Guide
Winning back the ones who drifted.
Nobody decides to stop ordering from you. They just stop. The window where a nudge still works is shorter than most owners think.
In short
Define lapsed against your own normal order gap rather than a fixed number of days: if a customer usually orders every two weeks, they are lapsed at about four. Send one message at that point with a reason to return and a small, specific offer, then a second a fortnight later, then stop. Win-back campaigns typically recover a single-digit percentage of a lapsed list, which is still the cheapest revenue available because the customer already knows you.
Updated 28 August 2026
Lapsed is a different number for every restaurant
A city-centre lunch spot might see the same person twice a week. A family restaurant might see them monthly. Both are healthy, and a fixed thirty-day rule misreads one of them badly. Work out the median gap between orders for your repeat customers, then treat roughly double that as lapsed. Doing it this way also catches your best customers early, which is where the money is, rather than lumping them in with people who ordered once.
Send early, and stop early
The chance of recovering somebody falls steeply with time. A message at double the normal gap lands while you are still a plausible option. The same message six months later reads as an ad from a place they used to like. Two attempts is the right number: one at the trigger, one a fortnight after. If neither works, take them out of the sequence. Continuing to message somebody who has moved away is how you end up in a spam folder.
- First message at roughly twice their normal gap
- Second a fortnight later, then stop
- Suppress anybody who orders, immediately
What to actually say
Reference the specific thing they used to order. "Your usual is still here" outperforms a generic offer by a wide margin, because it proves you know them and it removes the decision. Keep the offer small and concrete: a free side, free delivery on the next order, something with a real cost you can absorb. Avoid percentage discounts, which read as a clearance and set an expectation for next time.
Work out what a returned customer is worth
Before you decide what to spend, know the prize. Take a returning customer's average order value, multiply by how many times they typically order in a year, and multiply by your gross margin. For a lot of takeaways that lands somewhere between €150 and €400 of annual gross profit. Against that, a €4 free side to recover them is not a discount decision, it is an obvious one. It also tells you when to stop: if the offer costs more than the margin on the order it triggers, it is not a win-back, it is a subsidy.
Expect a small percentage, and be fine with it
A well-built win-back recovers a modest share of the list. That sounds unimpressive until you compare it with the cost of finding the same number of new customers through paid ads or a marketplace commission. The list is already yours, the send costs almost nothing, and the people on it have already proved they will buy. It is the highest-return marketing most restaurants are not doing.
Questions, answered straight.
Not covered here? Just ask us.
Email or text?
Text gets read faster and suits a time-bound offer. Email carries more detail and costs less at volume. If you only do one, text for the win-back and email for everything else.
How often can I message customers?
For most restaurants, no more than two or three times a month across everything. Win-backs are triggered rather than scheduled, so they should not add much on top. Frequency complaints almost always come from scheduled sends, not triggered ones.
Do I need consent?
Yes. In Ireland and the UK you need a lawful basis and a working opt-out on every message, and marketing to consumers by electronic mail has specific rules. Collect consent at checkout, record it, and honour unsubscribes immediately.
Can I win back marketplace customers?
Usually not, because you do not hold their contact details. This is the practical cost of the channel, and it is why the same customer keeps arriving through a commission every time.
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