JBA Central Blog System

We know how hard you work to increase your subscribers, and we've long touted the benefits of a large mailing list. But are you aware that lengthy mailing lists that continue to grow unchecked can adversely affect the data used to measure email marketing success?

Research has shown that open rates, click-through rates and conversion rates are the most valuable metrics when assessing email performance. "Dead weight subscribers" who receive your emails, but hardly ever open or interact with them, have a negative impact on these key variables simply by remaining on your list. They also make it more difficult to test the success of different email strategies (like subject lines), as these types of subscribers can skew your results.

Understandably, many people are hesitant to delete any addresses from their list unless an explicit unsubscribe request has been made. With this in mind, a less permanent approach is to filter all of the inactive subscribers into a separate email list. This way, the overall number of subscribers remains the same and the same content can be delivered to everyone, but the segmented list of inactive recipients will have its metrics reported separately from the main list. You can also use this as an opportunity to target inactive subscribers with things like surveys (to find out why they may have lost interest in your emails) or even special "We want you back!" coupons.

A smaller email list comprised of actively engaged subscribers should deliver improved email metrics, and can be attained without taking that dreaded step of deleting addresses.