Has anyone had success creating a smart campaign or automation to identify and reengage contacts who have stopped engaging with your emails?

[MarthaColeman]

I am trying to identify the best process for how I can automate reengagement of customers who haven't opened or clicked an email within a certain time frame so as soon as they become "inactive" they are added to the reengagement program to receive content to get them to engage again.

While it is easy to identify these contacts using smart lists, what is making this challenging is that I only want to target inactive contacts who are considered inactive after I launch my campaign. So if I were to launch the campaign the first of the month, I want to capture contacts who have gone inactive after that date and not retroactively. This is because I want to capture contacts who have only just fallen off our active contacts list.

***I'm considering contacts inactive if they have not opened or clicked any email within the last 180 days inactive contacts.***

Has anyone built something similar or have any ideas of how I can achieve this? Thank you!

[PeeyushSachdeva · Accepted solution]

Hi @MarthaColeman,

One effective approach is to keep it simple with recurring batch campaigns that maintain a dynamic static list of inactive contacts.

Note: you cannot go back more than 90 days for Was Sent Email or Was Delivered Email unless you have added Extended Data Retention to your subscription (a considerable extra cost).

Therefore you can’t check if someone both received emails and did not engage beyond 90 days ago. The following examples assume you do not have Extended Data Retention and constrain the window to 90 days accordingly.

1. Daily Batch Campaign – Identify Inactive Contacts

Smart List:

• Was Delivered Email in past 90 days

• Not Opened Email in past 90 days

• Not Clicked Link in Email in past 90 days

• (Optional) Add filters to exclude unsubscribed, bounced, etc.

Flow:

• Add to List → "Reengagement Program – Inactive Contacts"

Schedule this campaign to run daily so only those who just became inactive will be added going forward.

 

2. Daily Batch Campaign – Remove Engaged Contacts

Smart List:

• Member of List → "Reengagement Program – Inactive Contacts"

• Opened Email in past 90 days OR Clicked Link in Email in past 90 days

Flow:

• Remove from List → "Reengagement Program – Inactive Contacts"

This ensures your list stays current and engaged users are pulled out of the re-engagement flow automatically.

 

Note: Marketo Data Retention Policy

Marketo retains Email Sent and Email Delivered activity for only 90 days by default.
So while Marketo lets you set a filter for "Sent in past 180 days", results will only include data from the last 90 days unless you have Extended Data Retention enabled.

To fully support a 180-day inactivity logic, you might consider:

• Enabling Extended Data Retention (paid add-on)

• Using a custom field or Smart Campaign to track last engagement date over time

Thanks.