act · playbook library
Lifecycle plays
Signups, trials, payments and win-back.
In Playbook library
Messages to people already in your funnel: new signups, stalled trials, failed payments, cancellations. They're warm triggers, so the reply rates are higher and the stakes are personal.
lead → playbook → lifecycle plays → campaign
Triggered by behavior — A lifecycle message fires because something happened, or didn't. Never on a calendar alone.
One action per message — Each email asks for the single next step, nothing else.
First-party only — Everything here uses your own product and payment data, which is why it can be precise.
what it is, in industry terms
Lifecycle plays: the motion in one paragraph.
Messages to people already in your funnel: new signups, stalled trials, failed payments, cancellations. They're warm triggers, so the reply rates are higher and the stakes are personal.
Lifecycle marketing — also: retention, CRM marketing · Messages triggered by what a user does or doesn't do after they sign up.
Activation — aha moment, time to value · The first action that predicts paying. Most trials die before it.
Dunning — failed payment recovery · Recovering cards that fail. Often the cheapest revenue a SaaS has.
Win-back — reactivation · Bringing back people who cancelled or went quiet, with what changed since.
how it works
The loop every play in this motion runs.
Define the event
signup, first action, trial day N, invoice failed, cancelled
Set the window
how long after the event the message goes out
Check the policy
caps and never-contact apply to customers too
Send one ask
set up once, then it runs
Watch the next event
did they activate, update the card, come back?
Stop on success
the next event ends the sequence
- Define the event — signup, first action, trial day N, invoice failed, cancelled
- Set the window — how long after the event the message goes out
- Check the policy — caps and never-contact apply to customers too
- Send one ask — set up once, then it runs
- Watch the next event — did they activate, update the card, come back?
- Stop on success — the next event ends the sequence
the catalog
Every play in this motion.
Library cards summarize each step (when, channel, what).
Activation nudge
Email the new signup who hasn't done the first thing that predicts paying.
- channels
- time
- set up once
- triggers
- Set up, but no results
- steps
- 24 hours in · email · The one thing
- day 3 · email · Show it done
- metric
- activation rate
- kill
- Stops the moment they activate.
- offer
- The one action, made easier.
Stalled-trial rescue
Email the trial that never got going, naming the one step they skipped.
- channels
- time
- set up once
- triggers
- Set up, but no results
- steps
- trial day 2 · email · The skipped step
- trial day 4 · email · Offer to do it
- trial day 6 · email · Before it ends
- metric
- trial-to-paid
- kill
- Ends when the trial does.
- offer
- You set it up for them.
Bring back quiet signups
Email people who signed up and went quiet, with what's changed since.
- channels
- time
- 1 hour
- triggers
- Trying again
- steps
- day 0 · email · What changed
- day 5 · email · One question
- metric
- people who come back
- kill
- One email and one follow-up, then they leave the list.
- offer
- What's new that fixes why they left.
Failed payment
When a card fails, say so plainly and make it easy to fix.
- channels
- time
- set up once
- triggers
- none in particular: runs on a schedule
- steps
- day 0 · email · Plain note
- day 3 · email · Reminder
- day 7 · email · Last one
- metric
- revenue recovered
- kill
- After day 7, pause the account.
- offer
- None.
Win-back
Sixty days after a customer cancels, tell them the thing they left over is fixed.
- channels
- time
- 30 min
- triggers
- Unhappy with their current tool
- steps
- 60 days after · email · A reason to look again
- metric
- customers who return
- kill
- 20 sent and no replies: stop sending it.
- offer
- The fix for their stated reason.
Second product
Offer an existing customer the plan that covers their other product.
- channels
- time
- 15 min each
- triggers
- Crossed a threshold
- steps
- when you see it · email · The second product
- metric
- expansion revenue
- kill
- One email.
- offer
- The plan that covers more than one product.
Fix the revenue shape before spending on reach
Verified revenue is one-time; more traffic into a leak is not a plan.
- channels
- your pricing, your customers
- cadence
- one time
- metric
- verified MRR on the ledger
- kill
- It ends when the ledger shows verified recurring revenue above zero
Founder-run support that becomes word of mouth
Answer every customer yourself, ship what they ask for, and tell them you did.
- channels
- support inbox, direct messages, calls
- cadence
- daily
- metric
- the share of new customers referred by an existing one
- kill
- Six months on, no new customer names an existing one as the reason
failure modes
Four ways this motion goes wrong.
No defined activation — Nudges go out with no clear first action, so nobody knows what to do. · catch itpick the one action that predicts paying, and measure time to it
Sequences that never stop — A user who already activated still gets the nudge. · catch itevery step checks the next event first
Spamming customers — Lifecycle mail stacked on top of product mail and newsletters. · catch itthe contact policy counts every message to a person, not per sequence
Win-back with nothing new — Asking churned users back with the same product. · catch itthe message leads with what changed since they left; skip it if nothing did
data to capture
What every play in this motion records.
Same data rules as everywhere in this guide: log every move with the play id and version, the plays that were eligible, and the odds of the one chosen.
record
- the triggering event and its timestamp for every message
- which sequence and step sent it, with template and version
- the next event and the time to it
- unsubscribes and complaints per sequence
label
- activated, recovered the card, came back, or not, within the window
- unsubscribed or complained: a guardrail label
trains
- conversion and churn models on account-day rows
- best send delay after each trigger
test
- holdout: a share of eligible users gets no lifecycle message, so the lift is measured
- one step changed at a time (delay, subject, ask)
Library playbooks are the 22 on the Playbook Library page. A person always sends the first message to a stranger.