When Email Addresses Go Stale
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About Inactive and Stale Addresses
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To get the most subscriber engagement and the best return on investment for your email marketing, it's important to manage stale and inactive addresses. Stale addresses are subscribers who you haven't emailed recently. Inactive subscribers are people you've sent to, but who haven't opened your emails in a while.
In this article, you'll learn the difference between stale addresses and inactive subscribers, and what to do with each type.
Definitions
- Stale address
An address that you haven't emailed in a long time. Subscribers may not remember you when there's a big gap in your email marketing sends, and their email addresses may no longer be valid. - Inactive subscriber
A subscriber with a valid address that you've sent to recently, but who hasn't opened or clicked your emails. Inactive subscribers can be valuable because you may be able to win back their interest and earn revenue from them.
Reconfirm stale addresses
Audiences with a lot of stale addresses can lead to high bounce rates, spam complaints, and unsubscribes. We recommend that you delete or reconfirm stale addresses. A cleaner audience helps improve your deliverability and engagement with the people who really want to hear from you.
Learn how to reconfirm stale addresses.
Re-engage inactive subscribers
Inactive subscribers who don't open and click your emails may look like they're ignoring you, but that's not always the case. Low open and click rates can't tell you if a customer is still engaging with your brand in person or elsewhere online. For example, if you often send promotions and coupons to subscribers, some people may not open the email until they need a coupon later on.
Send re-engagement emails to your inactive subscribers to win them back. If subscribers remain inactive after you try to re-engage them, consider archiving them.
Learn how to identify and segment your inactive subscribers.
Learn how to re-engage inactive subscribers.
Learn how to archive inactive subscribers.
Examples of stale and inactive addresses
| Inactive | Stale |
|---|---|
| A subscriber signed up a few months ago, but hasn't clicked one of your emails yet. | You have an audience that you sent emails to regularly in the past, but haven't used it in a long time. |
| A subscriber's open rate, click rate, or contact rating has dropped lately. | You collected business cards at a trade show a few years ago, but haven't emailed the contacts yet. |
| A customer in your audience bought a large order from your online store last year, but they haven't opened your last 5 emails. | You have an audience of customers that you gathered a year and a half ago, but haven't emailed yet. |
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