Summary
Managing unengaged email subscribers is a critical aspect of maintaining email deliverability and overall list health. Experts and major Email Service Providers (ESPs) advocate for a tiered strategy that begins with identifying inactive users, followed by a concentrated effort to re-engage them through targeted campaigns, such as special offers or personalized content. Should these re-engagement attempts prove unsuccessful, the recommended next step is to suppress these subscribers from regular mailings or remove them completely. This proactive approach not only helps preserve a positive sender reputation and prevent emails from landing in spam folders but also ensures compliance with data privacy regulations and optimizes marketing spend by focusing on an active, interested audience.
Key findings
- Multi-step Approach: The consensus for managing unengaged subscribers involves a multi-step approach: first identify them, then attempt re-engagement, and if those efforts fail, suppress or remove them.
- Re-engagement as First Step: Re-engagement campaigns, often involving a series of emails, special offers, or updated content, are the primary initial strategy to reactivate dormant subscribers.
- Suppression or Removal: If re-engagement attempts are unsuccessful, it is crucial to segment and suppress these contacts from regular mailings or remove them entirely from the list. This protects sender reputation and improves deliverability.
- Deliverability and Reputation: Maintaining a clean, engaged email list by removing unengaged subscribers is critical for preserving sender reputation, avoiding spam folders, and ensuring high deliverability rates. Sending to unengaged contacts actively harms these metrics.
- List Hygiene Importance: List hygiene, achieved by promptly managing unengaged contacts, is emphasized by experts and major ESPs as fundamental for effective email marketing and to prevent being flagged as spam.
Key considerations
- Varying Timelines: The optimal timeframe for re-engagement campaigns, such as a 9-month inactivity period, is not universal and should be tailored to specific company performance and audience behavior.
- Tailored Re-engagement: Re-engagement efforts should be customized based on individual user interest levels, avoiding immediate re-addition to a full mailing list if only minimal interest is shown. Personalized content and special offers are often effective.
- Manual Re-opt-in: For customers who have previously opted out, it is best practice to prompt them for a manual re-opt-in if they show renewed interest, such as after a purchase, providing a clear call to action.
- Data Compliance: In regions like Europe, personal data of disengaged users may need to be deleted after a certain period if they do not re-engage, aligning with data privacy regulations.
- Cost Implications: Continually sending to unengaged subscribers increases email marketing costs and can lead to wasted resources. Removing them helps reduce these expenses.
What email marketers say
11 marketer opinions
Building on the foundation of proactively managing unengaged subscribers, email marketing professionals consistently recommend a strategic, multi-stage process. This begins with defining inactivity and then launching carefully crafted re-engagement campaigns, often leveraging personalized content, special offers, or updated preference options, to reignite subscriber interest. When these attempts do not yield results, the prevailing advice is to segment and suppress these contacts from regular email sends, or ultimately remove them from the list. This crucial step is not merely about list hygiene, but fundamentally about safeguarding sender reputation, optimizing deliverability, and ensuring marketing efforts are concentrated on a truly engaged audience, while also aligning with global data privacy requirements.
Key opinions
- Tiered Strategy: The prevailing expert advice is a multi-phased approach starting with re-engagement efforts, progressing to suppression, and finally considering complete removal for non-responsive subscribers.
- Value-Driven Re-engagement: Successful re-engagement campaigns often include personalized content, exclusive offers, or options to update preferences, aimed at restoring subscriber interest.
- Deliverability Protection: Suppressing or removing unengaged subscribers is essential to protect sender reputation, improve overall deliverability rates, and avoid being flagged as spam by Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
- Improved Metrics and Efficiency: Removing dormant contacts can lead to better open rates, click-through rates, and reduced marketing costs, as resources are focused on active and interested recipients.
- Broad Consensus: Major Email Service Providers (ESPs) and industry experts uniformly emphasize the importance of managing unengaged subscribers for list health and campaign effectiveness.
Key considerations
- Defining Inactivity: Establish clear criteria for what constitutes an unengaged subscriber, such as a specific period of no opens or clicks, to trigger re-engagement workflows.
- Tailored Campaigns: Re-engagement strategies should be adaptable and not immediately re-add minimally interested subscribers to a full mailing list; focus on incremental re-engagement.
- Data Privacy Compliance: Be mindful of regional data privacy regulations, such as GDPR in Europe, which may necessitate the deletion of personal data for long-term unengaged users if they do not re-engage.
- Automated Workflows: Implement automated re-engagement and suppression flows to efficiently manage inactive subscribers and maintain list hygiene proactively.
- Manual Re-opt-in: For subscribers who have been opted out, require a manual re-opt-in if they wish to resubscribe, ensuring explicit consent and preventing unwanted emails.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks explains their re-engagement campaign: sending 3 emails over a month to users inactive for 9 months, then opting them out if no action is taken, requiring manual re-opt-in to resubscribe.
1 Mar 2024 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests tailoring re-engagement based on user interest, advising against immediately re-adding users to a full daily email loop if they only show minimal interest. They also note that in Europe, personal data of disengaged users might need to be deleted after a certain period if they don't re-engage.
