Forwarding AddressLearn

The learning center

Customer win-back, explained like you’d want it explained.

Plain English, honest math, no jargon left undefined. How customers drift, when quiet becomes lapsed, what brings them home — and the thinking behind it, whether or not you ever install anything.

Customer win-back, explained

How customers drift away quietly, when "quiet" becomes "lapsed", and what brings them home.

Win-back 101Most lost customers never decided to leave — they drifted. What win-back marketing is, why it beats replacing customers with ads, and how a program actually runs.When is “lapsed”?Ninety days of silence means nothing without context: it is one missed order for some customers and three for others. Defining lapse by each customer’s own rhythm — with a calculator.⚙ Lapse threshold calculatorWin-back offersThe "come back" discount is powerful and dangerous: overused, it teaches your best customers that leaving pays. Offer ladders, escalation, and when no offer wins.GlossaryLapse, cadence, holdout, open pool, LTV threshold, usage record — every term you will meet in win-back marketing and direct mail, defined without jargon.

Direct mail for win-back

Real postcards for the customers email lost: costs, design specs, and why paper reaches them.

Win-back postcardsA lapsed customer has usually lapsed from your emails first. What a printed win-back card costs, why the mailbox reaches them, and which customers justify a stamp.Postcard design specsWhat 300 DPI, bleed, and the address safe zone mean for a 4×6 win-back card — and the exact pixel sizes that print sharp. A checklist for print-ready artwork.

Measurement you can trust

Win-back ROI, holdout-proven lift, and the thresholds that keep every card profitable.

Win-back ROIA $1.50 card to a $400-lifetime customer is easy math; to a one-time $19 buyer it never was. LTV thresholds, expected next-order value, and the ROI calculator.⚙ ROI calculatorHoldouts & attributionSome lapsed customers return on their own — and most tools claim them anyway. How a measurement holdout separates caused returns from coincidence.

Pricing & compliance

How app billing, spend caps, and consent rules work — no surprises.

App billing & spend capsSubscriptions, usage records, capped amounts: how win-back charges appear on your Shopify invoice, why a spend cap makes surprise bills impossible — plus a plan calculator.⚙ Plan cost calculatorConsent: email vs. mailA customer who stopped opening your emails may have unsubscribed from them too. What win-back email requires, why postal mail plays by different rules, and where the lines are.

Try the numbers yourself

The two calculations behind every win-back decision — live, with your inputs.

Lapse threshold calculator

Call them lapsed afterday 95

That gives a customer who usually orders every 38 days a 57-day grace period before win-back begins — late enough that most would-be organic orders have happened, early enough that your store is still remembered. A fixed “90 days since last order” rule gets this wrong in both directions; measuring against each customer’s own rhythm is how Forwarding Address decides.

The full walkthrough: when is a customer actually lapsed?

Plan cost calculator

Starter$0/mo · $1.50/card after$90cheapest
Win-Back$49/mo · 15 cards included · $1.50/card after$116.50
Win-Back Pro$99/mo · 40 cards included · $1.50/card after$129

Total monthly cost: subscription plus cards beyond the included volume, printing and postage included. Every plan caps against a spend limit you set yourself.

What these numbers mean: how app billing works.