Permission is the cornerstone of building a good sender reputation.
- Subscribers complain about mail they are not expecting to receive.
- Are you sending more frequently than you said you would?
- Did they sign up for exactly what they are receiving?
- Are you sending content other than what you said you would?
- Are you following best practices by staying up on the Can-Spam Act and the CASAL laws?
Why is Engagement Important?
ISPs track how engaged subscribers are with an email and its sender, and the nature of the engagement.
- Positive actions may include opening a message, adding an email address to the contact list, clicking through links, clicking to enable images, and read rate such as scrolling through the message.
- Negative actions may include reporting the email as spam, deleting it, moving it to the junk folder, or ignoring it.
- Engagement ratings are another compelling reason to use only opt-in or confirmed opt-in email marketing lists. Opt-in maximizes the likelihood of engagement, because in theory there is a relationship already established with the receiver.
Remember Quality always wins out over Quantity.
- There is a charge for the volume you send. If the message is never opened that cost is wasted.
- Lower ROI when including disengaged subscribers in your campaigns.
- Disengaged subscribers are the common cause of complaints, spam traps, hard bounces which can affect deliverability/inbox placement to Engaged subscribers which lower your ROI.
- Run regular re-engagement campaigns to win back the disengaged subscribers.
- Send to the disengaged subscribers less frequently than engaged subscribers.
How to Keep your List Highly Engaged
- Send relevant content to engaged subscribers.
- Set subscribers’ expectations from the beginning.
- Give people who opt- in to your subscription lists choices on how often they’ll receive emails from you (e.g., once daily, a weekly digest, as items become available or go on sale). If you send infrequently, make that clear. Ask them to whitelist you as they opt-in.
- Deploy a good onboarding program educating them on expectations.
- Keep your lists clean.
- Begin with your registration forms. If you have the option to block spammy, personal, or role-based email addresses, do so.
- As your lists age, weed out non engaged subscribers.