19 Jan 2022 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
3 expert opinions
Experts emphasize that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to managing unengaged email subscribers, noting that optimal re-engagement periods, such as nine months, are highly company-specific. A consensus emerges that sending to inactive subscribers detrimentally affects deliverability and increases operational costs. While re-engagement campaigns are a vital initial step, if these efforts prove ineffective, it becomes imperative to remove or suppress these contacts from active mailing lists. This practice, prioritizing a smaller, engaged audience over a larger, unengaged one, is crucial for maintaining a strong sender reputation and avoiding spam traps. Notably, for previously opted-out customers who demonstrate renewed interest, such as through a purchase, the best practice is to provide a clear prompt and call to action for them to explicitly re-opt-in.
Key opinions
- Harmful to Deliverability: Continuing to send emails to unengaged subscribers significantly harms overall email deliverability and can lead to increased operational costs.
- Re-engagement First: Initial efforts should focus on targeted re-engagement campaigns to attempt to reactivate dormant subscribers.
- Remove After No Engagement: If re-engagement attempts fail, it is crucial to remove or suppress these unengaged subscribers from the active mailing list to protect sender reputation.
- Engaged List Value: A smaller list of highly engaged subscribers is superior for sender reputation and deliverability compared to a large list containing many unengaged contacts.
- Post-Purchase Re-opt-in: When a previously opted-out customer makes a new purchase, it is ideal to prompt them to re-opt-in with a clear call to action to resume receiving emails.
Key considerations
- Variable Re-engagement Timing: The ideal timeframe for re-engagement efforts, such as a 9-month window, varies considerably and should be determined by individual company performance metrics.
- Explicit Re-opt-in: For customers who have previously opted out, it is best practice to encourage them to manually re-opt-in, especially after a renewed interaction like a purchase, providing a clear path to resubscribe.
- Segment for Action: Segmenting unengaged subscribers before running re-engagement campaigns allows for more targeted efforts and subsequent easier suppression if engagement does not improve.
- Avoid Keeping Deadwood: Retaining unengaged email addresses on active mailing lists is detrimental to sender reputation and overall deliverability, making their removal or suppression critical.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks responds that there isn't one universal best practice for managing unengaged subscribers, and optimal re-engagement timeframes (like 9 months) vary by company and performance. She suggests that if a previously opted-out customer makes a purchase, it's ideal to prompt them to re-opt-in, offering a clear call to action to reactivate their subscription.
14 Oct 2021 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource explains that sending to unengaged subscribers harms deliverability and increases costs. He advises trying re-engagement campaigns but emphasizes that if subscribers remain unengaged after these attempts, they should be removed from the active mailing list. A smaller, engaged list is superior for sender reputation compared to a large, unengaged one, making removal a crucial step for list hygiene.
1 Nov 2023 - Spam Resource
What the documentation says
4 technical articles
Leading email service providers and industry experts, including HubSpot, Mailchimp, Twilio SendGrid, and SparkPost, are in clear agreement regarding best practices for managing unengaged subscribers. They uniformly recommend a sequential strategy: first identify dormant contacts, then initiate targeted re-engagement campaigns. If these efforts to re-ignite interest prove unsuccessful, it becomes essential to suppress or completely remove these subscribers from active mailing lists. This crucial step is vital for maintaining a healthy sender reputation, significantly improving email deliverability rates, reducing operational costs, and ensuring compliance with industry standards.
Key findings
- Unified Industry Advice: Major ESPs like HubSpot, Mailchimp, Twilio SendGrid, and SparkPost all advocate for a structured process involving identification, re-engagement attempts, and subsequent suppression or removal of unengaged subscribers.
- Prioritize Re-engagement: The initial phase always involves strategic re-engagement campaigns, often utilizing compelling offers or valuable content to persuade inactive subscribers to resume interaction.
- Mandatory Suppression for List Health: If re-engagement fails, suppressing or removing contacts is not optional but a mandatory action to prevent harm to sender reputation, avoid spam folders, and improve overall deliverability metrics.
- Negative Impact of Inertia: Continuing to send emails to unengaged subscribers actively degrades sender reputation, increases the likelihood of emails being flagged as spam or blocked, and contributes to unnecessary marketing expenses.
- Compliance and Efficiency: Beyond deliverability, actively managing unengaged lists supports compliance efforts and enhances the efficiency of email marketing by focusing resources on a genuinely interested audience.
Key considerations
- Defining Inactivity Thresholds: Companies must establish clear, internal definitions for what constitutes an unengaged subscriber- such as no opens or clicks over a set period- to trigger appropriate workflows for re-engagement or suppression.
- Tailored Re-engagement Content: Re-engagement campaigns should be carefully designed with personalized content or specific value propositions to maximize the chance of reactivating interest, rather than generic blasts.
- Proactive List Hygiene: Regular, systematic identification and management of unengaged subscribers through automated processes are vital for long-term email program health, preventing accumulated 'deadwood' on the list.
- Cost-Benefit of Removal: While re-engagement has its place, the long-term benefit of removing non-responsive subscribers outweighs the perceived loss of a contact, leading to better ROI and reduced infrastructure costs.
Technical article
Documentation from HubSpot explains that for unengaged subscribers, the best practice is to first identify them, then attempt re-engagement campaigns, and if those efforts fail, suppress or delete these contacts to maintain list health, improve deliverability, and ensure compliance.
21 Mar 2024 - HubSpot Knowledge Base
Technical article
Documentation from Mailchimp explains that maintaining a clean audience is crucial for deliverability and avoiding spam folders. They recommend archiving or deleting unengaged contacts after attempting re-engagement, as continued sending to them can harm sender reputation and increase costs.
13 Jul 2022 - Mailchimp Help Center
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