When to remove email addresses…

When to remove email addresses

We have developed a simple strategy to help you decide if, and when, to remove an email address from your opt-in list.

I recommend these 4 steps to establish which addresses are truly inactive, and which fall into the unemotionally subscribed group.

• Step 1 Start a reactivation campaign. Try to re-engage anyone who hasn’t opened an email for more than 6, or even 12 months.
• Step 2 Separate your lists. Anyone who still hasn’t opened an email after the reactivation campaign should be placed on a separate list to your active recipients.
• Step 3 Send the same email to each list and focus on activity. The active list will now show a truer representation of engagement and your results will not be dragged down by the dead email list. After every mailing (or month), move anyone who becomes active again to your active list, and anyone on the active list that now qualifies as inactive by your definition to the inactive list. You can now clearly identify how much revenue is generated by emailing the dead addresses versus how much it is costing you.
• Step 4 Analyze over time before deleting anyone. Within 6 to 12 months you’ll have a much better sense of how long you should continue to email an unresponsive email address before removing it from the list. We have generally found it to be the point at which almost every person who opens an email for the first time in a while goes on to unsubscribe.

So that’s the way we see it. What’s your view?

By Guest Expert.