What is the best way to convince management not to email inactive subscribers?
Summary
What email marketers say13Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor shares that focusing on engaged users can improve email metrics and overall campaign performance. Send emails to people who want to see them.
Email marketer from HubSpot shares the importance of segmenting email lists to avoid sending emails to inactive subscribers. They explain that targeting engaged users leads to higher open rates and better deliverability.
Email marketer from Mailchimp explains regularly cleaning email lists by removing inactive subscribers improves sender reputation and deliverability. They note that sending to inactive users can negatively impact deliverability rates.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that sending to inactives is a waste of resources. Time, money, and reputation are better spent nurturing active subscribers.
Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that sending to a small segment of unengaged subscribers to measure response compared to engaged subscribers will help inform the decision making process.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that inactive subscribers will be confused and mark emails as spam. This will hurt the rest of deliverability to interested parties and future campaigns.
Email marketer from StackExchange explains that it's better to cut the losses of inactive subscribers and focus on growing and maintainig a healthy engaged list, rather than damaging it with low open and click through rates.
Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that mailbox providers don't care about legitimate interest. Sending to the whole non-engaged cohort in one go is a bad idea, especially when rebuilding reputation.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares the unengaged segment is often seen as a treasure trove of new sales, but this segment always lurks in the background and becomes a burden. Marketers need to learn to part with this segment before it destroys their sending reputation, otherwise, it will always be a case of "This mail will reactivate them..."
Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that emailing inactive contacts creates long-term list health issues for your email marketing program, and can result in lower deliverability to your active users over time. Avoid damaging the ability to connect with customers who want to engage.
Email marketer from Litmus explains that sending emails to inactive subscribers can reduce your overall deliverability and decrease revenue. Focus on high-quality subscribers.
Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog explains that focusing on engaging active users yields better results than trying to re-engage inactive ones. By concentrating resources on those who are already interested, companies can maximize their ROI and see a more positive impact on their bottom line.
Email marketer from Quora explains that spam complaints from inactive subscribers can damage future email campaigns. The deliverability of future campaigns is reduced and so it hurts legitimate users.
What the experts say9Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource suggests convincing management by demonstrating the costs associated with sending to inactive subscribers, including wasted resources, reduced deliverability, and potential damage to sender reputation. A cost-benefit analysis showing the negative ROI of emailing inactives can be persuasive.
Expert from Email Geeks explains the problem is you probably can’t convince them they’re wrong. You can only give them the data they need to make the decision.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that sending to stale addresses is bad for deliverability. Demonstrating the risks and negative impact on deliverability is more effective than appealing to ethics or empathy.
Expert from Email Geeks explains it will take 3 to 6 months of consistent mailing to really wipe out a bad reputation and adding bad addresses will reset that timeline. Once reputation is high and inboxing is consistent, then add in old addresses in small increments.
Expert from Email Geeks asks to consider what benefit the company expects from mailing the inactives in dollars and what the risk is of reputation damage. They explain what dollar cost would occur if mailing inactives reduces inbox delivery.
Expert from Email Geeks explains the expense in person-hours and mental overhead of dealing with that segment every time, rather than just archiving it and moving on.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that pinballing reputation indicates they are not solid in their reputation, or that their reputation is right on the edge between high and medium.
Expert from Email Geeks shares if they make changes like adding inactives or worse adding in people who are getting the mail in their spam folder, that will tilt the balance against high.
Expert from Email Geeks shares sometimes you can't convince them, you can only warn them and put it in terms of risk. They recommend splitting dormant addresses into buckets based on when they were added and last engaged.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Spamhaus explains that sending to inactive subscribers can lead to being listed on their blocklists, which significantly harms email deliverability. They advise regularly cleaning email lists and focusing on engaged users.
Documentation from Validity explains that inactive subscribers can lead to increased spam complaints and thus push your email to the spam folder, and it can damage your sender reputation, also effecting active user deliverability. Feedback loops help keep on top of this.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools explains that high spam rates from sending to inactive users can negatively impact domain reputation. It emphasizes the importance of maintaining a clean and engaged email list to ensure optimal deliverability to Gmail users.
Documentation from Microsoft SNDS explains that sending to inactive subscribers can lead to low engagement and potential spam complaints, harming IP reputation. Maintaining good IP reputation is crucial for ensuring emails reach the inbox.