Summary
Targeting inactive email users is a common challenge for email marketers, particularly when aiming to maximize reach for large campaigns like Black Friday. The primary concern is how to re-engage these segments without significantly harming your domain and IP reputation. A large database with many inactive contacts poses a substantial risk, as sending to unengaged users can lead to higher spam complaints, increased bounce rates, and potential blocklisting, all of which degrade your sender reputation.
Key findings
- Risk of mixing: Mixing active and inactive users, even with a high ratio of active contacts, carries a significant risk to the deliverability of your engaged subscribers.
- Re-engagement first: Prioritizing re-engagement efforts, potentially through channels beyond email, is crucial before attempting to send mass emails to inactive segments.
- List hygiene importance: While list validation tools can remove undeliverable addresses, they don't solve the underlying engagement issues or mitigate the risk of hitting spam traps.
- Culling non-responders: If re-engagement attempts fail, removing truly inactive subscribers (also known as culling) is often the safest approach to protect your sender reputation.
Key considerations
- IP warming: If considering a new IP address for inactive sends, ensure sufficient time for proper IP warming to avoid immediate deliverability issues.
- Segmenting strategies: Employing careful segmentation and a phased approach to sending can help mitigate risks when re-engaging inactive subscribers.
- Understanding risks: Acknowledge that sending to a large, unengaged list significantly increases the likelihood of spam complaints and being added to a blocklist.
- Holistic reputation management: Focus on maintaining a clean and engaged list as a continuous practice to improve your email reputation over time.
What email marketers say
Email marketers grappling with large databases often face the dilemma of how to approach inactive users, especially ahead of critical sending periods. Their experiences highlight the balance between maximizing reach and preserving the health of their sender reputation. Discussions frequently center on practical, albeit risky, strategies for attempting to re-engage these segments.
Key opinions
- High risk approach: Attempting to target a client's entire 3 million database, especially with many inactive users, is perceived as a very high-risk strategy for domain and IP reputation.
- Mixing drawbacks: The suggestion of mixing active (70%) and inactive (30%) users is seen as far from ideal, as the inactive contacts pose a direct threat to the deliverability of the active ones.
- Re-activation imperative: Marketers generally agree that efforts should first focus on re-activating inactive users through various channels, and only if unsuccessful, consider culling them.
- List validation's limits: While list validation tools help remove undeliverable addresses, they do not address the broader issues of engagement and potential spam traps, which are bigger problems.
Key considerations
- Time for warming: If a new IP pool is considered, marketers caution that it would require a dedicated warm-up period, making it a tight timeline for immediate large-scale sends like Black Friday.
- Risk communication: It is essential to communicate the inherent risks to clients, ensuring they understand the potential downsides and actively choose to proceed with a given strategy.
- Engagement relevance: Engagement with other brands does not guarantee that a recipient will want email from your specific brand, and could still lead to spam reports.
- Data-driven decisions: Marketers advocate for providing clients with the necessary data to make informed business decisions about their email strategy, recognizing it is a safety rail, not a magic wand.
Marketer view
A marketer from Email Geeks suggests that targeting a 3 million database for Black Friday, especially with many inactive users, poses a high risk to domain and IP reputation. They proposed initial solutions like IP pool setup or mixing active and inactive users, but sought better alternatives to mitigate the impact on deliverability.
Marketer view
An email marketer from Email Geeks states that mixing active and inactive subscribers is far from ideal. They advise that inactive contacts risk the deliverability of active ones, suggesting that re-activating inactives (not just via email) and then culling them if re-engagement efforts fail is a better approach.
What the experts say
Experts in email deliverability consistently underscore the critical importance of a strategic approach when dealing with inactive email subscribers. They highlight that general advice is often insufficient and that tailored, data-driven strategies are essential for mitigating reputation risks and ensuring long-term inbox placement.
Key opinions
- Risk minimization strategy: Experts advise adopting a perspective of risk minimization, focusing on actions that lower the chances of harming good email deliverability when engaging inactive users.
- Tailored advice over general recommendations: General recommendations are often insufficient; instead, advice should be highly tailored to the specific client and their unique database characteristics.
- Beyond deliverable addresses: List validation tools only address undeliverable addresses and do not mitigate the larger problems associated with unengaged users, such as spam complaints or hitting spam traps.
- Engagement relevance: An inactive recipient interacting with one brand does not imply they desire emails from another; forcing emails can lead to spam reports.
Key considerations
- Educating clients on risks: It is vital to present clients with comprehensive data so they fully understand the risks and downsides before making business decisions regarding their inactive lists.
- Proactive playbooks: Developing a playbook of specific actions to lower risk is more effective than generic advice, especially when dealing with client insistence on targeting inactive segments.
- Focus on data-driven decisions: The core of an expert's approach is empowering clients with the necessary data to make sound business decisions for their email programs.
- Long-term reputation: Recovering domain reputation after a spam incident or large accidental send, particularly with a high soft bounce rate, takes time and consistent effort.
Expert view
An expert from Email Geeks states that if a client is set on sending to inactive users, their focus is on risk minimization. They maintain a playbook of specific actions to lower the chances of good mail being hurt and engage in discussions to ensure clients fully understand and accept the potential downsides of such a strategy.
Expert view
An expert from Email Geeks explains that their advice is highly tailored to each client's unique situation. They emphasize that there are no one-size-fits-all recommendations for dealing with inactive lists, and their core approach is to provide clients with the specific data needed to make informed business decisions.
What the documentation says
Official documentation from leading email service providers and deliverability authorities consistently emphasizes the critical role of list hygiene and subscriber engagement in maintaining a strong sender reputation. Their guidelines provide clear best practices for managing inactive users to ensure optimal inbox placement and avoid blocklisting.
Key findings
- List health is paramount: Maintaining a list of engaged contacts is frequently cited as a core factor in achieving strong email deliverability, with low engagement being a common reason for messages landing in spam folders.
- Inactivity impacts reputation: Removing invalid or inactive addresses is crucial for improving performance and protecting sender reputation. Neglecting this can lead to higher bounce rates and degraded trust with mailbox providers.
- Engagement metrics matter: Documentation often points to open rates and click-through rates as key indicators of engagement, with targets (e.g., 20% open rate) suggesting healthy list interaction.
- Complaint rates are critical: Keeping spam complaint rates extremely low (e.g., below 0.1%) is a fundamental practice for building and maintaining a strong sender reputation.
Key considerations
- Regular list cleaning: Regularly cleaning your email list to remove unengaged subscribers, invalid addresses, and hard bounces is a fundamental best practice for deliverability.
- Double opt-in: Implementing double opt-in methods is frequently recommended to ensure that subscribers are genuinely interested and to maintain high list quality from the outset.
- Impact on filtering: A low IP or domain reputation, often a result of poor list health and engagement, is identified as a common reason for emails being filtered to spam.
- Proactive management: Documentation suggests that email marketers can preserve sender reputation by proactively updating and cleaning their mailing lists, preventing issues before they occur.
Technical article
Documentation from Customer.io advises that maintaining a healthy list of engaged contacts is fundamental. They indicate that a low IP or domain reputation, often stemming from an unhealthy list, is a primary cause for emails being filtered to spam, making engagement monitoring crucial.
Technical article
MailMonitor documentation states that removing invalid or inactive addresses directly improves email performance and protects sender reputation. They warn that neglecting this crucial step can lead to higher bounce rates and significantly hinder deliverability.
Related resources
15 resources
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