Summary
Experts, marketers, and documentation across various sources agree that sunsetting inactive email subscribers is a crucial practice for improving deliverability and maintaining a healthy sender reputation. This involves identifying and removing subscribers who haven't engaged with emails for a defined period. The process often includes segmenting lists to identify inactives, implementing a re-engagement campaign with a clear opt-out option, and then removing unresponsive subscribers. A proactive approach to list hygiene, including clearly defined sunset policies, is recommended to reduce bounce rates, spam complaints, improve engagement metrics, and ensure compliance with data privacy regulations like GDPR. A key theme is that a clean list signals to ISPs that you're sending to an engaged audience, boosting inbox placement, and mitigating deliverability issues stemming from poor list management.
Key findings
- Deliverability Improvement: Sunsetting inactive subscribers significantly improves email deliverability and inbox placement.
- Sender Reputation Enhancement: Removing unengaged subscribers helps maintain a positive sender reputation and avoids being flagged as spam.
- Engagement Metrics Boost: A focus on active subscribers leads to improved engagement metrics, providing a more accurate view of campaign performance.
- Cost Efficiency (Secondary): While often secondary, sunsetting can reduce sending costs by avoiding wasted sends to inactive recipients.
- Compliance with Regulations: Implementing a sunset policy aids in complying with data privacy regulations by ensuring data is not stored for unengaged users.
Key considerations
- Defining Inactivity Threshold: Establish a clear definition of 'inactive' based on your business needs (e.g., no opens in six months).
- Re-engagement Strategy: Implement a robust re-engagement campaign with a clear opt-out before permanently removing subscribers.
- Importance of Segmentation: Segment email lists to identify inactives and tailor re-engagement messaging effectively.
- Creating a Sunset Policy: Develop a clearly defined sunset policy that outlines the criteria for removal and communicate it to subscribers.
- Content and Relevance: Evaluate content relevance and audience needs; inactivity might stem from content issues, not just disinterest.
- Root Cause Analysis: Identify underlying deliverability problems or other reasons for low engagement before solely relying on sunsetting as a solution.
What email marketers say
14 marketer opinions
Sunsetting inactive email subscribers is a critical practice for improving email deliverability and maintaining a healthy sender reputation. The process involves identifying and removing subscribers who haven't engaged with your emails for a defined period. Multiple sources recommend segmenting your list to identify inactives, then implementing a re-engagement campaign with a clear opt-out option. If subscribers remain unengaged, they should be removed from the list. A proactive approach to list hygiene, including a clearly defined sunset policy, helps reduce bounce rates, spam complaints, and unsubscribes. It also ensures compliance with data privacy regulations like GDPR and signals to ISPs that you're sending emails to an engaged audience, thus improving inbox placement.
Key opinions
- Improved Deliverability: Sunsetting inactive subscribers reduces bounce rates and spam complaints, leading to improved deliverability and inbox placement.
- Sender Reputation: Removing inactive subscribers helps maintain a positive sender reputation with ISPs, preventing your emails from being flagged as spam.
- Engagement Metrics: Sunsetting improves engagement metrics by focusing on active subscribers, providing a more accurate representation of campaign performance.
- Cost Efficiency: While not always the primary focus, removing inactive subscribers can reduce sending costs by eliminating wasted sends to unengaged recipients.
- Compliance: Implementing a sunset policy can help comply with data privacy regulations like GDPR by ensuring that you're not storing data for subscribers who haven't provided explicit consent.
Key considerations
- Definition of Inactive: Define what 'inactive' means for your business (e.g., no opens in 6 months) to ensure you're not prematurely removing valuable subscribers.
- Re-engagement Campaign: Implement a re-engagement campaign with a clear opt-out option before removing subscribers to give them a chance to re-subscribe.
- Segmentation: Segment your list based on engagement level to tailor your messaging and identify subscribers who are fading away.
- Sunset Policy: Develop a clear sunset policy that outlines the criteria for removing inactive subscribers and communicate it to your audience.
- Content Relevance: Consider if your content is still relevant and valuable to your audience before assuming that inactivity is solely due to disinterest.
- Underlying Problems: Address underlying issues such as poor content or deliverability issues before solely relying on sunsetting to fix engagement problems.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Sendinblue Blog shares that a best practice is to define what 'inactive' means for your business (e.g., no opens in 6 months) and then implement a re-engagement campaign before fully removing subscribers. This gives them a chance to opt-in again, preserving valuable leads while cleaning your list.
