Not all inactive contacts in a CRM database are alike. Some no longer open anything the club sends. Others still read the emails but have stopped coming to the stadium, even though they have bought a ticket before.
These former buyers are a segment in their own right. They already know the matchday experience, how to get into the ground and how to buy. Drifting away doesn't mean they've lost interest in the club: a busy diary, a season they followed less closely or simply not being asked is often enough to explain why they've stayed away.
Automating the reactivation of lapsed ticket buyers therefore has three goals: find these former buyers in the database, send them a message written for them, and give them a good reason to come back.
Stade Brestois 29 had already been structuring its fan data since its Champions League run, and the aim here was simple: turn a dormant audience into one that can be reactivated.
Connecting ticketing to a CRM to centralise fan data
You can't win back a former buyer if you don't know that they bought, or when. Before any automation, the first step is to bring ticketing history into a tool that can put it to use.
Thanks to the native integration between Secutix and Arenametrix, Stade Brestois 29's sales data flows automatically into the CRM and enriches every fan's profile: tickets bought, matches attended, purchase dates, ticket status and current season tickets.
Centralising the data changes what it can do. Purchase history is no longer locked away in a sales tool: it becomes a live segmentation criterion, updated continuously and synced directly with the club's email tools.
This continuity, from ticketing all the way to the inbox, is what makes automated follow-up possible. A fan who hasn't bought in six months can be identified without manual exports or Excel files, and without the marketing team lifting a finger.
CRM segmentation: targeting inactive fans who have already bought
The success of a lapsed-buyer automation depends first and foremost on targeting. The idea isn't to email the whole database, but to single out the contacts who have already shown real interest in the club by making a purchase.
At Stade Brestois 29, the target list includes fans who meet four criteria:
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They have bought at least one ticket,
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They haven't bought anything for at least 180 days,
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Their email address is on file,
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They don't hold a 2025/26 season ticket, so that fans who are already committed don't receive a comeback offer.
The list is dynamic. Every day, new contacts join it as soon as they pass the 180-day mark, while those who buy a ticket or take out a season ticket drop off automatically. The campaign stays relevant all season long, with no extra set-up.
The reactivation email: giving fans a reason to come back
A win-back email shouldn't look like a standard newsletter. It's aimed at people who have got out of the habit of coming, so the message needs to be direct, personal and entirely focused on getting them back to the stadium.
Stade Brestois 29's email draws on three complementary levers:
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Emotion, with a message telling fans the club has missed them,
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Experience, conjuring up the stadium atmosphere and what a matchday evening feels like,
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Incentive, with a dedicated promo code.
The call-to-action button, "Je prends ma place" ("Get my seat"), is simple and tied directly to the goal: driving a ticket purchase. The promo code does two jobs: it removes a barrier at the moment of decision, and it makes it possible to track exactly which purchases the campaign generated.
What makes a reactivation email work:
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A warm, personal tone,
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A simple offer and a promo code that's easy to remember,
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A clear, prominent call-to-action button,
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A reminder of the stadium experience to rekindle the urge to come back.
Re-engaging inactive fans: measuring email engagement
Before looking at sales, you first need to check that the automation is actually reaching former buyers and catching their attention.
Over five months, the campaign reached 35,320 former buyers with a message dedicated to coming back to the stadium. More than a quarter of them opened the email, and 857 clicked through to the ticket office.
For an audience that hadn't been in touch for at least six months, a 26% open rate shows that the bond with the club is very much alive. Almost one in ten openers then clicked through to the ticket office, a sign that the offer and the call to action struck a chord.
These openers and clickers then form a relevant group for tracking the campaign's business impact.
CRM automation: measuring the ticketing revenue generated
The real test of a lapsed-buyer automation is whether it links CRM targeting to a tangible business result.
Because Secutix data flows into Arenametrix, the club can track purchases by the contacts it has reached. Over five months, with no additional campaigns for the marketing team to prepare, fans who hadn't been to the stadium for at least six months bought 1,073 tickets for Ligue 1 matches, generating €28,605 in revenue at an average price of €26.66 per ticket.
And the value goes beyond that figure. By coming back to the stadium, these fans re-enter the club's fan lifecycle: their profile is enriched, they become eligible for regular campaigns again and, in time, can move along a path towards a season ticket.
Reactivating inactive fans: a revenue stream within easy reach
Every club has thousands of former buyers in its database who no longer come to the stadium. Stade Brestois 29 shows that with centralised ticketing data, precise targeting and a message built around coming back, this dormant audience can once again become a steady source of sales.
The key steps in SB29's lapsed ticket buyer automation:
→ Connect ticketing to the CRM: Secutix sales flow automatically into Arenametrix and enrich every fan's profile.
→ Target former buyers: only contacts who have bought a ticket, haven't bought again in 180 days and don't hold a season ticket receive the email.
→ Give them a reason to come back: a warm message, a reminder of the atmosphere at the Stade Francis-Le Blé and a simple promo code steer fans towards a purchase.
→ Measure all the way to revenue: email engagement and ticket sales are analysed for the same audience to prove return on investment.
CRM infrastructure that builds fan loyalty
By automating the reactivation of its lapsed ticket buyers, Stade Brestois 29 has moved from one-off campaigns to an always-on programme that runs throughout the season with no extra operational workload.
Arenametrix gives the club the infrastructure it needs: integration with ticketing systems such as Secutix, behavioural segmentation, campaign automation and marketing ROI measurement. The club defines its audiences, messages and offers; the platform activates them at the right time.