How to increase email frequency for engaged subscribers to boost website traffic without hurting deliverability?

Key findings

1. Audience expectations: The success of increased frequency largely depends on whether subscribers anticipate or are accustomed to receiving more emails.
2. Relevance is critical: New emails must be highly relevant and provide distinct value to the engaged segment, otherwise, even engaged users may disengage or mark messages as spam.
3. Testing is essential: Pilot programs with small, statistically significant cohorts are crucial to gauge recipient response before a full rollout.
4. Monitor deliverability: Closely watch engagement rates, such as open and click-through rates, and monitor for any increases in complaints or unsubscribes, as these are indicators of potential deliverability issues. For more on this, check our guide on email engagement thresholds.
5. Long-term strategy: If emails are underperforming, addressing the root cause of low engagement or unmet expectations is more sustainable than simply increasing volume.

Key considerations

1. Segmentation accuracy: Ensure your 'engaged' segment is accurately defined and consistently updated to avoid sending to less interested subscribers.
2. Content diversification: The new emails should offer different content or value from existing campaigns to justify the increased frequency and prevent fatigue. Review email frequency best practices for guidance.
3. Opt-out options: Provide clear and granular unsubscribe options, allowing subscribers to manage their frequency preferences or opt out of specific email types while remaining on the main list.
4. Domain reputation: A sudden increase in volume, even to engaged users, can impact your sender reputation if not managed correctly. Understand how email list quality and sending frequency impact deliverability.
5. Website traffic goals: Focus on driving clicks to your website for specific, desired actions rather than just ensuring email opens, aligning with traffic objectives.

Key opinions

1. Expectation management: It is crucial to set clear expectations with subscribers during acquisition to avoid surprising them with increased frequency.
2. Relevance over volume: An additional email must be highly relevant to the recipient, or it risks burning out the most engaged users.
3. Test, don't assume: Marketers should test increased frequency with a small cohort to see real-world results, rather than relying on gut feelings.
4. Risk vs. reward: While increased frequency can boost engagement, it can also lead to a hit in overall reputation and significant financial damage if done incorrectly.
5. Data-driven decisions: Aligning with management on clear success and failure metrics for any frequency test is vital.

Key considerations

1. Audience segmentation: Prioritise engaging your existing active subscriber base with highly relevant content before attempting to increase sends to less engaged segments. This helps to improve inbox placement.
2. Content strategy: Ensure new emails offer unique value or insights not easily accessible elsewhere, compelling recipients to engage. This boosts email click-through rates.
3. Subscriber preferences: Offer subscribers control over their email frequency and types of content they receive. As GoCustomer.ai points out, this improves engagement and reduces unsubscribes.
4. Conversion vs. traffic: Distinguish between traffic goals and conversion goals. Tailor content and frequency to the specific objective, focusing on highly engaged members for traffic.

Key opinions

1. Industry specifics: Some industries naturally support daily or even more frequent emails if the content is time-sensitive and highly desired by users, leading to high engagement rates.
2. Engagement drives deliverability: High open and click-through rates, especially those where users re-engage with content, significantly enhance delivery and domain reputation.
3. Strategic content for traffic: Forcing clicks within emails to external websites can substantially boost web traffic, helping achieve traffic goals and improving web rank.
4. Segmentation protects reputation: Promoting to less engaged segments should be done cautiously, or on separate lists, to protect the overall domain reputation and the deliverability of more profitable campaigns.
5. Unique value is key: To combat content fatigue, especially in social networking contexts, offer unique insights or content exclusively through email.

Key considerations

1. Avoid overdoing it: Sending too many emails, especially irrelevant ones, can quickly hurt your domain reputation and overall deliverability, pushing emails to the spam folder, as explained in our article on why emails go to spam.
2. Engage members more: Actively find ways to increase engagement with your core members, which builds a stronger sender reputation that can then support broader campaigns.
3. Clear unsubscribe options: Provide clear options for subscribers to opt out of specific email types without fully unsubscribing from all communications, maintaining engagement on main lists.
4. Holistic deliverability view: Understand that email deliverability is a cycle of sender reputation and engagement. Ignoring one aspect can negatively impact the others. Salesforce highlights how to keep email subscribers engaged for life.
5. Domain and IP reputation: Maintaining a strong domain and IP reputation is foundational. Increased frequency to a less engaged list can severely damage this reputation, leading to blocklisting or inbox placement issues. Learn more about how your email address ends up on a blocklist.

Key findings

1. Engagement is key: Mailbox providers heavily rely on user engagement metrics (opens, clicks, replies) to determine inbox placement. Higher frequency to engaged users can be tolerated if engagement remains strong.
2. Subscriber control: Providing clear preference centers where subscribers can adjust frequency or content types significantly reduces complaints and unsubscribes.
3. Content quality: Relevant, valuable, and personalized content is essential to justify increased frequency and prevent subscriber fatigue, which can harm your sender reputation.
4. Sender reputation impact: Any significant deviation from typical sending volume or sudden increases, even to engaged segments, should be approached with caution to avoid negative impacts on your domain and IP reputation. This is critical for email frequency and volume management.

Key considerations

1. List hygiene: Regularly cleaning your email list by removing inactive subscribers is crucial to maintain high engagement rates and prevent deliverability issues, particularly when increasing frequency. Learn about managing inactive subscribers for Gmail deliverability.
2. Technical setup: Ensure your email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is correctly configured to establish sender trustworthiness, which becomes even more important with higher sending volumes. For more information, explore factors affecting email deliverability.
3. A/B testing: Systematic A/B testing of frequency variations on small segments can provide data-backed insights into what works best for your audience without risking broad negative impacts.
4. Monitoring tools: Utilize postmaster tools and deliverability monitoring to track performance changes in real-time and respond quickly to any negative trends.