A sunset flow decides when you stop messaging customers who no longer engage with your store. It's the other half of customer winback: first you give inactive customers a good reason to come back, and if they don't, you stop writing to them.

The two go together. Messaging people who no longer read you costs money, wears them out and can make your messages land worse for the customers who do want them.

This article covers how to spot an inactive customer, how winback and a sunset flow differ, a three-stage re-engagement campaign, and how to stop messaging someone without losing them for good.

What is an inactive customer?

It's a customer who hasn't shown activity in your store for a while: no product views, nothing added to the cart, no purchases, no clicks on your messages and no replies. What counts is what they do, not what you send: receiving your messages doesn't make them active.

How long "a while" is depends on how often a typical customer buys from you. A store that sells coffee or pet food notices the gap within weeks; a furniture store, only after a year. Look at the usual time between one purchase and the next, and use windows longer than that cycle.

Email opens can't measure it. Apple Mail's privacy protection downloads email content in the background, even if the person never opens the message (Apple). An open may not be someone reading: go by clicks, visits, purchases and replies.

Customer winback vs. sunset flow

Winback tries to bring the customer back; a sunset flow decides what happens if they don't return. One without the other falls short: without winback you lose customers who could have come back, and without a sunset you keep writing to people who no longer read you.

Winback vs. sunset flow
	Winback (reactivation)	Sunset flow
Goal	Get the customer to buy again	Stop messaging people who don't respond
When it starts	When the customer goes a while without activity	When reactivation attempts get no response
What it sends	A product they like, something new or a perk	One last message, or none
How it ends	The customer is active again	The customer leaves your marketing sends

How reactivating an inactive customer differs from no longer messaging them: goal, when it starts, what it sends and how it ends.

Why stop messaging people who don't respond

Messaging people who never respond has a cost on every channel:

Email: Gmail asks senders to keep spam rates below 0.10% and never reach 0.30%, and suggests considering unsubscribing recipients who don't open or read your messages (Gmail sender guidelines). A series of winback emails needs an end point.
WhatsApp: Meta limits how many marketing templates each person receives based on their recent engagement, so your messages may not reach people who don't engage (per-user limits). Meta also rates the quality of each phone number and each template.
SMS and WhatsApp: every message has a cost, whether it reaches someone who buys from you or someone who stopped reading.

Stopping isn't the same as unsubscribing them. They stay subscribed; they just leave your marketing sends until they show activity again.

A three-stage re-engagement campaign

This sequence uses the timing of Hellotext's reactivation playbooks: 30 days, 90 days and a year without activity. If your buying cycle is much shorter or longer, treat them as a reference.

At 30 days: a gentle reminder. The customer still remembers you. Show them a product they like, with a button to its page, with no discount and no mention that they've been away. Soft Reactivation covers this stage.

At 90 days: a reason to come back. This is longer than a normal pause. Feature a product they like and what makes it good, and add a coupon only if your margin allows it. Dormant Revival covers this stage.

White Adidas Samba OG sneaker with black stripes — Illustrative Soft Reactivation and Dormant Revival example: the fictional store Luma shows Ana the Samba OG on WhatsApp at 30 days and, at 90 days, texts her a coupon. Names, coupon and links are for demonstration only.

At one year: a warm last try. Write warmly, without talking about goodbyes or last chances: pressure doesn't bring anyone back. Sunset Saver covers this stage. It writes once and doesn't write again unless the customer comes back and then goes another year without showing up.

Then: the sunset. If they still don't respond, take them out of your marketing campaigns. Messages about their orders don't change: the sunset only applies to marketing.

At every stage, the playbooks write in the daytime, on the channel that reaches each customer best: WhatsApp, SMS, Instagram, email or push. If the customer comes back first, they don't write, and across all your proactive playbooks a customer gets at most three messages a week. Dormant Revival and Sunset Saver also skip customers who had already reached their window when you turned them on. Soft Reactivation is available from the Grow plan, and the other two from the Pro plan.

Retain and Win-Back groups in Hellotext's Explore playbooks, with Soft Reactivation, Dormant Revival and Sunset Saver.

How to set up a sunset flow in Hellotext

In Hellotext, a sunset flow is a segment plus an exclusion:

In Audience, create a segment with activity that did not occur in the last 12 months: purchases, product views, cart activity, link clicks and messages they sent you. Put each one in its own block, joined with AND, so the segment only includes people who did none of them (segments).
When you create a campaign, keep All Audience and add that segment: it's excluded from the campaign (creating a campaign).
You don't need to remove anyone by hand. The segment updates with activity, so whoever buys again or clicks leaves it on their own and starts getting your campaigns again.

New, unsaved segment in Hellotext: Purchased a product and Viewed a product did not occur during the last 12 months, in blocks joined with AND.

Sunset Saver doesn't unsubscribe the customer or remove them from your campaigns: that decision is yours, and this segment is how you make it. Someone who unsubscribed, on the other hand, gets no marketing until they subscribe again (who can I message?).

What to measure in a re-engagement campaign

Measure reactivation by the customers who buy again, not by opens. Each playbook's report shows attributed revenue, reactivation rate, recovered revenue and time to return.

Also check unsubscribes and replies at each stage. If a stage brings more unsubscribes than purchases, ease off. And to know how much reactivation adds, compare it with a similar group that didn't get messages.

Sunset flow FAQ

How long without buying makes a customer inactive?
It depends on your buying cycle. As a reference, Hellotext's playbooks write at 30 days, 90 days and a year without the customer viewing products, adding to the cart, buying or writing to you.

Should I offer a discount?
Not always. Start with a relevant product and add a coupon at the later stages, with no deadline or rush. In Hellotext the coupon is optional and applies to the featured product.

Is a sunset the same as unsubscribing someone?
No. With a sunset you stop sending them marketing, but they stay subscribed, and if they show activity again you can write to them again. Unsubscribing is the customer's decision, and you must honor it.

Can I win back customers on WhatsApp?
Yes, if they agreed to receive your messages. Since the customer hasn't written to you in the last 24 hours, the message has to be a Meta-approved marketing template (WhatsApp for eCommerce).