The Re-Engagement Offer Calculator: How Sticky Digital Makes Win-Back Discounts Profitable—Not Painful

Re-engagement offers are one of the most misunderstood—and most misused—retention levers in ecommerce. Many brands either:

  • Hesitate to offer discounts at all (“We don’t want to train customers to wait for deals.”)
  • Give away too much margin (“We offered 25% off and still barely moved the needle.”)
  • Or send generic win-back flows that feel disconnected from customer behavior (“We miss you!” isn’t a strategy.)

But done correctly, re-engagement offers are data-driven investments—not random acts of desperation. They can revive dormant customers, accelerate replenishment cycles, and nudge hesitant shoppers back into the routine of buying… without eroding profitability.

To make that possible, we created the Sticky Digital Re-Engagement Offer Calculator —a consulting-grade tool that helps Shopify brands determine the exact discount or credit required to win back customers profitably.

Below, we break down why the tool exists, what’s inside, and how your retention team can use it to turn one-off discounts into a disciplined, ROI-positive win-back system.

Why Win-Back Offers Fail (And Why Brands Get Nervous)

Most win-back offers fail for predictable reasons:

  • No understanding of margin impact
  • No forecast of take rate (redeem %)
  • No estimate of cannibalization (how many “would buy anyway” customers are getting the discount)
  • No testing framework
  • No guardrails on acceptable margin floors or ROI

The result? Brands send discounts with blindfolds on. Sometimes it works, sometimes it quietly bleeds money, and sometimes it tanks brand perception.

This tool fixes that—by turning win-back strategy into math, not guesswork.

What’s Inside the Re-Engagement Offer Calculator

The calculator is designed in Sticky Digital’s signature consulting style—structured, scenario-based, and grounded in unit economics. It includes three interconnected tabs that give marketers clarity and confidence when deciding whether to run a win-back promotion.

1. Overview Tab

The first tab is your launchpad. It includes:

  • A clear purpose statement: “Determine the optimal offer structure to profitably win back lapsed customers.”
  • Step-by-step instructions on how to use each tab
  • A calm, brand-aligned layout (Bitter + Montserrat fonts, neutral tones, Sticky’s consulting aesthetic)

If your team has ever been intimidated by spreadsheets, this tab is your safety net. It tells you exactly what to enter—and what the model will calculate automatically.

2. Assumptions Tab (Your Unit Economics Foundation)

The real magic happens here. You input your global business guardrails:

  • AOV
  • Gross margin %
  • Baseline repeat purchase rate
  • Email/SMS cost per send
  • Re-engagement cohort size
  • Minimum acceptable gross margin %

The tab automatically calculates your baseline gross profit per order—the anchor metric that the rest of the model uses to judge whether an offer is actually beneficial.

This prevents one of the biggest mistakes brands make:
judging offers on revenue, not profit.

3. Offer Scenarios Tab (Where Your Strategy Comes to Life)

This tab shows a side-by-side comparison of different incentives:

  • Percentage discounts
  • Fixed-dollar discounts
  • Store credit or free-item incentives

Each scenario calculates:

  • Expected take rate (redeem %)
  • Would-buy-anyway share (cannibalization)
  • Expected AOV with offer
  • Gross margin % after discount
  • Total expected orders
  • Incremental orders vs. baseline
  • Total gross profit with offer
  • Baseline gross profit (no offer)
  • Net incremental profit
  • ROI (net profit ÷ send cost)

And because profit isn’t the only risk, each scenario also includes:

  • Margin guardrail flags (“Margin OK?”)
  • ROI flags (“Positive or negative?”)

The goal is simple: evaluate the offer like a CFO and message it like a marketer.

Why This Tool Matters for Modern Retention

Win-back marketing isn’t about “sending a discount.” It’s about recapturing high-value customers with the right incentive at the right time without hurting margins.

This tool unlocks that by helping teams:

  • Forecast net profit—not just revenue
  • Understand cannibalization risk before launching a discount
  • Right-size offers by product type, category, and lifecycle stage
  • Use credit instead of discounts where appropriate
  • Decide whether an offer is worth running at all

If you’ve ever wondered:
“Should we send 10%, 15%, or $10 off?” This model gives you the answer in about 90 seconds.

How Sticky Digital Uses This Tool With Clients

Our retention team uses this calculator during:

  • Win-back journey blueprinting
  • Lifecycle audits
  • BFCM discount planning
  • Post-purchase optimization
  • Subscription cancel/skip flows
  • Loyalty perk mapping

The calculator is especially powerful when combined with lifecycle strategy, as outlined in:
The Full-Stack Retention Ecosystem Explained .

Using this tool, we help brands:

  • Identify which segments are worth re-engaging
  • Determine whether an incentive is financially viable
  • Build SMS and email sequences that ladder value appropriately
  • Avoid “blanket discounting syndrome” that erodes brand equity

Example: 15% Off vs. $10 Off vs. $15 Credit

Imagine a brand with:

  • $65 AOV
  • 62% gross margin
  • 2,000 customers in a 90-day lapsed segment
  • 15% would-buy-anyway risk

Using the calculator, the team discovers:

  • 15% off → highest take rate, but lowest margin
  • $10 off → balanced take rate + best net profit
  • $15 credit → moderate take rate + highest LTV lift

None of this is guesswork; it’s engineered.

Download the Calculator

You can download the full tool here:
Sticky Digital Re-Engagement Offer Calculator (Excel)

It’s free, built for operators, and structured like a consulting deliverable—with Sticky Digital’s calm, clear, empathetic tone woven into every cell.

Want Us to Build Your Win-Back System?

If you want help using the calculator—or want a retention team that builds profitable win-back systems rather than discount-driven panic sends—we’d love to support you.

A great re-engagement strategy isn’t about giving away margin. It’s about engineering incentives that rebuild momentum—the profitable way.

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