How to improve email deliverability and newsletter open rates through list cleaning?

Key findings

• Open rate limitations: Open rates are not always a reliable indicator of actual user engagement or deliverability issues, as images can load without the recipient seeing the email, and emails can be read without loading images. Their general decrease across the industry suggests they are becoming less useful as a sole metric.
• List cleaning for reputation: Proactive email list cleaning, especially removing inactive subscribers, is crucial for preserving your sender reputation and increasing true engagement metrics. You can learn more about this in our guide on best email list cleaning practices.
• Sunset policies: Regularly 'sunsetting' (stopping sends to) inactive recipients after a period (e.g., 3-6 months for monthly newsletters) helps maintain list quality and prevent deliverability problems.
• Deliverability diagnosis: Before extensive list purging, it is important to diagnose if a genuine deliverability problem exists (e.g., emails going to spam) and where it is occurring (e.g., specific ISPs like Gmail or Yahoo). Our guide on diagnosing and improving email deliverability provides a detailed approach.

Key considerations

• Beyond open rates: Look at other metrics, such as conversion rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates, to gauge engagement and deliverability effectiveness. A clean list supports these metrics. Read more on email list cleaning best practices for deliverability for more insights.
• Segmentation: Segment your email lists (e.g., transactional vs. marketing emails) to better manage engagement, deliverability, and sunsetting policies based on subscriber type and content relevance.
• Proactive hygiene: Implement a regular schedule for list cleaning, ideally every few months or after major campaigns, to proactively remove inactive or invalid subscribers. Some sources suggest setting up automation to trigger this every 1-3 months.
• Industry trends: Be aware that open rates are generally declining across the industry, and a drop in open rates may not solely indicate a deliverability problem. Focus on maintaining a healthy sender reputation through other means.

Key opinions

• List cleaning is fundamental: Many marketers believe that proactive list cleaning, especially removing inactive subscribers, is crucial for improving open rates and protecting sender reputation. This is seen as a fast way to achieve better results.
• Sunset inactive recipients: A common strategy involves 'sunsetting' recipients who haven't engaged with emails for a specific period (e.g., 3-6 months for monthly newsletters) to maintain a healthy list.
• Transactional vs. marketing split: Segmenting transactional emails from marketing emails is a widely recommended practice. This allows subscribers to opt out of marketing communications while still receiving essential business-critical messages.
• Impact on deliverability: A clean email list is considered essential for maintaining high email deliverability rates, as it helps reduce bounce rates, spam complaints, and unsubscribes.

Key considerations

• Define inactivity thresholds: The appropriate inactivity threshold for sunsetting depends on email cadence. For weekly emails, 6-8 weeks of inactivity might be suitable, while for monthly emails, 3-6 months is more common. This strategy is part of managing unengaged subscribers.
• Auditing lists: Regularly auditing your email list quality is essential. This contributes to better engagement and improving email deliverability.
• Automated cleaning: Setting up automation to trigger list cleaning processes every few months ensures consistent list hygiene without manual oversight.
• Beyond basic management: For more advanced list management, consider exploring strategies for email list validation and hygiene.

Key opinions

• Open rates are not reliable: Experts caution that open rates are an indicator that an image was loaded, not necessarily that a recipient saw or read the email. They can be skewed by bots and pre-fetching, making them an unreliable metric for actual engagement.
• Focus on deliverability: The primary concern should be whether emails are going to spam. If deliverability is fine, there may be no immediate need to drastically shrink the subscriber base, even if open rates are declining.
• Data-driven sunsetting: Sunsetting policies should be based on actual data reflecting individual users that cannot be easily faked by bots. This may involve looking at a broader set of user interactions.
• Gmail's role: Sunsetting has been particularly relevant for Gmail, but its importance is diminishing as Google actively closes abandoned accounts. Our guide on Google Postmaster Tools offers further insights into Gmail's policies.

Key considerations

• Tailored remediation: If a deliverability problem is identified, remediation efforts should be tailored to the specific type of recipient (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo, general internet addresses, businesses) and the nature of the issue. This is key to improving email deliverability.
• Contextual list management: Sunsetting policies vary greatly depending on the type of email (e.g., marketing vs. news headlines) and the client's overall program objectives. A blanket approach may not be effective.
• Check email reputation: Regularly checking your email reputation is a critical step in diagnosing deliverability issues and understanding how your emails are perceived by ISPs. Spam Resource offers insights on how to check your email reputation.
• Distinguish between deliverability and engagement: It's important to understand that a decrease in open rates doesn't automatically mean there's a deliverability issue. Sometimes, it reflects changes in recipient behavior or inbox rendering, while actual delivery to the inbox remains high.

Key findings

• Improved metrics: Cleaning your email list regularly is shown to improve critical metrics like deliverability rate, click-through rate, and conversion rates, while simultaneously reducing spam complaints, bounce rates, and unsubscribes.
• Essential for deliverability: A clean email list is considered fundamental for maintaining high email deliverability rates, as it directly impacts sender reputation and inbox placement.
• Proactive approach: Implementing practices like double opt-in, clear unsubscribe buttons, better segmentation, and dedicated automation workflows are highlighted as best practices for email list cleaning.
• Regular cleaning frequency: Documentation suggests cleaning your list after every email campaign or every few months to ensure it remains healthy and responsive. Consistency is key to preventing outdated emails from harming deliverability.

Key considerations

• Auditing list quality: Continuously analyzing your subscriber list quality is vital. This audit helps identify inactive or invalid subscribers who should be removed to improve overall deliverability and engagement.
• Segmentation benefits: Employing better segmentation criteria allows for more targeted communication, which can lead to increased open and click rates and, in turn, higher deliverability.
• Subscriber consent: Ensuring that people actually want what you are sending is critical. This involves implementing robust opt-in processes and making it easy for subscribers to manage their preferences or unsubscribe.
• Re-engagement campaigns: Before full removal, consider running re-engagement campaigns for inactive subscribers to see if they can be reactivated, providing them an opportunity to confirm their interest.