Summary
Sending emails to old, inactive profiles negatively impacts email deliverability by increasing bounce rates, spam complaints, and the risk of hitting spam traps, signaling to ISPs that your list is unengaged. Preventative measures include regular list hygiene (removing inactive/invalid addresses), segmentation to target or remove inactives, re-engagement campaigns, email verification services, gradually warming up IPs/domains, double opt-in, and monitoring sender reputation with tools like Google Postmaster Tools. In the event of a mistake, suppress complaints and analyze the incident to improve processes. Maintain a good sender reputation through email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), avoiding spam trigger words, and providing clear unsubscribe options.
Key findings
- Deliverability Harm: Sending to old profiles negatively affects deliverability and sender reputation.
- ISP Signals: Low engagement signals to ISPs that your emails are not valuable.
- List Hygiene Crucial: Regular list cleaning is essential for maintaining deliverability and sender reputation.
- Segmentation Effectiveness: Segmentation helps target or remove inactive subscribers.
- Re-engagement Potential: Re-engagement campaigns can revive some inactive subscribers.
- Proactive Email Verification: Email verification services identify and remove invalid/risky addresses.
- Authentication Importance: Email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) builds sender reputation.
- Spam Trap Dangers: Sending to spam traps severely damages deliverability.
- Warmup benefit: Warming up new IP/domain helps improve sender reputation
Key considerations
- Re-engage or Remove?: Decide whether to re-engage or remove inactive subscribers based on potential value.
- Incident Analysis: Analyze sending incidents to improve processes and prevent future errors.
- Monitoring Essential: Monitor sender reputation and adjust strategies as needed.
- Service provider contact: Contact your ESP if mistakes do happen
- IP/Domain Warm-up plan: If introducing a new IP/domain, ensure a gradual warmup is planned
What email marketers say
13 marketer opinions
Sending emails to old, inactive profiles negatively impacts email deliverability by increasing bounce rates, spam complaints, and the risk of hitting spam traps. This signals to ISPs that your list is unengaged, leading to lower engagement rates and a higher likelihood of being marked as spam. Preventative measures include regularly cleaning your email list, using segmentation to identify and target inactive subscribers, implementing re-engagement campaigns, employing email verification services, warming up new IPs or domains gradually, and utilizing double opt-in to ensure valid subscribers. Additionally, notifying your service provider of incidents and monitoring sender reputation are crucial.
Key opinions
- Deliverability Impact: Sending to inactive profiles harms deliverability due to increased bounce rates, spam complaints, and risk of spam traps.
- ISP Signaling: Low engagement signals to ISPs that your emails are not valuable, leading to filtering or blacklisting.
- List Cleaning: Regularly cleaning your email list is crucial for maintaining a healthy sender reputation.
- Segmentation: Segmentation helps identify and target inactive subscribers for re-engagement or removal.
- Re-engagement Campaigns: Re-engagement campaigns can revive inactive subscribers with compelling offers or content.
- Email Verification: Email verification services identify and remove invalid, risky, or inactive email addresses.
- IP/Domain Warm-up: Gradually warming up new IPs or domains builds a positive sending reputation with ISPs.
- Double Opt-in: Double opt-in ensures subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails, minimizing spam complaints.
Key considerations
- Action on Inactives: Decide whether to re-engage or remove inactive subscribers based on their potential value and the cost of maintaining them.
- Service Provider Notification: Inform your email service provider about significant sending incidents to prepare for potential support or backlash.
- Monitoring Sender Reputation: Regularly monitor your sender reputation to identify and address deliverability issues proactively.
- Segmentation Strategy: Develop a clear segmentation strategy to identify different engagement levels and tailor your messaging accordingly.
- Engagement metrics: Implement appropriate tracking and analytics to identify inactive profiles.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests notifying your service provider about the incident so they can prepare to support you or address any delayed backlash.
20 Mar 2022 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Email marketer from HubSpot emphasizes the negative impact of inactive contacts on email deliverability. They note that sending to unengaged contacts leads to lower engagement rates, increasing the likelihood of emails being marked as spam. It recommends re-engaging or removing unengaged contacts.
5 Feb 2023 - HubSpot
What the experts say
5 expert opinions
Sending emails to old, inactive profiles can negatively impact deliverability. While a one-time mistake might be recoverable if your overall reputation is good, it's important to suppress complaints and bounced addresses, and potentially restrict sending to engaged addresses if problems persist. Spam traps, used to identify spammers, are detrimental to deliverability. Maintaining a healthy sender reputation is crucial, and regular list hygiene—removing inactive subscribers—is advised to reduce the risk of being flagged as spam. Analyzing incidents without blame helps identify process and tooling improvements to prevent future mistakes.
Key opinions
- Impact on Deliverability: Sending to old profiles can harm deliverability and sender reputation.
- Spam Traps: Sending to spam traps significantly damages deliverability.
- Sender Reputation Importance: Maintaining a healthy sender reputation is crucial for successful email delivery.
- List Hygiene: Regular list cleaning is essential for good deliverability and sender reputation.
- Incident Analysis: Analyzing sending incidents helps identify and fix process issues.
Key considerations
- Suppression: Suppress complaints and bounced addresses immediately.
- Proactive Cleaning: Implement a regular list cleaning schedule to remove inactive subscribers.
- Non-Blaming Analysis: Foster a culture of non-blaming incident analysis to encourage process improvement.
- Sender Reputation Monitoring: Constantly be aware of sender reputation through available metrics.
- Contingency Planning: Have a plan in place to restrict sending to engaged addresses if deliverability issues arise.
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise advises regular list hygiene as a preventative measure to maintain deliverability. Removing inactive subscribers helps maintain a healthy sending reputation and reduces the risk of being flagged as spam.
27 Jan 2022 - Word to the Wise
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks suggests performing a non-blamey incident analysis to identify and fix process and tooling issues to prevent future similar mistakes.
12 Aug 2022 - Email Geeks
What the documentation says
4 technical articles
Maintaining a healthy email list and sender reputation are crucial for deliverability. Regularly cleaning your audience through segmentation, removing or re-engaging inactive subscribers, warming up IP and domain addresses, using email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), providing clear unsubscribe options, avoiding spam trigger words, and monitoring sender reputation via tools like Google Postmaster Tools are all recommended practices.
Key findings
- List Cleaning: Regularly cleaning email lists improves campaign performance.
- Segmentation: Segmentation helps target or remove inactive subscribers.
- IP/Domain Warm-up: Warming up IPs and domains builds trust and avoids spam filters.
- Email Authentication: Email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is essential for building sender reputation.
- Sender Reputation Monitoring: Monitoring sender reputation identifies and addresses deliverability issues.
Key considerations
- Re-engagement vs. Removal: Decide whether to re-engage or remove inactive subscribers based on engagement metrics.
- Gradual Warm-up: Warm up IPs/domains gradually to avoid triggering spam filters.
- Comprehensive Authentication: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for complete email authentication.
- Monitor Spam Rates: Keep an eye on spam rates and adjust sending practices accordingly.
- Tool Usage: Leverage tools like Google Postmaster Tools to gain insights into sender reputation.
Technical article
Documentation from SendGrid explains that warming up your IP and domain increases trust so you do not get marked as spam. Suggests starting with low volume and slowly increasing send volume over time to build a positive sending reputation. In addition, ensure good email practices such as authenticating emails (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and providing clear unsubscribe options.
17 Sep 2024 - SendGrid
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft emphasizes the importance of building a good sender reputation to avoid spam filters. They suggest using email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), avoiding spam trigger words, and providing clear unsubscribe options to maintain a positive sending reputation.
20 Dec 2024 - Microsoft
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