

Fires once. Run it again next year — not as a recurring drip.

This playbook sends a single, deliberate reach-out to your Lost segment — members whose last visit is well past your lookback window. Most of them left for reasons that have nothing to do with you. So you don't chase them; you make one strong annual offer, attach a short survey so the message is worthwhile even for the ones who don't come back, and then you leave them alone. That "once, then leave alone" cadence is why this is a Future Campaign, not a Rule.

What you'll build

A one-time push to everyone currently tagged RFM:Lost that:

1. Grants your strongest one-time offer (a Gift you'd only ever extend to win someone back).
2. Sends a message with a survey link — so even a non-returner tells you why they drifted.
3. Fires once, at a moment you choose, and then retires. Next year you run a fresh one.

When to use this

Once a year (or once a season at most), as a deliberate reactivation moment — not as an always-on automation. The Lost segment is explicitly the one you should not drip-message: a recurring campaign to people who left a year ago is annoying, hurts deliverability, and trains them to ignore you. A single, generous, occasional reach-out is the whole strategy. See the Lost section of the Segments page.

Before you start

3 prerequisites — a strong Gift, a survey, and a template carrying the survey magic link

• Your strongest one-time Gift exists under Benefits → Gifts. This is your best win-back offer — bigger than anything you'd give a current member. See Gifts.
• A short survey exists under Smart surveys. One or two questions — "What would bring you back?" is enough. See Smart surveys.
• A message template carries the survey link as a magic link. This is the important one: magic links can only be inserted inside the Comm. Templates editor, not in a Custom message typed into the wizard. Build the SMS or email under Comm. Templates, insert the survey via Select magic links, and you'll be able to attribute each response back to the member who left. Without a magic link you'll get survey answers you can't tie to anyone.

Walkthrough

There are two routes into the same one-time campaign. The Filter members route is the easy one because it pre-fills the audience.

Route A (recommended) — from Filter members

1. Go to Filter members in the left nav.
2. Add one member attribute: Tags → contains any of → RFM:Lost. (Optionally add a second filter, e.g. member age is over 6 months, so you only reach members who were genuinely yours before they lapsed.)
3. Click Search to confirm the population looks right, then click One-time action — this opens the Future Campaign wizard with your RFM:Lost audience already filled in.

Route B — from Smart campaigns

Marketing → Smart campaigns → Create campaign → Future Campaign, then define the audience as Specific members → Tags contains any of RFM:Lost inside the wizard's step 2.

Step 1 — Campaign details

Kind Future Campaign. Name it with the year so next year's run is distinct — Reactivate Lost 2026. Note the offer and intent in the description.

Step 2 — For members (audience + fire time)

• Audience — RFM:Lost (already filled if you came via Filter members).
• Fire time — now, or a date that suits (a quiet trading week often works). One moment, one send.

Step 3 — Actions

Action 1 — Send asset → your strongest one-time Gift, Quantity 1.

Action 2 — Send SMS or Send email → the template you built with the survey magic link. (Pick the saved template via Source — don't switch to Custom, or you lose the magic link.)

Step 4 — Preview

Confirm Kind is Future Campaign, the audience reads RFM:Lost, the fire time is right, and the message action points at the template (not a custom body). Save, then set the state to Active before the fire time — a Future Campaign left in Draft when its moment passes simply doesn't fire.

Variations

3 tweaks — survey-only, segment by how-long-lost, schedule it ahead

Survey-only, no Gift. If your strongest offer is expensive, run a survey-only version first: a single Send email with the magic-link survey and no Gift, to learn why people left before you spend on winning them back. Use what you learn to shape next year's offer.

Segment by how long they've been gone. In Filter members, combine RFM:Lost with a last-visit or member-age band so recently-lost members get a different (often stronger) offer than long-gone ones. Run two One-time actions, one per band.

Schedule it ahead. Set the fire time to a future date rather than now — for example, the start of a seasonal lull — and the push goes out on its own as long as the campaign is Active.

Gotchas

4 things that commonly trip people up

• No recurrence — that's the point. A Future Campaign fires once. Don't rebuild it as a Scheduled drip; the whole reason Lost lives here is to keep this to one annual touch. Run a fresh Future Campaign next year.
• Magic links need a saved template. Type a Custom message and the Select magic links button isn't there. Build the template under Comm. Templates first, then select it.
• Draft past the fire time is inert. Flip the state to Active before the fire moment — there's no "did you mean to send this?" prompt.
• Keep Lost out of your routine sends. This deliberate annual push is the only time Lost should hear from you. Everywhere else, filter RFM:Lost out, not in.