Clean Your SMS List with a Win-Back Campaign

Maintaining the hygiene of your SMS contact list is essential to understanding how your SMS program is performing and gives your brand the best chance for optimal subscriber engagement. It's important to maintain list hygiene because:

  • It's cost-effective. Target the engaged pocket of your subscriber base more often so you don't spend usage on subscribers who are unengaged with your brand. 
  • You will preserve your brand reputation. Subscribers may become less engaged over time. If you continue to text them too frequently, it can leave a bad impression. Give your subscribers the option to opt-out of your SMS program in order to preserve your brand reputation.
  • A clean list will result in clean analytics. Having an extensive subscriber list does not always result in the highest conversions. Running an SMS program this way can feel like throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks. With a clean list, you can get an accurate read on how your messages are performing. 

In this guide, we'll offer recommendations for how to scrub your current list and best practices for maintaining a clean list moving forward.

Clean Your List with a Win-Back Campaign


In this section, we'll walk you through how to create a segment of unengaged subscribers, then how to build a win-back campaign.

You may consider sending a win-back campaign to an unengaged segment in order to give subscribers the opportunity to opt out of receiving future SMS messages or to re-engage with your brand by indicating what kind of SMS messages they want to receive. 

Create an Unengaged Segment Create a Win-Back Campaign Flow

Unengaged segment.png

  1. From the Postscript Dashboard, select Segments.
  2. Select Create Segment in the upper right corner.
  3. Name your segment. Be sure to use a name that will allow you to easily identify this segment in the future.
  4. Add each criterion to the segment as shown above and explained below:
    • Number of Orders equals 0 OR Last Order Date before last 365 days
      • What does it mean? This will add subscribers to this segment who have either never ordered or haven't ordered within the last year. 
      • Why include it in this segment? We'll use this criterion to target subscribers who have never ordered or have not ordered recently from your brand.
    • Subscriber Has Clicked not equal to TRUE
      • What does it mean? This will also include subscribers who have never clicked on any link in your messages.
      • Why include it in this segment? With upwards of a 98% open rate for SMS, it's important to consider who is actually interacting with your messages or clicking the links included.
    • Subscriber Created Date before last 180 days
      • What does it mean? This will add also subscribers who opted into your SMS program longer than 6 months ago.
      • Why include it in this segment? If a subscriber is relatively new to your SMS program, we want to give them time to begin engaging with your brand. 
    • Number of Replies equals 0
      • What does it mean? This will also add subscribers who have never replied to your brand via SMS.
      • Why include it in this segment? If a subscriber has replied to your brand and engaged in two-way conversational commerce, we won't include them in an unengaged subscribers segment.
  5. Save your segment by selecting the Save Segment button in the bottom right corner of the editor.

Before You Go


  • Leverage Confirmed Opt-inPostscript takes a product-led approach to compliance meaning features like confirmed opt-in (sometimes called double opt-in) are built into our app. Confirmed opt-in requires a subscriber to confirm their intent to subscribe to your shop. By utilizing confirmed opt-in, you can be sure that your list is devoid of inactive or inaccurate numbers. 
  • Add "Reply STOP to unsubscribe" to your campaign messages at least once every month to give unengaged subscribers the opportunity to opt-out of your SMS program. 
  • Send hyper-targeted messages more often. Send personalized messages to various pockets of your most engaged subscriber base rather than sending blanketed or mass campaigns.
  • Did you know Postscript has Win-Back templates you can utilize? Head to create a new campaign or automation, select Use a template, then choose the Win-Back category to browse our library of templated automations and campaigns.

Additional Resources


  • Want to learn more about how Postscript helps you stay compliant when it comes to opt-outs? Check out this overview.
  • Interested in how Postscript approaches compliance? We've got you covered with our SMS Marketing Compliance Overview
  • Did you know you confirmed opt-in helps to validate phone numbers collected at checkout, via forms, or in popups? Learn how here.

Get Support


Have questions? Please feel free to reach out to our wonderful Support team at support@postscript.io or via live chat. You can also submit a support request here!

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