How to Run an Email Re-engagement Campaign

Every marketer I speak to has the same pressure sitting somewhere in the background.

There is a part of the database, usually a large part, that leadership or your stakeholders (or maybe yourself) believes is full of untapped opportunity. A “dead” segment, a disengaged list, thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of email addresses that, on paper, look like potential revenue just waiting to be activated.

And sooner or later, someone says it: “We need to re-engage that list.”

This blog exists to slow that moment down and to know what to do when it comes.

Not because re-engagement campaigns are never the right move. But because they are very rarely the right place to start, and they are one of the fastest ways to create deliverability problems, waste time, and quietly damage an otherwise healthy email programme.

Before you invest time reading this and before you invest time building a campaign, the most important question is not how to run a disengagement campaign.

It is: Should this even be on your to-do list at all?

The belief we need to challenge first: “There’s gold in the disengaged list”

The idea that disengaged data represents a hidden opportunity is incredibly persistent. It sounds logical:

• They’re already in our database
• They opted in at some point
• They might have bought before
• Surely there must be value there

But this belief is doing a lot of damage.

• An email address does not equal intent.
• An email address does not equal opportunity.
• An email address does not equal future revenue.

It is simply an identifier.

And when teams chase disengaged lists as a growth lever, what they are often really doing is trying to extract performance from the weakest signals in the system, instead of fixing the foundations that created disengagement in the first place.

That is why so many re-engagement campaigns feel exhausting, risky, and underwhelming.

Before you plan anything: should disengagement be your focus?

For most teams, the honest answer is no.

Not because disengaged people are bad, useless, or “low quality” humans (please). But because the disengaged segment is nearly always the least efficient place to spend effort if your goal is commercial impact. They are the hardest to move, the easiest to upset, and the most likely to create deliverability problems that affect everyone else you email.

In other words: you can absolutely run a disengagement campaign - but the ROI is often awful, and the risk is often underestimated.

When I work with clients, most come in with a version of the same line: “Our biggest problem is that half our list is disengaged.”

In most cases, that’s not the real problem. It’s the (only) visible symptom.

The real problems are usually upstream and boring (which is why people avoid them), things like: acquisition quality, opt-in intent, segmentation, poor systems and infrastructure, exclusions, onboarding/orientation, and unrealistic expectations of what email should do in the first place. If those foundations are cracked, trying to “activate” disengaged data is like repainting a house with structural damage. You’ll feel busy, you will not fix what’s breaking.

If you need a line for internal buy-in, steal this:

“Before we spend time trying to re-engage people who have shown no inten for x amount of time, we need to make sure we aren’t leaking engagement and trust from the people who did show intent. Otherwise, we’re building on a broken foundation and increasing deliverability risk.”

That is a grown-up argument - use it.

First principles: what does “disengaged” actually mean?

One of the most dangerous habits in email marketing is using generic, internet-approved definitions of engagement.

“Hasn’t opened or clicked in 90 days” is not a strategy. It’s a guess and it’s often a bad one.

Engagement is contextual. It depends on your business model, buying cycle, opt-in sources, sending cadence, and what role email plays in the wider ecosystem.

That’s why “rules” like 30/60/90 days are meaningless without looking at your behavioural data.

Here’s what I mean:

If you sell something people buy once a year (a birthday cake business is the easiest example), a subscriber can look “disengaged” for 11 months and still be a perfectly healthy customer relationship. They might ignore everything until the two-week window where they actually need you, then suddenly open, click, and buy.

In B2B, it gets even more obvious. You can have subscribers who never open newsletters but:

• read your blog directly,
• show up to webinars,
• search your name when a problem appears,
• or have your content circulating internally.

And in e-commerce, you can have high-value customers who simply do not click marketing emails. They buy when they need to buy, and email is just part of the ambient brand ecosystem.

So if you label people “disengaged” based on short-term email signals alone, you will misclassify a large chunk of your audience and you will start making the wrong decisions.

