How to increase email frequency for engaged subscribers to boost website traffic without hurting deliverability?
Michael Ko
Co-founder & CEO, Suped
Published 13 May 2025
Updated 19 Aug 2025
7 min read
Boosting website traffic is a common goal for many businesses, and email marketing often seems like the most direct route. The idea of simply sending more emails, especially to your most engaged subscribers, might appear to be a straightforward solution. After all, if they're already interacting with your content, why not give them more opportunities to visit your site?
However, the landscape of email deliverability is complex. While increased frequency can drive traffic, it also carries the risk of alienating your audience and damaging your sender reputation. Striking the right balance is crucial to ensure your emails continue to land in the inbox and achieve their intended purpose without getting caught in spam filters or causing unsubscribes.
The key lies in understanding your audience's preferences, carefully managing your sending practices, and rigorously monitoring performance. This approach allows you to leverage the power of your engaged segment without inadvertently hurting your overall email program.
Understanding engagement and its role in deliverability
Engaged subscribers are your most valuable asset in email marketing. They've demonstrated consistent interest by opening, clicking, and interacting with your emails. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Google and Yahoo heavily rely on these positive engagement signals to determine your sender reputation and, consequently, your email deliverability. High engagement tells them your content is desired and relevant.
Conversely, a drop in engagement from your subscribers, even if they remain on your list, can negatively impact your sender reputation. If your emails are consistently ignored, marked as spam, or lead to unsubscribes, ISPs will start to filter your messages to the spam folder, even for your previously engaged audience. This can lead to your domain or IP being added to a blocklist (or blacklist), making it harder to reach the inbox.
When considering increasing frequency, particularly for a specific segment, it's vital to ensure the additional emails maintain or even boost engagement. This means providing highly relevant and valuable content that justifies the increased presence in their inbox. Without this, you risk 'burning out' your most valuable subscribers, jeopardizing your overall email program and traffic goals.
Strategies for increasing frequency without risk
The most effective way to increase email frequency without risking deliverability is through careful testing and audience segmentation. Rather than immediately rolling out a higher frequency to all engaged users, start with a small, statistically significant test group. This allows you to observe their reactions and measure key metrics before making broader changes.
Content relevance is paramount. The additional emails must offer genuine value or unique insights that your subscribers can't easily get elsewhere. Consider what specific information, offers, or updates would make them eager to receive more from you. If your audience has a high expectation of frequent communication, as in a social networking context, this becomes even more critical.
Implementing a preference center can also significantly mitigate risk. This allows subscribers to actively choose their desired email frequency or the types of content they wish to receive. Offering this control empowers your audience, reduces unsubscribes, and improves their perception of your email program, which is a key factor in email deliverability. If you're looking to increase frequency for engaged subscribers, consider how to gradually increase email frequency.
Risks of increasing frequency
Increased complaints: Even engaged users may mark unwanted emails as spam, damaging your reputation.
Higher unsubscribes: Email fatigue can lead subscribers to opt out entirely.
Deliverability issues: ISPs may start filtering all your emails, even the important ones, to spam or blocklists (blacklists).
Audience burnout: Over-communication can lead to disengagement and brand fatigue.
Opportunities of increasing frequency
Increased traffic: More emails can mean more clicks and website visits from a responsive audience.
Higher conversions: More frequent, relevant content can lead to more purchases or desired actions.
Deeper engagement: Keeping your brand top-of-mind for highly interested subscribers.
Improved ROI: Maximizing the value of your existing engaged email list.
A/B testing strategies
When testing a new email frequency, it's essential to set clear success and failure metrics. Define what constitutes a positive outcome (e.g., a certain increase in click-through rate to your website, stable unsubscribe rates) and what signals a negative impact. This data-driven approach allows you to justify decisions and adapt your strategy based on real subscriber behavior.
Segment your test group: Select a random, representative portion of your engaged subscribers.
Run for a defined period: Allow enough time to gather meaningful data, perhaps 2-4 weeks.
Monitor key metrics closely: Pay attention to open rates, click-through rates, and especially unsubscribe and complaint rates for the test group versus your control group.
Key metrics and monitoring
To ensure your increased email frequency is sustainable and positively impacts website traffic, you must continuously monitor key performance indicators (KPIs). These metrics provide insights into subscriber engagement and the health of your sender reputation. Beyond just open and click rates, pay close attention to the less obvious, but equally critical, signals.
Monitoring your unsubscribe rate for the specific segment receiving higher frequency is paramount. A sudden spike indicates email fatigue, even among engaged users. Similarly, an increase in spam complaint rates, though hopefully low for engaged segments, is a clear red flag. Tools like Google Postmaster Tools and other analytics platforms can help you track these metrics over time.
