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Playbooks & Automation

Sunset Saver playbook

Use this guide when customers meet the churn-risk stage criteria and you have a relevant, respectful reason to try to win them back.

Sunset Saver is a reactivation playbook for the churn-risk stage. It evaluates a stage signal, history, products, and eligibility. Its name does not guarantee a single final send or automatic global exclusion from future communications.

It is not a journey route, a one-time campaign, or a manual list clean-up. It sits at the end of the reactivation family: after Soft Reactivation, which addresses the initial inactivity stage, and Dormant Revival, which addresses the prolonged-inactivity stage.

Availability can vary by account and rollout status. If the card appears as on request or disabled, confirm availability with your Hellotext team before planning a launch.

What Sunset Saver does

Sunset Saver can evaluate a recovery opportunity in the churn-risk stage, subject to its eligibility and frequency limits.

It can:

  • Evaluate customers with a valid churn-risk signal following the prolonged-inactivity stage.
  • Use customer history, product context, catalog data, channel eligibility, and offer rules before a message is sent.
  • Generate a personalized recovery message with a clear reason to come back, such as a relevant product, collection, update, or approved offer.
  • Let your team give Playground feedback on examples so Hellotext learns which tone and style fit the business.
  • Follow existing eCommerce offer rules, use AI-driven discounts up to an approved maximum percentage, or send without discounts.
  • Evaluate available channel routes according to access, permission, readiness, and sending rules; it does not guarantee the cheapest channel or a particular ROI.
  • Apply its own and shared frequency limits to participating populations. This does not unsubscribe the profile or exclude it from campaigns, routes, and all future communications.
  • Skip customers when there is no consent, the profile cannot be reached, another playbook is a better fit, or there is not enough relevant reason to reach out.

The exact configuration can vary by account, connected store, catalog quality, channel, templates, and rollout status.

When to use it

Use Sunset Saver when the customer meets the churn-risk stage criteria and the recovery proposal is relevant.

It is a good fit when:

  • The customer has a valid churn-risk signal; counting months since any message is insufficient.
  • The history distinguishes the inactivity stage and detects resumed qualifying activity.
  • The business has a relevant, respectful reason to try to win the customer back.
  • You review frequency and separately define the exclusions or opt-outs your business needs.
  • There is enough history, product, offer, or context for the message to avoid feeling generic.

Do not use Sunset Saver for customers who are just starting to cool down. For a recent slowdown, use Soft Reactivation. For customers who meet the prolonged-inactivity stage criteria, use Dormant Revival.

For product-specific moments, use the more specific playbook: Replenishment Driver for consumable reorder timing, Cross-Sell Driver for related products after purchase, and AI Cart Saver for abandoned cart or checkout moments.

What it needs before launch

Before enabling Sunset Saver, confirm the setup it depends on.

Check that:

  • Your store or data source sends purchase history and customer activity to Hellotext.
  • Customer profiles include reliable identifiers, channel consent, and historical behavior.
  • Purchase, browse, click, reply, unsubscribe, opt-out, and recent reactivation signals are available.
  • Hellotext retains the signals and qualifying activity distinguishing initial, prolonged, and churn-risk stages. Do not use universal 30-day, 3-month, or 12-month deadlines from any interaction.
  • Product names, images, prices, stock, and links are current if the message can include recommendations.
  • The audience you want to reach is identifiable and eligible for the selected channel.
  • If discounts are allowed, eCommerce offer rules and any maximum AI discount percentage are approved before launch.
  • Product cards, product links, or rich messages work in the channels you plan to use.

For setup validation, use Verify your data and signals after setup. For custom tracking, use Tracking events.

After launch, use the automatically generated reports to review sends, clicks, purchases, attributed revenue, opt-outs, replies, skipped opportunities, and skip or block reasons, distinguishing frequency limits from opt-outs and explicit exclusions.

What you can configure

Open Playbooks, click Explore playbooks, and choose Sunset Saver.

The available cards can vary, but the proposed setup focuses on:

  • Outgoing channels: where Hellotext can send or continue the recovery message.
  • Audience: which audience or segment can receive the playbook.
  • Products: which products, collections, categories, or groups can be used in the message.
  • Discount strategy: whether the playbook follows existing eCommerce offer rules, can use AI-driven discounts up to a maximum percentage, or sends without discounts.
  • Tone or Playground feedback: how generated examples should learn what fits your business.

Keep automatic channel selection unless you have a clear reason to limit the playbook. Automatic selection depends on eligible routes, permission, destination, and channel readiness. It does not guarantee the lowest cost or a healthy ROI.

The playbook does not confirm automatic global suppression after the attempt. New qualifying activity can invalidate the current opportunity; frequency limits, eligibility of future signals, and explicit exclusions have different scopes. A channel opt-out or campaign exclusion must be managed and verified separately.

If you need a custom conversational agent with its own instructions, knowledge, and handoff rules, use Custom Agent. If you need a fully controlled sequence of steps, use a custom journey.

How Hellotext chooses the moment

Sunset Saver should start from a real long-inactivity signal, not from a broad static blast.

