Summary
Email marketers face a significant challenge in identifying truly inactive subscribers due to the prevalence of 'proxy opens,' primarily from Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP). These programmatic pre-fetches inflate open rates and render them unreliable for gauging actual subscriber engagement. Consequently, the consensus among experts is to shift away from open rates as a primary metric for inactivity and instead prioritize genuine engagement signals like clicks, conversions, website visits, and direct replies. Effective strategies involve redefining inactivity based on a lack of these deeper interactions, implementing targeted re-engagement campaigns, and ultimately, a disciplined sunsetting policy for subscribers who remain unresponsive. This proactive list hygiene is crucial for maintaining a strong sender reputation and improving overall email deliverability.
Key findings
- Proxy Opens Unreliable: Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) and similar mechanisms generate 'proxy opens' that do not reflect genuine human engagement, making open rates unreliable for identifying inactive subscribers.
- Focus Shift to Clicks: Marketers must de-emphasize open rates and instead rely on clicks, conversions, website activity, and direct replies as more accurate indicators of subscriber engagement and activity.
- ISP Prioritization: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mailbox providers prioritize actual engagement, such as clicks and replies, over proxy opens when assessing sender reputation, meaning phantom opens have no positive impact.
- Inactivity Redefined: True inactivity should be defined not just by a lack of opens, but by a prolonged absence of clicks or other explicit interactions, necessitating a re-evaluation of current definitions.
- Sender Reputation Impact: Inactive subscribers, regardless of proxy opens, negatively impact sender reputation and deliverability, underscoring the need for consistent list hygiene.
Key considerations
- Redefine Inactivity: Clearly define what constitutes an 'inactive subscriber' for your specific business, moving beyond open rates to focus on a lack of clicks or other valuable engagements over an extended period.
- Implement Re-engagement: Develop and deploy targeted re-engagement campaigns designed to elicit explicit clicks or responses, such as asking subscribers to confirm their interest or update preferences.
- Automate List Hygiene: Utilize automation to identify and manage inactive contacts, setting up clear rules for re-engagement series and subsequent suppression or removal if no genuine engagement occurs.
- Segment Based on Engagement: Segment your audience based on varying levels of engagement, prioritizing delivery to active, high-value subscribers and using separate strategies for less engaged or inactive segments.
- Prioritize Opt-in Quality: While sunsetting helps, having strict upfront opt-in practices, like double opt-in or CAPTCHA, can reduce the number of truly unengaged subscribers from the start, minimizing the need for extensive list cleaning.
What email marketers say
12 marketer opinions
Building on the understanding that proxy opens inflate perceived engagement, email marketers must strategically refine their approach to inactive subscribers. The core of this strategy involves redefining inactivity based on a clear absence of genuine interactions, such as clicks, conversions, or direct responses, moving beyond reliance on misleading open rates. Marketers should deploy targeted re-engagement campaigns that offer clear value or seek re-permission, providing a final opportunity for subscribers to reconfirm their interest. For those who remain unresponsive after these attempts, a disciplined sunsetting policy becomes essential. This proactive list hygiene, involving the suppression or removal of truly disengaged subscribers, not only enhances deliverability by signaling healthy engagement to ISPs but also optimizes overall resource allocation.
Key opinions
- Inactivity Redefined by Deeper Metrics: True subscriber inactivity is now defined by a prolonged absence of clicks, conversions, or other explicit interactions, rather than solely a lack of opens, given the impact of proxy opens.
- Re-engagement Campaigns are Essential: Targeted re-engagement efforts are crucial for validating genuine subscriber interest and offering a clear path for re-permission.
- Sunsetting Improves Deliverability: Implementing a clear sunsetting policy for unresponsive subscribers, particularly after re-engagement attempts, significantly helps maintain sender reputation and overall deliverability.
- Behavioral Segmentation is Key: Segmenting inactive users based on their specific type and duration of inactivity, focusing on non-open metrics, enables more precise re-engagement and subsequent list management.