7 Oct 2021 - Sendinblue Blog
Marketer view
Email marketer from Reddit user u/EmailExpert explains that sunsetting inactives is crucial, especially if you're noticing deliverability issues. They recommend segmenting your list and sending a final re-engagement campaign with a clear opt-out option. Those who don't respond should be removed to protect your sender reputation.
11 Sep 2024 - Reddit
What the experts say
6 expert opinions
Experts emphasize that sunsetting inactive email subscribers is a crucial practice for improving deliverability and maintaining a healthy sender reputation. Removing unengaged subscribers boosts engagement rates, which positively impacts inbox delivery chances, particularly at Gmail. Failing to remove inactives negatively affects deliverability for engaged subscribers and can lead to financial repercussions. Experts agree that good list hygiene and regular cleaning are essential to prevent damage to sender reputation, ensuring emails reach inboxes rather than spam folders. Moreover, they stress that poor list management, including the failure to sunset inactive subscribers, is a significant cause of email program failures.
Key opinions
- Improved Engagement: Sunsetting inactives boosts overall engagement metrics.
- Better Deliverability: Removing unengaged subscribers enhances deliverability and inbox placement.
- Reduced Spam Risk: Good list hygiene prevents sender reputation damage and reduces the risk of being marked as spam.
- Financial Impact: Failure to manage lists properly and remove inactives can lead to financial losses.
- Program Success: Regular sunsetting is essential for the overall health and success of email programs.
Key considerations
- Focus on List Health: Prioritize deliverability and list health over perceived cost savings from sending to all subscribers.
- Win-Back Campaigns: Consider implementing a short win-back series before permanently suppressing inactive subscribers.
- Impact on Engaged Subscribers: Recognize that failing to remove inactives directly harms the deliverability for engaged subscribers.
- Engagement as Key Metric: Use engagement metrics (opens and clicks) as a primary indicator of deliverability success.
- Regular List Cleaning: Implement a regular list cleaning and sunsetting policy as a fundamental part of email marketing strategy.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks explains that sunsetting inactive subscribers boosts engagement, which in turn boosts inbox delivery chances, especially at Gmail. He says focusing on cost savings over deliverability and list health is misguided.
27 Mar 2024 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Wordtothewise.com, Laura Atkins, explains that engagement (opens and clicks) is a key factor in determining deliverability. Low engagement, particularly from a large segment of your list, signals to mailbox providers that your emails are not wanted. Sunset inactive subscribers to improve this signal.
7 Sep 2023 - Wordtothewise.com
What the documentation says
4 technical articles
Email deliverability documentation consistently emphasizes the importance of maintaining a clean email list by removing inactive subscribers. Google, Microsoft, Validity, and SparkPost all advise that regularly pruning your list to include only engaged users improves sender reputation and inbox placement. Removing invalid or inactive addresses helps avoid being flagged as a spammer. Monitoring engagement metrics and setting up automated processes to suppress or remove inactive subscribers are also recommended.
Key findings
- Improved Sender Reputation: Removing inactive subscribers significantly improves your sender reputation.
- Better Inbox Placement: A clean email list leads to better inbox placement and deliverability rates.
- Avoid Spam Flags: Regularly removing invalid/inactive addresses prevents being flagged as a spammer.
- Automated Suppression: Setting up automated processes is advised to suppress or remove inactive subscribers.
- Monitor Engagement: Close monitoring of engagement metrics is necessary for effective list hygiene.
Key considerations
- Regular Pruning: Regularly prune email lists to include only engaged users.
- Automated Processes: Automate the process of suppressing or removing inactive subscribers.
- Proactive List Hygiene: Emphasize a proactive rather than reactive approach to email list hygiene.
- Engagement Monitoring: Consistently monitor and analyze engagement metrics to identify inactive subscribers.
Technical article
Documentation from SparkPost Documentation highlights the importance of maintaining a clean email list for optimal deliverability. They advise regularly identifying and removing inactive subscribers to avoid being penalized by ISPs and improve your sender reputation.
27 Nov 2023 - SparkPost Documentation
Technical article
Documentation from Validity Knowledge Base advises to monitor engagement metrics closely and set up automated processes to suppress or remove inactive subscribers. This helps maintain a healthy sender score and ensures that your emails are reaching the intended recipients.
27 Sep 2023 - Validity Knowledge Base
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