An Email Players subscriber (not sure he wants me naming him) asked me about “unengaged contacts.”
Like, for example, people who haven’t opened or clicked an email in 3 years.
The question is what do I do, delete them?
My advice to him:
“No, I don’t do any of that. People don’t even know who is really engaging or not, as tracking is extremely unreliable — not just open stats but even clicks. Bots literally scan emails and register as clicks these days in some cases. What I do is, I keep them all on, and do periodic list scrubs. A good list scrub finds the problem emails a lot better in my opinion, without getting rid of people, customers, buyers, on your list, throwing them out with the bathwater. For example: I just bought $300 or so in product from a company, in bulk, that has sent me emails saying I never engage and they are taking me off the list. I just didn’t buy anything from their links, and I have images turned off, so I am not tracked as opens. But I’m a buyer and I guarantee I’m not the only one. We live in crazy times.”
To which my subscriber responded:
That makes sense. My Stoopid CRM recommends not sending to anyone who hasn’t opened in 60 days and counts them as “unengaged contacts”.
That’s like HALF the flipping list.
I had the toggle turned off for this “feature” but was toying with the idea of not sending to people unengaged for 3+ years.
But then, I know from experience sometimes people buy from me after ignoring emails and not engaging for years.
Crazy times indeed.
This is why I ignore what ESP employees say about email.
The only exception is if the guy giving advice uses email every day in their own business, to sell their own offers, to their own lists — not their clients lists, or parroting data from someone else’s list, but their own lists.
i.e., Post Bizeek.
Otherwise you very well might be doing the equivalent of taking health advice from a fat, wheezing doctor who has to hold his breath to tie his own shoes.
All right, so that is that.
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Ben Settle
