What are effective strategies for balancing engagement between active and inactive email audience segments?

Key findings

• Segmentation is key: Separating active and inactive audiences is a common and effective strategy to tailor content and mitigate risk.
• Inactive risk: Sending to inactive subscribers can negatively impact the deliverability of emails sent to active segments if not managed carefully. This is because mailbox providers track overall engagement.
• Gradual re-engagement: For inactive users, a phased approach, perhaps sending to smaller, more recently inactive chunks, can be beneficial.
• Prioritize active sends: Some suggest sending to active segments first, then inactive, hoping positive engagement from the former benefits the latter.
• Reputation tracking: Mailbox providers assign reputation scores to various elements, including IP addresses, sending domains, and link domains, meaning poor engagement in one area can affect others.

Key considerations

• Defining inactivity: Clearly define what constitutes an inactive subscriber based on open, click, or conversion metrics over a specific period. You can learn more about how managing inactive subscribers improves Gmail deliverability.
• Re-engagement strategy: Develop a specific re-engagement strategy for dormant segments, which may include different content, frequency, or incentives. This is crucial for re-engaging inactive email subscribers.
• List hygiene: Regularly clean your email list by removing hard bounces, spam traps, and persistently unengaged subscribers to maintain a healthy sender reputation. Mailchimp offers advice on email engagement strategies, including list cleaning.
• Consent and acquisition: Be cautious with new domains for acquisition purposes, especially if sharing IPs with active audiences, as this can severely damage your reputation if the list quality is poor (e.g., cold outreach/spam).
• Monitoring deliverability: Continuously monitor your deliverability metrics, including open rates, click-through rates, and complaint rates, for both segments to adapt your strategy.

Key opinions

• Segment based on activity: It is crucial to segment inactive users not just as a single group, but further by the number of days or months since their last engagement.
• Prioritize active lists: Always ensure the active segment receives at least one more email send than the inactive segment to maintain positive signals with mailbox providers.
• Incremental sends: When targeting inactive users, work through the database in smaller, manageable chunks rather than sending to the entire inactive list at once.
• Re-engagement campaigns: Designing specific re-engagement campaigns with compelling offers or content is a popular method to revive dormant subscribers. More on this can be found in a guide on how to create a re-engagement email marketing strategy.
• Consider suppression: For very old or unresponsive segments, consider suppressing them from regular sends to protect your sender reputation. Learn how to manage deliverability when re-engaging inactive subscribers.

Key considerations

• Risk assessment: Understand that sending to inactive segments carries inherent risks to overall deliverability, potentially dragging down performance for active lists.
• Engagement ratio: Aim for a high ratio of active to inactive sends, such as 80/20 or even 70/30, to ensure positive signals outweigh negative ones.
• Purpose of inactive sends: Be clear about the purpose of sending to inactives. It should be part of a defined strategy, not just a routine send.
• Automation: Automate the process of identifying and managing inactive subscribers for consistent list health.
• Content relevance: Ensure that content for re-engagement campaigns is highly relevant and provides a clear value proposition to encourage interaction.

Key opinions

• Inactive segments' drag: Experts agree that inactive segments can indeed drag down the performance and deliverability of emails sent to active segments. This makes careful management essential.
• Reputation is holistic: Mailbox providers assign reputation scores to virtually anything they can track, including IPs, sending domains, link domains, and combinations thereof. This means a new, risky sending stream can impact established reputation.
• Recipient interaction is crucial: The fundamental issue with inactive segments or new acquisition lists is often low recipient interaction and high spam complaints. These negative signals are highly detrimental.
• Avoid 'spamming': Attempting to warm up new domains for cold outreach or spam purposes by mixing them with active audiences on shared IPs is highly risky and generally ill-advised due to the immediate reputational damage it can cause.
• Strategic re-engagement: If sending to inactives is necessary, it must be accompanied by a clear strategy for handling those who remain unengaged, potentially leading to their eventual removal.

Key considerations

• Shared IP risks: Using the same IP address for both active and new (potentially risky) acquisition campaigns makes it easy for mailbox providers to link the two, potentially damaging the reputation of your established sending. This is a common deliverability issue that can prevent messages from reaching the inbox.
• Consent is paramount: Any email marketing to unconsented lists is considered spam, regardless of the domain or IP strategy. This will invariably lead to poor reputation and blocklisting.
• Long-term view: Focus on sustainable email practices that foster long-term positive engagement rather than short-term gains from questionable list sources. Understand how your email domain reputation works.
• Avoid spam traps: Sending to old, unengaged lists significantly increases the risk of hitting spam traps, which are highly detrimental to sender reputation and can lead to immediate blocklisting.
• Domain vs. Subdomain: While a subdomain might seem safer for new ventures, any connection to the main domain carries reputation risk if not handled with extreme care and proper consent.

Key findings

• Engagement metrics are paramount: Mailbox providers heavily weigh user engagement (opens, clicks, replies, non-complaints) as a primary factor for inbox placement. Low engagement from inactive segments can dilute overall sender performance.
• List hygiene is critical: Regularly removing unengaged subscribers, hard bounces, and known spam traps is a foundational best practice for maintaining list quality and sender reputation, as highlighted in strategies for re-engaging inactive subscribers.
• Sender reputation is comprehensive: Reputation is tied to multiple identifiers, including IP addresses and domains (sending, From, DKIM, SPF, URL), meaning a poor performance in one area can affect others.
• Permission is foundational: Explicit consent is the bedrock of good deliverability. Sending to unconsented lists (e.g., cold outreach) is a primary reason for high complaint rates and blocklisting, which can cause emails to go to spam.

Key considerations

• Segmented re-engagement: When attempting to re-engage inactive users, best practices suggest using highly targeted campaigns with clear calls to action, perhaps with a reduced frequency to test engagement.
• Monitor complaint rates: High complaint rates from inactive segments signal a significant problem and require immediate action, such as removing those subscribers.
• Feedback loops: Utilize feedback loops provided by ISPs to quickly identify and suppress subscribers who mark your emails as spam, particularly important when re-engaging old lists.
• Sunset policies: Implement clear sunset policies for subscribers who consistently remain unengaged after re-engagement efforts, removing them from your active sending list.
• Deliverability impact of new sending: Introducing new, potentially lower-quality sending volume (e.g., from acquisition lists) on shared IPs or domains can quickly degrade the reputation built with active audiences.