Introduction
When it comes to email deliverability, not all contacts are created equal. Your email marketing strategy should reflect this. Segmenting your audience based on their engagement levels allows you to tailor your email cadence and content, maximizing deliverability and giving your contacts the best experience. It all starts with a hierarchy of engagement.
TL;DR: Segment your email list by engagement levels to improve deliverability and subscriber experience. Highly engaged contacts get frequent, personalized content, while low-engagement and dormant subscribers receive fewer emails or re-engagement campaigns. Use an email sunset policy to gradually suppress unengaged contacts, protecting your sender reputation and avoiding spam penalties.
Establishing a Hierarchy of Engagement
Use this common framework to segment your list based on their engagement levels.
Tier 1: Highly Engaged (Champions/Power Users)
- Definition: Open most emails, click frequently, visit your website, potentially make purchases or actively use your product/service.
- Cadence: Your most frequent send schedule. These contacts want to hear from you and are least likely to be marked as spam.
- Content: Exclusive offers, new product announcements, in-depth content, beta programs, personalized recommendations.
Tier 2: Moderately Engaged (Regular Readers)
- Definition: Open a good portion of emails, click occasionally, show consistent interest.
- Cadence: Regular send schedule, perhaps slightly less frequent than Tier 1.
- Content: General newsletters, valuable blog posts, product updates, standard promotions.
Tier 3: Low Engagement (Passive Subscribers)
- Definition: Open emails infrequently, rarely click, may have signed up for a one-off resource.
- Cadence: Reduced frequency. You’re trying to keep them on the list without risking deliverability. Maybe once a month or bi-monthly.
- Content: High-value content, “best of” summaries, special invitations to exclusive events that might pique their interest.
Tier 4: Unengaged (Dormant)
- Definition: Have not opened or clicked on any emails in a significant period (e.g., 6 months to a year), but haven’t actively opted out.
- Cadence: Subject to re-engagement campaigns (as described in “Suppressions & Sunsetting”). If no re-engagement, then move to suppression.
- Content: Re-engagement campaigns.
Implementing an Email Sunset Policy
An email sunset policy is a strategy and process of gradually reducing the frequency of emails to unengaged subscribers and eventually removing them from your active mailing list. This protects your sender reputation by demonstrating that you are only sending to an engaged audience.
Sending emails to unengaged contacts is detrimental to your sender reputation. ISPs track engagement metrics (opens, clicks) to determine whether your emails are valued by recipients. Continuing to send to those who consistently ignore your messages signals that your content isn’t relevant, and your emails are more likely to be sent to spam.
Recommendations for Suppressions and Sunsetting:
- Define “Unengaged”: Establish clear criteria for lack of engagement is a key element of an effective email sunset policy. A common definition is a contact who has not opened or clicked on any email in a significant period (e.g., 6 months to 1 year), despite receiving a reasonable number of emails from you.
- Last-Ditch Re-engagement Campaign: Before fully sunsetting, consider a targeted re-engagement campaign for your unengaged segment.
- Subject Lines: Use compelling subject lines that explicitly ask for engagement (“Do you still want to hear from us?”, “Don’t miss out!”).
- Content: Offer exclusive content, a special discount, or simply ask for their preferences.
- Call to Action: Make it very clear what action they need to take to remain on your list.
- Frequency: Send 1-3 emails over a short period (e.g., 1-2 weeks).
- Automated Suppression: If a contact doesn’t respond to the re-engagement campaign, automatically move them to a suppression list. These contacts should no longer receive regular marketing emails.
- Hard Suppression After 1 Year of Inactivity (or sooner): For contacts who have received a significant number of opportunities (e.g., 20+ emails) but have not opened anything in a year, it’s highly recommended to permanently suppress them from all future marketing communications. They are actively hurting your deliverability.
Summary
Effective email deliverability relies on understanding and acting on subscriber engagement. By creating a hierarchy of engagement—from highly engaged “champions” to completely dormant contacts—you can tailor email frequency and content to match interest levels. Implementing an email sunset policy ensures unengaged subscribers are gradually removed after targeted re-engagement attempts, safeguarding your sender reputation. This approach maximizes engagement, keeps your list healthy, and prevents emails from being flagged as spam.
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