Reactivating 32% of Dormant Subscribers with CLV: a case study by Math&Mind

Introduction

• Math&Mind is one of the leading websites providing educational mathematical content. The company uses email content to help subscribers boost brain activity in an entertaining manner. Email, SMS, and Push are the main communication channels for the company.

• Since Math&Mind has very specific content, it is not really easy to engage with its audience. Due to this fact, the company has quite a large database of inactive subscribers. 

• In just three weeks InboxSuite’s machine learning based CLV feature helped the company reactivate the maximum possible number of its inactive subscribers – as many as 32%!

Old Habits Die Hard: Math&Mind’s Decision to Reactivate Their Dormant Subscribers

Math&Mind is loved by their subscribers for the educational and entertaining math games in their email newsletters. The company’s target audience is those who want to spend a little time online while getting a workout for their brains. However, sometimes even those highly engaged subscribers get busy or distracted by more pressing matters in their lives. They don’t lose interest forever, but a sudden break makes them lose the habit of playing math games daily. But Math&Mind knew: old habits die hard. They were lurking somewhere, waiting to be unmasked. So, the company started looking for a way to help their dormant subscribers resume the old habit and get back to playing daily math games quickly and efficiently.

CLV to the Rescue – Here We Go Again

By that time, Math&Mind had already had a positive experience with InboxSuite’s CLV feature, so the team decided to make their success last and rely on CLV yet again. However, they changed the circumstances: the timeline was very strict this time, and the main goal was not only to replicate the success, but also to improve on the results they had previously achieved.

Reactivation Scenario: Details and Process

This case study revealed some interesting and promising results that are definitely worth sharing.
The experiment started on September 13 and continued up until October 2. At the beginning, the segment contained 7,574 subscribers. The majority of inactive profiles were then dropped out, based on the criteria suggested by the Math&Mind project manager. As a result, only 22% were chosen as recipients of the experimental email campaign, which amounted to 1,698 profiles.
The visualization shows the ratio of all the segments and subsegments:

What Results did Math&Mind Achieve?

In just three weeks since the start of the experiment, Math&Mind could boast some astonishing results.

Of those 1,698 profiles, 32% started interacting with the experimental emails they were receiving! The first reaction was linked to the activation sequence containing three emails.

Still, 68% of the initially inactive profiles remained dormant. The size of the inactive segment could be explained by the period embraced by InboxSuite prediction. It does not segment the audience further based on the “maximum number of clicks made within the first month since the beginning of the reactivation efforts.” Profiles from the “still dormant” segment should eventually display some activity over the course of the year. 

The profiles that were actually reactivated could be positioned in the following order:

• Subscribers who performed fewer actions than predicted were included in the “less active than predicted” (11%) segment. Their prediction was considered pessimistic.

• Subscribers who reached or surpassed the predicted monthly activity rate were included in “as active as predicted” (57%) segment. The CLV prediction for these profiles was considered optimistic.

• Subscribers who reached their predicted activity rate over the course of six months were included in the “more active than predicted” (32%) segment. Their prediction was considered very optimistic.

Let’s take a look at the results received in September and October:

In September, the active segment included 7,574 profiles. In October, it grew to 8,095. However, the profiles activated during the September campaign were actively involved and interacting with the project’s content in October. Above, you can see this increase visualized – the segment grew from 17% to 20%.

Here’s a chart visualizing the results of the reactivation efforts:

While 458 profiles seem like a rather small amount, compared to the 111,038 emails on the whole list, we should not forget that these were dormant subscribers. They were not expecting to receive any emails from Math&Mind. The fact that they re-engaged with the game, instead of, for example, complaining about unwanted emails, is a true success—and evidence of effectiveness of the CLV feature.

Furthermore, 56 profiles ended up in the segment that was not used at the moment but still had revenue potential because they were highly likely to perform target actions. They were all reactivated and will be included in future Math&Mind campaigns.

When it comes to reactivations, every “awakened” customer counts. If you want to gently re-engage as many of your dormant subscribers as possible—and not to damage your reputation as a sender by being a nuisance to anyone who doesn’t want to be re-engaged—you can try the CLV feature. We’d be happy to walk you throught the process and answer any questions you might have. Book a demo today!