This popular list cleaning “best practice” has been making rounds for years now:
You set an automatic threshold for disengaged subscribers. If a subscriber reaches this threshold, they’re either unsubscribed immediately or sent to a re-engagement sequence to “wake them up”. If it’s the latter, and by the end of this re-engagement sequence there’s no response/engagement from said subscriber, they’ll get unsubscribed automatically.
Sounds simple and logical, right?
I used to subscribe to this approach too (ha!) because I thought it was the only one out there, or the only effective one.
I was wrong.
18 months ago in Valencia, my very first stop in my nomad journey, I listened to a podcast with Dela Quist, a marketing veteran who started using emails as a marketing channel before the bro marketers were even physically able to raise their sleazy heads.
Listening to his experiment with subscriber management opened my eyes and changed everything I thought I knew about list hygiene.
So here’s my beef with the popular approach, as of Q4 2024:
Email engagement is tough these days. What is “engagement”, really? Are we talking opens? Clicks? Replies? The first two have been becoming less reliable because of privacy (Apple MPP) and security features (inbox firewalls/anti-spam filters) in the last couple of years. Replies are harder to get. If your Email Service Provider, AKA ESP, records this information inaccurately (which is common), how can you know who’s a dormant subscriber and who isn’t? Do you have other tools to cross-check your email stats?
How do you set that engagement threshold and how strict is it? Some brands are super strict and set it at 30 days. Some Email Service Providers will even recommend a threshold - usually around the 60 to 90-day mark. As usual, that recommendation is based on a general average across multiple industries. Some other brands will set the bar at 6 months. So what’s the “right” engagement threshold for your brand, if at all?
Say that your ESP records engagement correctly 100% of the time (lucky you), if a dormant subscriber hasn’t engaged with your ongoing emails and you send them to a re-engagement sequence, the odds of them re-engaging in a week to a month (usually the timeframe those automations are set for) are slim. Not none, but slim.
Many of those re-engagement sequences are set up incorrectly. So subscribers may get the ongoing newsletters/promotion emails AND the re-engagement sequence. I’ve also seen such automations running multiple times without unsubscribing the user at the end of them (see the picture below from my own spam folder). Too many conflicting messages, too many asks, too many tech glitches - no bueno. Remember: divide and conquer, and you gotta test it.
Many of those re-engagement emails ask for too much from dormant subscribers. Hypothetically, a reply is the most reliable type of engagement - but that’s a hard ask even from a highly engaged subscriber!
And I saved the best for last:
Even if people don’t engage with your emails for a while, because they’re too busy and life happens, but they see you frequently in their inbox and occasionally in other channels - your emails can be an important contributing factor to them converting into paying customers. People can also be “dormant” for a while and then become engaged again, months or years later. Unsubscribing them because they didn’t engage (inset your definition of engagement) with your emails for 1/2/3 months can cost you sales.
Think about it - your customers are pulled in different directions almost every second of every single day. Their decision-making process can take longer and only after seeing a message, repeatedly, on multiple marketing channels.
The saying used to go that people need to see a message 7 times before purchasing from a brand, and now some people say that number is closer to 77.
And let’s not forget that it’s up to 5 times more costly to acquire a new customer (or subscriber, for that matter) than retaining an existing one.
Think of how many people are no longer hearing from you today because they took the summer off, weren’t checking their promotions inbox, and your automation scrubbed them off.
That’s fewer people being exposed to your solutions, promotions, and impact, all for the sake of having a high open rate.
You may say: “I don’t want people on my list who aren’t ready to, at the very least, engage with my emails.” And I hear you.
But you never know what the person on the other side is going through, or when they’ll be ready to invest in your solution.
The decision-making process isn’t linear.
So it’s your responsibility to maximize your chances of converting your subscribers by showing up in their inboxes and reminding them how you can help them solve their problems.
(The equation is never “more emails = more money”. It’s “more relevant, timely emails = more money”).
So what’s the alternative approach to keeping your list clean and your deliverability pristine?
Engagement tiers.
You can use two or three and define the threshold for entering or leaving each one.
And it’s all automated, so if someone becomes more active, they will jump automatically to the higher engagement tier (or the other way around).
That way, you’re still in front of your people, so whenever they choose to buy, your brand and solution will stay top of mind.
(AND you can still boast about the open rates of your top engagement tier!)
There are, of course, three downsides to this approach:
You’ll have more subscribers on your ESP. And as most ESPs charge based on how many active contacts you have, that can become costly.
The different segments will require different treatments. In some cases, it’ll be as simple as sending similar emails, but more or less frequently to each tier. In other cases, it can mean sending different emails to each engagement tier.
That approach does mean that you’ll send more emails, which could mean a higher carbon footprint (depending on your ESP and other systems).
As always, there’s no one-size-fits-all. It all depends on your brand, needs, resources… I could go on.
This approach may not even be relevant to your list!
But at the very least, I want you to know that you don’t have to use the popular approach if it’s not right for your brand and people.
Whenever you're ready to step up your email game, and generate more revenue and impact with it, here's how I can help:
1. A one-off consultation - get a quick fix to your email marketing. Great for optimizing existing automations or coming up with a new one, or for any burning email-related questions: https://www.ethicalemails.co/email-strategy-consultation
2. A VIP strategy day - Want to understand how to convert more of your subscribers in a day? Let's workshop the most important aspects of your email strategy in the next 3-6 months. You'll get a tailored plan for your email ecosystem to increase your email conversions and impact. Psst, the investment can pay for itself in less than a month!:
*This post was originally shared as a newsletter with my subscribers. They get all the good stuff, the deep dives, the practical tips and resources, and the BTS of my nomadic life directly to their inboxes - either exclusively or before anyone else. Wanna join too?
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