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Identifying Inactive Subscribers

As mentioned earlier in this paper, identifying inactive subscribers is not a straight-forward task. But with inactive rates estimated between 30 and 50 percent, or even higher on older lists, it is imperative that you periodically purge the inactive subscribers on your list.

Subscribers are most active within the first three months; and, over the lifetime of your list, it is very easy to identify who your active subscribers are. What is more difficult is determining which subscribers are still listening but not opening with images enabled or clicking on the messages and which ones have tuned out completely but haven’t unsubscribed from your list. Your ESP will be able to help you with this task if you need it, but it is simply a matter of mining your data. Using the reporting tools in your ESP, you can build a report of the subscribers who have opened at least one of your emails in the pre-determined timeframe you have set for your business, then just run that report against the entire list to identify the subscribers that have received but haven’t opened a single message. Then, reach out to those subscribers with a re-engagement campaign. The subscribers who respond to the re-engagement campaign should remain on your list and the ones that do not should be removed.