We've all been there. You hit that "cancel subscription" button with a sigh of relief, determined to declutter your digital life and save some cash. But then, a few weeks (or months) later, a pang of longing sets in. You miss that specific workout,, the convenience of ready-to-eat meals, or the thrill of the latest shows on that streaming service.

There's a new trend emerging: the boomerang effect of online subscriptions. People are canceling services, only to find themselves resubscribing later. According to our friends at Antenna, 10% will come back within a month and 30% will be back within six months. If you can impact these numbers by even a little, the payoff can be tremendous. But first let’s breakdown why this might be happening:

• The Grass Isn't Always Greener: Free alternatives often come with limitations. You might miss curated playlists, exclusive content, or seamless integration with other services.
• FOMO: Social media and friends' conversations can reignite the desire for a service you canceled. You might feel left out of the loop on the latest shows or trends.
• Improved Features and Promotions: Services are constantly innovating, adding features, and offering enticing discounts to win back lost subscribers.
• Subscription Fatigue vs. Service Value: Sometimes, canceling feels good in the moment, but later you realize the value a specific service offered in terms of convenience or entertainment.

What can you do help a canceled subscriber that might be going through some or all of the above?

• Map behavior into intent: Use tools like Redfast to connect their actions to intent. If they’ve watched three seasons of a show, use the fourth season in your prompts to remind them why they should come back.
• Offer flexibility: Even better use their behavior to anticipate a cancellation by offering the flexibility to pause their subscription for a few months - seasonal services take note!
• Explain your value: One like marketing catch phrases aren’t great at being specific to  returning users. Take the time to create prompts that enumerate, in a personalized manner, everything new since they were a subscriber and lay it out in simple terms.
• Make it easy to restart. Use Redfast’s 1-click Resubscribe prompt to offer a friction-free, instant restart option for returning users on your homepage and marketing pages.