- Beyond Open Rates: The data indicates that relying on clicks and other explicit engagement metrics, while disregarding open rates affected by proxy activity, is critical for accurately identifying and managing inactive segments.
Key considerations
- Prioritize Click-Based Metrics: Systematically shift your primary measurement of subscriber activity from open rates to metrics like clicks, conversions, and other direct interactions, especially due to proxy opens.
- Develop Value-Driven Re-engagement: Create re-engagement campaigns that are highly targeted, offer clear value, or explicitly ask subscribers to update preferences or reconfirm their subscription.
- Automate Unresponsive Subscriber Management: Establish automated processes for identifying inactive subscribers, initiating re-engagement sequences, and subsequently suppressing or removing those who do not respond.
- Segment by Engagement Level: Divide your audience into segments based on varying levels of genuine engagement, allowing for tailored content and deliverability strategies, prioritizing active users.
- Reinforce Strong Opt-in Practices: Strengthen initial subscriber acquisition methods, such as requiring double opt-in, to ensure a higher quality, more genuinely interested audience from the start.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that some recipients don't load images or click through, even if they read emails. He suggests a re-engagement email asking inactive subscribers if they wish to remain subscribed and advocates using Non-Human Interaction (NHI) detection to segment these users.
29 Sep 2024 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks shares an active subscriber approach, sending newsletters only to people who have opened or clicked an email in the last 90 days. Subscribers falling out of this window are added to a re-engagement series, and if no engagement occurs in 6 months, no further emails are sent. They also segment high-value readers by tracking clicks and website visits.
19 Aug 2021 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
5 expert opinions
Marketers must develop a comprehensive strategy for inactive subscribers, particularly those impacted by proxy opens, by shifting their primary focus from open rates to actionable engagement metrics. This involves clearly defining inactivity based on a lack of genuine interactions like clicks, conversions, or website activity, and then employing multi-channel re-engagement tactics. Ultimately, maintaining a healthy sender reputation necessitates a robust approach to list hygiene, including the strategic suppression or removal of subscribers who consistently remain unengaged after re-engagement efforts, ensuring email programs target truly interested recipients.
Key opinions
- Proxy Opens Skew Engagement: Inflated open rates due to proxy opens, especially from Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), misrepresent actual subscriber engagement, making them poor indicators of activity.
- Beyond Open Rates for Engagement: Accurate assessment of subscriber activity requires prioritizing metrics such as clicks, conversions, and website interactions over potentially misleading open rates.
- Business-Specific Inactivity Definition: Defining inactivity is specific to each business and should be based on a lack of genuine engagement, not just absence of opens, to identify truly unengaged users.
- Re-engagement for Reactivation and Hygiene: Re-engagement campaigns serve a dual purpose: to reactivate valuable subscribers and to facilitate the identification and removal of truly disengaged contacts for improved list health.
- Strategic Subscriber Suppression: Protecting sender reputation and improving deliverability depends on a disciplined approach to suppressing or removing subscribers who remain unengaged after re-engagement efforts.
- Non-Open Data Insights: Data on non-openers can offer valuable insights into subscriber health and deliverability challenges, sometimes proving more useful than inflated open data.
Key considerations
- Tailor Inactivity Definitions: Customize your definition of an inactive subscriber based on specific business goals and genuine engagement metrics like clicks and conversions, moving past open rates.
- Deploy Strategic Re-engagement: Implement multi-stage re-engagement campaigns, potentially utilizing other marketing channels, to attempt to reactivate dormant subscribers and confirm their ongoing interest.
- Analyze Deeper Engagement Data: Routinely analyze data beyond open rates, focusing on click-through rates, conversion data, and website activity to accurately gauge true subscriber engagement and identify inactivity.
- Establish a Sunset Policy: Formalize a clear policy for the timely suppression or removal of subscribers who consistently fail to engage after re-engagement efforts, safeguarding sender reputation and deliverability.
