Ways to PayMaking payment options visible in renewal emails
The brief
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The call centre, which frontlined all member "contact us" queries, flagged that members' cards were getting declined mid-renewal, and rather than switching payment methods, they were stalling out. The renewals team turned that into a directional brief: "Let's try an email campaign reminding people they have payment options".
The challenge
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At kickoff, I pushed the renewals team for the underlying detail, since the brief alone didn't explain why renewals were failing. It turned out to be three overlapping issues: expired cards, outdated mailing addresses members hadn't updated in their profile, and auto-debit setups that broke the moment the card on file expired — a "set and forget" habit that made the failure invisible until renewal time. The Q1 2026 campaign targeted 28,000+ members and other at-risk segments approaching lapse, with the primary member segment alone accounting for 12,500+ recipients.
Having worked on renewal comms since 2019, I knew alternative payment methods had always been included somewhere in these emails: a footer, a content box, a line in a column, but never the “main character”. People were still getting stuck at the point of failure despite that information technically being present every year. That told me this wasn't a knowledge gap; it was a visibility and attention gap.
The approach
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The initial ask at kickoff was for clear, step-by-step instructions for each payment method. I pushed back on that: overly detailed instructions would compete for attention exactly where people were already frustrated and skimming. Instead, I proposed a one-line description per method, reformatted as a scannable table with a direct link to the payments page for anyone who needed specifics. The account-linked website could handle the detail so the email didn't have to.
I also changed the framing itself. Previous years treated this section as informational, explaining what the options were. I reframed it around benefit ("four convenient ways to pay") on the logic that someone already frustrated by a failed renewal responds faster to "what's in it for me" than to an explanation of mechanics.
Impact
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The member-segment email hit a 61% open rate, 7.2% CTR, and 11.8% CTOR across 12,500+ sends, well above the standard renewal-reminder benchmark (35–40% open, ~5% CTR). Across all targeted segments (28,000+ delivered), performance held at a 56% open rate, 4.8% CTR, and 8.6% CTOR, with only one unsubscribe across the full campaign.