Seasonal waves: seasonal reactivation. The dormant pool is reached by calendar, not by behaviour: one governed wave engine (an announcement, an open offer window, one second knock, then rest) replaces the blast graveyard, wave 1 is already in market carrying the estate's only true broadcast holdout, and the headline change is that waves now stand down for any customer inside a live journey episode.
The dormant pool is unreachable by behaviour.
“Reach me when there's a trip I'd actually take: commuter September, New Year, my anniversary. Between waves, leave me alone.”
Why it happens No current reason to think of Seatfrog at all, plus stale or negative priors from the lapse period. The blocker is absence from mind, not objection.
The behaviour we are driving A never-transacted prospect: a first bid. A transacted customer: an add-trip or bid on a real occasion trip. Anything else: back to rest until the next calendar wave.
| Model row | Marketable | Worked volume | Rate | Value per customer | Gross a year | Incremental a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Churned transactors, seasonal and anniversary (RECOVER) | 296,300 | 19,500 eligible a month | 1.7% vs 1% organic | £55 × 2 months × 12 a year | £437,580 | £180,180 |
| Never-transacted churned, seasonal waves (ACTIVATE) | 820,000 | 820,000 marketable stock | 0.3% vs 0.2% organic | £55 × 2 months × 1 a year | £270,600 | £90,200 |
Q4 2026 estimate: £68,151. Annual incremental £ × days live in Q4 ÷ 365 × the Phase 1 share (100%), Wave 1 is live; the waves run through Q4. Proposed launch 1 October 2026; the date is Sheran's to rule.
Ladders to Reactivation: reactivation rate 4.8% to 6%. Metric moved Transacting users %. Roadmap type New revenue. Evidence B, benchmark. Also moves New-to-first-transaction % (the never-transacted tier).
DRAFT, first pass, 4 Sep 2026. Basis: Q3_Marketing_Model (24).xlsx, Initiative Sizing tab, 8 Jul 2026 basis; figures incremental of organic return, credited over average active months; rates are benchmarks until holdouts replace them. Incremental of organic return, credited over the average active months; every rate is a benchmark until a holdout replaces it.
| The moment | Phase 1, ships now | Phase 2, waits on engineering | Who builds it |
|---|---|---|---|
| The seasonal trigger | email, braze push The Q4 calendar replaces the weekly drip: one wave per seasonal moment (half term, the Christmas countdown, New Year), two touches at most, then rest. One destination email a week to the broad base becomes a tiered wave: new customers get occasion and the… | Nothing waits | Braze · Braze buildAnalytics · new model |
on the map: 10 · The rest between waves The rest between waves | The per-customer rest becomes real: two touches spent means silence until the next wave or their anniversary, whichever the cycle’s exclusion rule picks. The August 2025 cohort’s month-10-to-11 rise (+58 retained) is the seasonal-return signal the rest protects. | Nothing waits | Braze · Braze build |
| The sunset send | email The unengaged tail stops being waved at: one honest last email (if you ever fancy First Class for less, here is where we are), then silence for good. Sender reputation is the shared resource the sunset protects. | Nothing waits | Braze · Braze buildAnalytics · decision needed |
| Waves stand down for live episodes | The headline governance change: waves stand down for any customer inside a live journey episode. The wave engine becomes a citizen of the estate instead of a broadcast over it. Engineering rows D4 | Nothing waits | Braze · Braze buildAnalytics · computed trait |
on the map: 8 · The return, and the opt-in capture The return, and the opt-in capture | braze in-app message A returning lapsed or churned customer with no channel is offered £5 off their next upgrade for turning on offers, after a settled dwell on Home. Contactable returners are not interrupted here: an abandon is Journey 3's, a live auction Journey 4's. | Nothing waits | App engineering · new eventBraze · Braze buildDesign · copy and creative |
on the map: 9 · The one-year anniversary The one-year anniversary | email, braze push A celebration of their year: the saved total and trips, no offer attached. Ruled by Sheran, 4 Sep 2026. | Nothing waits | Braze · Braze buildAnalytics · logic changeDesign · copy and creative |
| Power users and organic returners | The wave never lands on the customers most likely to come back anyway: the measured harm is the rule’s evidence. | Nothing waits | Analytics |
| An active trip or live auction | The wave defers to the moment: a seasonal offer on a travel day reads as noise at best. | Nothing waits | Braze · computed trait |
The words are on the journey map above. A D number opens that row of the Engineering brief; the engineering board uses the same numbers. Live sends not named here continue unchanged.
| The question | Owner |
|---|---|
| Rule on the drop-1 guardrail read: 0.71 percent unsubscribed in four days against a 0.28 percent benchmark. Does drop 2 send as designed, send changed, or hold? | Blocks launch Sheran, at Gate 1 |
| The York holdout read: incremental transactions against the 5.0 percent no-contact holdout, at one, two and four weeks. | Blocks launch Analytics: Ivi and Ben |
| Build the shared episode flag and the wave-freeze exclusion: the engine’s first governance build, already a launch gate on the save journey. | Blocks launch Analytics: Ivi and Ben |
| Tier-level sizing per wave freeze: Cooling and Cold marketable counts confirmed, and the frequency band into the sync. | Analytics: Ivi and Ben |
| The sunset semantics: one last email then removal from every marketing audience, shared with the win-back journey’s deep-tail rule. | Legal |
| # | The ask | Hand back | Start here |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The York holdout read: incremental transactions against the 5.0 percent no-contact holdout and the 0.84 percent organic baseline, at one, two and four weeks. | The read, and the scale-or-stop recommendation. | The measurement position on the Campaign brief. |
| 2 | Tier sizing per wave freeze: the lifecycle band, the zero-bids fence, and marketable counts per tier (Cooling 20.9k and Cold 16.9k are the working figures). | Per-tier volumes per freeze. | The wave row on the Decisioning matrix. |
| 3 | The exclusion flags into wave segments: power user, organic return, and the episode flag’s data side. | The flags readable at the freeze. | The Engineering brief’s governance band. |
| 4 | Per-route comparison figures, nightly, on the standing pattern: the real-number rule for every wave claim. | The traits live, coverage stated. | The traits band on the Engineering brief. |
| 5 | The sync extensions (phase 2): frequency band, anniversary date, business against leisure. | The extended payload. | The plumbing band on the Engineering brief. |
Opens are machine-inflated: clicks are the honest engagement read everywhere in this journey.