- Segment for Targeted Strategies: Segment your subscriber list based on demonstrated levels of engagement to apply tailored communication strategies, ensuring valuable content reaches active users efficiently.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks explains that email opens are a mix of human interaction and programmatic requests, while non-openers represent unengaged subscribers, image blockers, or those whose emails are not pre-cached by mailbox providers. He suggests treating non-openers in other channels to solicit engagement and that non-open data, while not based on human activity, can be more useful than open data.
13 Feb 2022 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource explains that email marketers should define inactivity based on their specific business, segment inactive subscribers, and implement re-engagement campaigns. He advises that if re-engagement efforts fail, unengaged subscribers should be suppressed or removed from the active mailing list to protect sender reputation. He also notes that some "opens" may be due to security scans, suggesting a focus on clicks and conversions for true engagement.
3 Feb 2023 - Spam Resource
What the documentation says
5 technical articles
To effectively manage inactive subscribers, especially given the prevalence of proxy opens, email marketers must fundamentally reassess their definition of engagement. With open rates no longer reliable indicators, the emphasis must shift to genuine interactions such as clicks, conversions, and direct replies, as these are the metrics ISPs prioritize for sender reputation. Developing automation to identify truly unengaged contacts based on these deeper behaviors is crucial. Following this, a structured re-engagement process, culminating in the suppression of consistently unresponsive subscribers, becomes vital for maintaining list hygiene and optimizing deliverability, ensuring resources are directed towards genuinely interested audiences.
Key findings
- Proxy Opens Mask Inactivity: Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) creates "proxy opens" that falsely indicate engagement, making open rates unreliable for identifying truly inactive subscribers.
- ISP Focus on Genuine Engagement: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mailbox providers primarily value actual engagement signals, like clicks, conversions, and direct replies, when determining sender reputation, rendering proxy opens irrelevant for deliverability.
- Shift to Actionable Metrics: Marketers must shift their analytical focus from misleading open rates to more reliable indicators of engagement, such as click-through rates, website visits, and purchase activity, to accurately gauge subscriber activity.
- Automated Inactivity Management: Effective strategies involve leveraging marketing automation platforms to identify inactive subscribers based on specific behavioral criteria beyond opens, streamlining re-engagement and list hygiene efforts.
- List Hygiene Crucial for Reputation: Regular cleaning of unengaged contacts and suppressing those who don't genuinely interact, even if they show proxy opens, is essential to prevent spam traps and protect sender reputation, improving overall deliverability.
Key considerations
- Realign Inactivity Definitions: Update your internal definition of an "inactive subscriber" to explicitly exclude open rates, instead relying on the absence of clicks, conversions, or other tangible interactions over a defined period.
- Prioritize Behavioral Tracking: Invest in tracking and analyzing metrics beyond opens, such as click-through rates, website activity linked to email, and direct replies, to gain an accurate understanding of subscriber engagement.
- Automate Lifecycle Management: Implement automation flows that identify subscribers based on a lack of genuine engagement, initiate a re-engagement series, and automatically suppress or remove contacts who remain unresponsive.
- Regularly Purge Disengaged Contacts: Establish and adhere to a strict schedule for list cleaning, suppressing or removing subscribers who consistently fail to engage after re-engagement efforts, to maintain a healthy sender reputation and avoid deliverability issues.
- Educate Stakeholders on Proxy Opens: Ensure all relevant marketing and analytics teams understand that proxy opens from MPP distort open rates and that alternative engagement metrics are paramount for strategic decision-making.
Technical article
Documentation from HubSpot Blog/Knowledge Base explains that Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) causes proxy opens, making open rates unreliable for identifying inactive subscribers. Marketers should shift focus to other engagement metrics like clicks, conversions, and direct replies to accurately segment and manage truly inactive users.
12 Jul 2024 - HubSpot Blog/Knowledge Base
Technical article
Documentation from SendGrid Documentation shares that inactive subscribers, regardless of proxy opens, can negatively impact sender reputation. It recommends regular list cleaning and suppressing unengaged contacts to avoid spam traps and improve overall deliverability, emphasizing that phantom 'opens' do not constitute genuine engagement for deliverability purposes.
7 Jan 2022 - SendGrid Documentation
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