How long should I exclude unengaged email subscribers to improve deliverability?
Summary
What email marketers say11Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Litmus Blog explains before excluding unengaged subscribers, implement a re-engagement campaign. Send targeted emails with special offers or incentives to encourage them to re-subscribe. If they don't respond after a few attempts, remove them from your active list.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum answers that they typically suppress non-responders after 4-6 months of inactivity. They then try a win-back campaign and if still no response after 1 month, they are removed.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that excluding unengaged users is critical for good deliverability, and the user may have to sunset a good portion of them after getting deliverability squared away and implementing a re-engagement campaign. Depending on email frequency, excluding them for shorter than a year might be considered.
Email marketer from HubSpot Blog answers that regularly cleaning your email list by removing unengaged subscribers (those who haven't opened or clicked in 6-12 months) is crucial for maintaining a healthy sender reputation. They suggest implementing a sunset policy to automatically remove these contacts.
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor answers that creating a 'sunset policy' is key and helps automatically remove unengaged subscribers. They suggest defining 'unengaged' based on your audience (e.g., no opens in 6-12 months) and setting up a process to automatically remove them.
Email marketer from Sendinblue Blog shares that it's important to first try to re-engage inactive subscribers using targeted campaigns. If they remain unengaged after several attempts over a period of 30-60 days, they should be suppressed to protect sender reputation.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that they exclude unengaged subscribers (no opens in 6 months) for at least one quarter (3 months) to see significant improvements in deliverability. They also advise segmenting and targeting based on engagement levels.
Email marketer from Email on Acid Blog shares that cleaning your email list regularly is essential for maintaining a good sender reputation. They suggest removing subscribers who haven't opened or clicked an email in the last 9-12 months.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares it took them about 100 days to go from bad to consistently good reputation on lists of 100-300K by removing all the non-engagers, resulting in a smaller list, better deliverability, and higher engagement.
Email marketer from SuperOffice answers that regularly cleaning and segmenting your email list helps reduce spam complaints and improve deliverability. They recommend removing unengaged subscribers who haven't interacted with your emails in the last 6-12 months.
Email marketer from MailerLite Blog explains that a good practice is to suppress unengaged subscribers for at least 3-6 months. This allows the sender reputation to recover and improve deliverability. They suggest implementing a re-engagement campaign before permanently removing subscribers.
What the experts say2Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise answers that maintaining good list hygiene by regularly removing unengaged subscribers is essential for deliverability. While the exact timeframe varies, removing subscribers who haven't engaged in 6-12 months is generally recommended.
Expert from Spamresource details the importance of handling bounced emails immediately and removing the address. They note if you do not remove or suppress hard bounces right away, ISPs will assume you don't care about list hygiene and begin reducing your sending reputation, hurting deliverability.
What the documentation says3Technical articles
Documentation from RFC-Editor details standards and best practices for email headers. Include an email unsubscribe link so that unengaged users can easily remove themselves without being forced to send your mail straight to the spam folder.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools explains that keeping your email list up-to-date and removing inactive users is crucial for maintain high deliverability. If users aren't engaging with your emails, Google recommends reducing the sending frequency or unsubscribing them completely.
Documentation from Microsoft Docs answers that regularly removing unengaged subscribers can increase deliverability. Microsoft states that mail that is consistently sent to people who don't want it is wasteful and can impact the sending reputation.