Create subscriber segments for a re-engagement campaign

Part of maintaining a healthy mailing list involves regularly removing subscribers who have stopped opening your emails. In this article we'll explain how to segment inactive subscribers so you can send them a re-engagement campaign to ask if they're still interested. You can then remove those who are not.

Issues caused by inactive subscribers

Internet service providers (ISPs) take many things into consideration when deciding if your email will reach the inbox or not. One of these considerations is subscriber engagement, which can have an increasingly negative effect on your deliverability.

Disengaged subscribers result in low open rates, which sends a signal to ISPs that people don't want your emails. As a result, email providers can block or filter your future sends, leading to even more engagement issues because people who do want your content may no longer be receiving it.

Removing non-responsive addresses produces a higher quality list with a larger proportion of subscribers actively engaging. This results in a greater percentage of emails delivered to the inbox. You'll start to see more total unique opens with a smaller list, and also spend less money on unengaged contacts with low, or no, return.

Segment inactive subscribers

You can use list segmentation to identify subscribers who haven't opened your campaigns recently. To segment inactive subscribers:

1. Click Lists & subscribers, then select your list.
2. Click Segments in the left menu.
3. On the "Segments" page, click Create a new segment.
4. Click the Define a rule based on menu and select Specific campaign.
5. Choose was not opened as the condition, then select a recently sent campaign from the next dropdown list.
6. Click AND to add another "Specific campaign was not opened" rule for a different campaign. Repeat this step until you've covered a set period of time for inactivity, for example, 6-12 months.
   
7. Name the segment, then click Save and preview.

The total number of subscribers who match the segment will be displayed on the page, along with a sample of some of them. To view all of them, click the Export segment button to download a CSV file.

Send a re-engagement campaign

Now that you've isolated the inactive subscribers, send an email to that segment to reconfirm their interest. You'll be able to select the inactive segment when prompted to choose recipients for the re-engagement campaign.

What to put in the email

Make sure the email clearly explains who you are, and includes a reminder for recipients about how you got their email address. Other things you could include are: a special offer as incentive for people to stay, or a reminder for recipients of what they're missing.

The most important thing to include in your email is a clear call to action, for example, a button:

It's also important to make the reconfirmation process as simple as possible, ideally by asking recipients to click a single link to stay subscribed.

We recommend creating a confirmation landing page on your website, and linking to it from the call to action in your email. The confirmation page could simply say, "Thank you for confirming", or you might want to include a discount voucher code, or links to recently published content.

The click activity for your call to action is what you'll use to build another segment, as explained below. This will determine which subscribers to remove.

Remove inactive subscribers

After the re-engagement campaign has been sent — and you've given recipients time to respond — create a new segment to isolate those who didn't click the reconfirmation link, or who didn't open the email at all.

To segment subscribers who didn't respond:

1. Click Lists & subscribers, then select your list.
2. Click Segments in the left menu.
3. On the "Segments" page, click Create a new segment.
4. Click the Define a rule based on menu and select Specific campaign.
5. Choose was opened and did not have a specific link clicked as the condition.
6. Select your recently sent re-engagement campaign from the dropdown menu.
7. Select the reconfirmation link from the final dropdown menu.
8. Click OR to add another rule based on a Specific campaign.
9. Choose was not opened as the condition, then select the re-engagement campaign.
10. Name the segment, for example "Did not reconfirm", then click Save and preview.
11. Click Export segment to download all of the subscribers in a CSV file.

Next, follow our instructions for removing subscribers in bulk. We recommend choosing the "Remove these subscribers from all my lists" option (even if you only have one list) because this will also add them to your suppression list, which avoids accidentally importing them again in the future.