If you use a platform like HubSpot or Klaviyo and it’s connected to your website or purchase/product data, then you have no excuse for using email behaviour as your only truth. You should be looking at business engagement, not inbox behaviour in isolation.

Separate “disengaged from email” from “disengaged from the business/brand”

This is where most teams go wrong, and it’s also where most re-engagement campaigns start off on the wrong foot.

Someone can never open your emails, never click a campaign, never reply and still be highly engaged with your business.

They might be engaging elsewhere:

• reading your blog directly,
• visiting key pages regularly,
• signing up for webinars,
• buying seasonally,
• engaging via sales or service,
• or using your product quietly without ever “liking” your emails.
  

That’s why I use the concept of meaningful actions.

A meaningful action is anything that signals real interaction with the business (not just the inbox). You need to define this per organisation, but examples could include:

• registering for a webinar or event,
• visiting product/pricing pages multiple times,
• logging into a customer portal,
• making a purchase,
• submitting an enquiry,
• replying to sales or support.

If someone has taken meaningful actions, they are not disengaged. They may be disengaged from email, but not from you (the brand/business).

And trying to “re-engage them via email” often solves the wrong problem. If they’re still doing business with you, why are we trying to force them into a behaviour pattern they’ve never had?

This is the moment to remind yourself (and your boss): most people will not open and click every email you send. Expecting that is unrealistic and designing a strategy around that expectation is how you end up in constant “fix engagement” mode.

Expectations are off because email is framed incorrectly

Disengagement campaigns exist largely because email is still treated like a performance channel.

Email is expected to generate immediate opens, drive clicks every time, and create leads or sales on demand. That expectation is wrong, and it creates constant pressure to “wake up” the list when the list isn’t the problem.

Email is an impact channel, not a performance channel. It builds awareness, familiarity, trust, and recall. Those are not fluffy concepts — they show up later as:

• assisted conversions,
  
• increased propensity to buy,
  
• better sales conversations,
  
• stronger brand preference,
  
• higher intent when the moment is right.
  

Trying to force performance from people who are not in the right moment, or who use email differently, is how you end up chasing disengaged lists instead of designing a healthier system.

Why disengagement campaigns usually have terrible ROI

People who have shown no meaningful intent, no interaction with the business, and no behavioural signals are always going to be your lowest-return audience. They take the most effort to reach, convert at the lowest rates, and introduce the highest risk.

Even if you get a 1–2% reactivation rate, you need to ask what it cost you:

• time (planning, creative, QA, segmentation),
• opportunity cost (what you didn’t do instead),
• and the risk of negative signals impacting inbox placement for everyone else.

Meanwhile, that same effort put into:

• improving acquisition quality,
• fixing onboarding/orientation,
• segmenting warmer audiences,
• building exclusions and collision rules,
• or protecting deliverability…

…almost always produces better results.

This is why I tell most clients: disengagement is not where you start. It’s a later-stage lever, once you have the foundations and the measurement model to do it safely.

Deliverability: the risk everyone underestimates

Sending to disengaged data is one of the fastest ways to damage deliverability.

Mailbox providers do not care about your intentions. They care about patterns and signals. Disengaged contacts are more likely to ignore emails, delete without reading, mark messages as spam, or hard bounce. When you suddenly increase volume to that segment, you introduce a surge of negative signals — and those signals affect all future sends, including to your most engaged audience.

This is why any re-engagement conversation must be preceded by a deliverability audit. If you have not ruled out deliverability issues first, do not proceed. Full stop.

And this is where my other blog comes in: How to Re-Engage Your Email List (Properly and Without Destroying Deliverability) is required reading before anyone starts building “a quick campaign”.

The “Keep or Kill” exercise

Once you’ve audited deliverability, cleaned obvious data issues, and clarified what disengaged means for you, you can finally look at your disengaged segment properly.

Not to email it blindly — but to classify risk.