Hellotext can use signals like:

  • A valid churn-risk signal based on qualifying activity history and the preceding prolonged-inactivity transition.
  • Whether qualifying activity occurred after the stage signal; this can invalidate the opportunity.
  • Prior purchase history, product categories, customer value, and historical engagement.
  • Products previously bought, browsed, clicked, or recommended.
  • Whether another playbook owns the current moment, such as cart recovery, replenishment, cross-sell, support, Soft Reactivation, or Dormant Revival.
  • Product availability, price, stock, links, and discount rules.
  • Channel eligibility, consent, and recent communication history.

Before sending, Hellotext can also consider:

  • Whether the inactivity signal is tied to a reachable customer profile.
  • Whether the message has a relevant product, offer, or reason to reach out.
  • Whether the customer recently bought, replied, unsubscribed, or opted out.
  • Whether the profile can receive a message in an eligible channel.
  • Whether the opportunity passes the applicable admission, frequency, and send-time checks.
  • Whether another active playbook is a better fit.
  • Whether channel rules, templates, quiet hours, or eligibility allow the send.

For the broader decision model, see How Hellotext decides whether a playbook can send.

How it works with nearby playbooks

Use the customer moment to decide the owner.

Customer moment Better fit
Customer meets the initial-inactivity stage criteria Soft Reactivation
Customer meets the prolonged-inactivity stage criteria Dormant Revival
Customer meets the churn-risk stage criteria Sunset Saver
Customer may need to reorder a consumable product Replenishment Driver
Customer recently bought and may want a related product Cross-Sell Driver
Customer abandoned a cart or checkout AI Cart Saver or Cart Saver route
You want to send a planned one-time message to a selected audience Campaigns

Sunset Saver can coexist with other playbooks when each one owns a different moment. It should not compete with a more specific signal, and it should stop trying to win back a customer who already returned, replied, opted out, or entered another active flow.

Review messages in the Playground

Sunset Saver can generate personalized examples from customer history, product context, audience, channel, tone, and offer rules. You usually do not need to write every message by hand.

Use the Playground to review examples before launch. Mark the examples you like and the examples you do not like, so Hellotext can learn the style, wording, product choices, and level of urgency that fit your business.

When reviewing examples, look for:

  • Whether the message communicates a clear and respectful reason to come back.
  • Whether the product, collection, or offer is relevant to the customer’s history.
  • Whether the tone is respectful and avoids pressure, invented urgency, or repetition.
  • Whether discounts follow the approved strategy.
  • Whether the copy avoids assumptions about why the customer left.
  • Whether replies can continue naturally in the channel or reach the Inbox when needed.

The more realistic the examples are, the better the system can adapt recovery examples to your store.

How to test it

Test with a small, realistic path before enabling it broadly.

Use test customer profiles that have channel consent, then:

  • Identify a profile with history and a valid churn-risk stage signal.
  • Confirm the profile has historical activity visible in Hellotext.
  • Confirm the audience includes the test profile.
  • Confirm the products or collections used by the playbook have correct images, prices, stock, variants, and links.
  • Generate or simulate message examples in the Playground.
  • Mark examples you like and examples you do not like.
  • Test a customer who recently reactivated and should not receive Sunset Saver.
  • Review a profile meeting the initial-inactivity criteria, corresponding to Soft Reactivation.
  • Review a profile meeting the prolonged-inactivity criteria, corresponding to Dormant Revival.
  • Test a customer who is not eligible for the channel.
  • Review product links, discounts, and attribution.
  • Verify the scope of frequency limits and any explicit exclusion separately. An unanswered attempt does not demonstrate global future suppression.

If tracking is custom, confirm that purchase events, product-interest events, click events, reply events, timestamps, and customer identifiers match what Hellotext expects.

Why it may not send

Sunset Saver being enabled does not mean every old customer receives a message.

The playbook may wait, skip, stop, or let another playbook act when:

  • Customer activity is missing, delayed, or not tied to a usable customer profile.
  • The customer still belongs in Soft Reactivation or Dormant Revival.
  • The customer recently bought, clicked, replied, or entered another active playbook.
  • The signal belongs to another stage, the opportunity expired, or applicable frequency limits prevent another send.
  • No relevant product, collection, offer, or message angle can be found.
  • Products are unavailable, out of stock, missing prices, missing images, or missing usable links.
  • The profile cannot be reached in an eligible channel.
  • The customer unsubscribed, opted out, or is otherwise not eligible.
  • The opportunity does not pass applicable admission or send-time checks.
  • Channel rules, templates, quiet hours, or eligibility prevent the send.
  • The channel, sender, template, link, or message format is not ready.
  • Another active playbook is a better fit.

For a step-by-step diagnosis, use Troubleshoot a playbook that did not trigger or send.

What to review after launch

During the first days, review:

  • Which customers created eligible Sunset Saver moments.
  • Which messages were sent, skipped, delayed, clicked, replied to, or purchased from.
  • Which opportunities were blocked and why; distinguish frequency, resumed activity, opt-out, and explicit exclusion.
  • Whether product choices felt relevant to the customer’s history.
  • Whether links, images, prices, variants, and stock were correct.
  • Purchases, attributed revenue, opt-outs, replies, and failed messages.
  • Whether discounts improved recovery or only reduced margin.
  • Whether Sunset Saver overlaps with Soft Reactivation, Dormant Revival, Replenishment Driver, Cross-Sell Driver, AI Cart Saver, support playbooks, or campaigns.

Tune one thing at a time: audience, product scope, product logic, tone, Playground feedback, discount strategy, channel, or handoff path.

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