Managing inactive recipients
Over time, recipients in your mailing lists can become inactive: i.e. recipients who no longer open or click on your emails for a given period of time. There are two ways to manage these inactive recipients:
- Create a re-engagement campaign and try to "win-back" those inactive recipients in your mailing lists. View this section on how to setup a re-engagement campaign.
- Setup the inactive recipient management section, covered below and introduced with MailUp 8.2.1
Using the Inactive recipients management features
The inactive recipient management section allows you to disengage those recipients who did not respond to your prior re-engagement campaign(s).
- The advantage of disengaging (and ultimately unsubscribing) these inactive recipients is that you clean your mailing lists and improve your overall email & engagement metrics. There are 3 steps in this process:
Step 1: Reduce mailing frequency
Some of your subscribers may be receiving too many emails and ultimately disengage from your messages. Limiting the number of sent emails to inactive recipients increases the likelihood that they'll open one of your emails. The logic is that your recipients are more inclined to open your emails since there are fewer of them in the recipients' inbox.
A good practice is to create a triggered email ( Marketing+ > Triggered messages) notifying those subscribers that you'll be reducing mailing frequency. The Event trigger is setup with the condition to send the email if 90 days pass since their last click or open (as seen below). The copy of the triggered email can be something in the lines of "We've seen that lately you've shown little interest in our emails. For now, we're going to send you fewer emails and try to make or emails more relevant to you!"
Step 2: Attempt to re-engage or unsubscribe
This feature automatically sends the Email to inactive recipients (i.e. the ultimatum email with a clear call to action: either to remain in your mailing list or to unsubscribe). Typically, you can see a 3-5% increase in subscriber engagement. This is a low percentage because we're talking about an already inactive audience. To modify the email message click on Edit or Preview. For more info view this section.
To track the subscriber engagement more accurately, the Email to inactive recipients should contain web-links (e.g. a call-to-action) or images:
- Links in your email allow you to track the number of clicks and clicking subscribers.
- Images that are downloaded into the email allow for a more accurate open rate (this is because the "click here to download images" feature in email clients is tracked)
Step 3: Unsubscribe recipient
Inactive recipients in this category will be unsubscribed. These recipients have had multiple opportunities to engage with your emails, however they have declined them all. There is no incentive for you to have these recipients in your mailing list and the system will automatically unsubscribe them. Having a cleaner (albeit smaller) mailing size will improve your engagement metrics, as shown in this case study by Marketing Sherpa.