The Kill list (do not email)

These contacts are usually too risky to justify effort:

• no meaningful actions for years (timeframe depends on your audience, buying cycle etc)
• outdated or invalid domains,
• B2B contacts likely to have changed jobs,
• long-term non-responders with no signals.

Keeping them “just in case” doesn’t preserve opportunity. It preserves risk.

The Keep list (conditional)

These contacts may still matter:

• past customers or clients,
• seasonal buyers,
• people who engage outside email,
• out-of-market B2B audiences.

For these groups, email might be an awareness tool, not a conversion lever and that is okay.

This exercise is not about vanity list pruning. It’s about protecting trust, relevance, and reputation so the people who do care can still receive what you send.

If you are going to re-engage: what actually works

Once your list is segmented properly (and only then), you can think about re-engagement.

Two things get attention from disengaged audiences:

1. a real problem or need, and
2. a pattern interrupt.

The strongest re-engagement campaigns use a mix of both, because you’re trying to do two things at once: get noticed and be worth noticing.

Understand predictive coding (this matters more than subject lines)

People already associate your brand with an experience, an emotion, and an expectation before they read a single word.

If their previous experience of your emails was “noise”, “too salesy”, “irrelevant”, or “I didn’t ask for this”, no clever subject line will save you. This is why exclusions matter. Do not re-email people with known complaints or poor customer experiences and expect magic. That’s not re-engagement! 

Build around help, not hype

Disengaged people are not in buying mode. They are in “prove you’re worth my attention again” mode.

That means your tone and content need to be:

• educational,
• clear,
• Relevant,
• human,
• honest.
  

Not:

• generic discounts,
• guilt (“we miss you!”),
• forced urgency,
• or “last chance” rubbish
  
  

Segment by who they were, not who you want them to be

Use the data you do have: past purchases, past enquiries, known personas. Even if it’s old, it’s better than guessing.

This is where your TFDS thinking helps: what are they thinking, feeling, saying, doing? You might not have perfect behavioural data now, but you should have enough context to avoid sending one generic “please come back” email to everyone.

B2B vs B2C: different execution, same principles

In B2B, re-engagement usually has to respect:

• long buying cycles,
  
• out-of-market audiences,
  
• and email as awareness and education.
  

So re-engagement often looks like:

• reminding them what you help with,
  
• offering insight (not offers),
  
• giving them control (preferences / opt-down / “leave quietly”).
  

In B2C/D2C, behaviour is more transactional and time-linked. Re-engagement works best when it:

• aligns with natural buying moments,
  
• offers genuine utility (not just “20% off again”),
  
• and respects fatigue.
  

Different execution. Same philosophy: you’re trying to restore relevance and permission, not force interaction.

Setting realistic goals for disengagement campaigns

Re-engagement is not about “winning everyone back”. Realistic goals include:

• identifying who still wants to hear from you
  
• reducing invisible churn
  
• protecting deliverability
  
• cleaning the list
  
• restoring clarity of permission
  

Success signals can include:

• replies
  
• clicks
  
• meaningful actions outside of email - this is the BEST one
  
• preference centre updates
  
• an yes — healthy unsubscribes.
  

Unsubscribes are not failures in this work, but spam complaints are and very harmful. 

Disengagement is a system problem, not a campaign problem

Most disengagement campaigns fail because they try to fix a system issue with a campaign.

Disengagement is usually caused by:

• acquisition mismatch,
  
• poor data strategy,
  
• lack of segmentation and exclusions,
  
• weak onboarding/orientation,
  
• unrealistic expectations.
  

Fix those, and disengagement becomes less urgent — and far less scary. Sometimes the most strategic move isn’t to re-engage. It’s to let go, protect your sender reputation, and focus where intent actually exists.

Don’t try to re-engage before you repair.

1. Audit deliverability
   

2. Fix & clean your data
   

3. Really get clear on strategy
   

4. Set realistic expectations

Then, and only then, decide whether re-engagement is worth your time.

Most of the time, your future growth isn’t hiding in the dead part of the database.

It’s being blocked upstream.