How do I create an automated re-engagement campaign for inactive users?

To effectively re-engage users who have been inactive for a specific period (e.g., 3 and 7 days), the best practice is to use a single, audience-based journey that runs on a recurring schedule. This ensures your target audience is always up-to-date and that users exit the campaign as soon as they become active again.

Using a journey triggered by an event like "Application Open" is not suitable for this purpose, as it requires users to be active to enter a flow designed for inactive users.

Here is the recommended setup:

1. Use an Audience-based entry with a recurring schedule

This method automatically finds and enrolls users who meet your inactivity criteria.

• Entry Point: Start your journey with an Audience-based entry element.
• Audience: Define your segment based on inactivity. For example, create a segment where the "Last Application Open" date is more than 3 days ago.
• Entry schedule: In the element configuration, choose Recurring entry and set the schedule to Periodically (e.g., every 1 day). The segment is recalculated before each scheduled entry, so users who became inactive since the last run are added. Users already in the journey do not enter again.

2. Structure the inactivity flow

You can target users at different stages of inactivity within the same journey. For a campaign targeting both 3-day and 7-day inactive users:

1. Immediately after the journey entry, add a Push notification element for users who have been inactive for 3 days.
2. Follow this with a Time delay element set for 4 days.
3. After the delay, add a second Push notification. This message will be sent to users who have now been inactive for a total of 7 days (3 days to enter + 4-day delay) and have not re-engaged.

3. Set a conversion goal for automatic exits

To ensure users stop receiving re-engagement messages once they open the app, set a conversion goal.

• On the journey canvas, click Settings and select Conversion goals.
• Set the conversion period and choose a key activity event, such as Application Open, as the target event.
• Check End journey after this event so that messages that have not been sent yet are cancelled for users who reach the goal.

When a user in this journey opens the app, they will be removed from the flow and will not receive any further messages from it.

4. Manage re-entry

Because the journey runs on a recurring schedule, users who exit by becoming active can re-enter later if they become inactive again. If you wish to control how often a user can enter this campaign, use the Campaign entry limit setting in Journey settings. For example, you could limit users to entering this re-engagement flow only once every 30 days.