Moreover, track your website traffic from email campaigns, specifically from the segment with increased frequency. Is the increased frequency actually translating into more visits and desired actions, or are you just sending more emails without a tangible return? This data will help you refine your strategy and ensure you're meeting your traffic goals effectively. For an effective strategy for managing frequency and volume, read about best practices for email frequency.
Metric
Why it matters
Action to take
Open rate
Indicates initial interest in your subject lines and sender name.
A/B test subject lines and preheaders, segment list to ensure relevance.
Click-through rate (CTR)
Directly measures how engaging your email content is and its ability to drive traffic.
Optimize calls-to-action, personalize content, ensure mobile responsiveness.
Unsubscribe rate
Signals subscriber fatigue or irrelevance of content.
Increasing email frequency, even for engaged segments, requires a vigilant approach to list hygiene and sender reputation management. While your engaged subscribers are less likely to cause issues, any increase in volume can magnify underlying problems on your list. Regularly cleaning your list by removing inactive or unengaged subscribers is a fundamental practice. This ensures your mailing efforts are focused on recipients who genuinely want your content, which helps improve your overall email deliverability.
Even within your engaged segment, some subscribers might eventually become less responsive to the higher frequency. It's important to have a strategy for these cases. Consider creating re-engagement campaigns for those whose activity drops off after the frequency increase. If re-engagement attempts fail, be prepared to reduce their sending frequency or remove them from your active list to protect your sender reputation. Balancing engagement across active and inactive segments is key.
Your domain's reputation is your most valuable asset in email marketing. Any strategy that risks it, including aggressive frequency increases, must be approached with caution. By prioritizing recipient experience, delivering highly relevant content, and diligently monitoring your metrics, you can successfully increase email frequency for engaged subscribers to boost website traffic without falling victim to blocklists (blacklists) or deliverability issues.
Best practices for list hygiene
Regularly clean your list: Remove inactive subscribers who haven't engaged in a significant period (e.g., 6-12 months).
Verify new addresses: Use double opt-in to ensure subscribers genuinely want your emails and to avoid spam traps.
Monitor bounce rates: High hard bounce rates signal invalid addresses that need to be removed promptly.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Always set clear expectations with subscribers about email frequency during the sign-up process.
Segment your audience based on engagement levels to tailor frequency and content relevance.
Prioritize sending highly valuable and unique content in any additional emails to justify increased frequency.
Use A/B testing with small cohorts to measure the impact of frequency changes on engagement metrics.
Common pitfalls
Surprising subscribers with a sudden increase in email frequency can lead to unsubscribes and complaints.
Sending irrelevant content in additional emails, even to engaged users, can cause fatigue and damage reputation.
Failing to monitor key metrics (like unsubscribe and complaint rates) after increasing frequency.
Not having a plan for disengaged subscribers when increasing email volume.
Expert tips
If your company is focused on traffic goals over conversion goals for engaged members, consider how to drive more clicks *within* the emails to your site, rather than just consumption of content *in* the email itself.
For industries where frequent emails are expected (e.g., social networking updates), find ways to make email content exclusive or offer unique insights not easily accessible elsewhere. This compels engagement.
Offer specific unsubscribe options for different email streams. For instance, allow users to unsubscribe from daily updates while remaining on a weekly newsletter list. This gives them control and protects your overall list.
If increasing promotional content for less engaged segments, maintain strong domain reputation by consistently engaging your active members with high-value emails.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says: It depends on what expectation was set with the subscribers during acquisition; surprising them in their inbox is generally a bad idea.
2019-11-15 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says: If the second email is relevant, it should be safe, otherwise, there's a risk of alienating the most engaged users, which would be detrimental.
2019-11-15 - Email Geeks
Striking the right balance
Successfully increasing email frequency for engaged subscribers to boost website traffic is a delicate balance. It's not about simply sending more emails, but about strategically delivering more value to those who already show interest. By focusing on relevance, thoughtful segmentation, rigorous testing, and continuous monitoring, you can achieve your traffic goals without compromising your email deliverability or burning out your most valuable audience.
Remember, your sender reputation is built on trust and consistent positive engagement. Any changes to your email frequency should reinforce this trust, ensuring your subscribers feel valued and your messages continue to reach their intended destination: the inbox.
Google and 
Yahoo heavily rely on these positive engagement signals to determine your sender reputation and, consequently, your email deliverability. High engagement tells them your content is desired and relevant.
