8 Reasons Why NOT to Send Emails to Unengaged Contacts

Negative Impact on Deliverability

Sending emails to unengaged contacts can hurt your email deliverability. When recipients consistently ignore or mark your emails as spam, it signals the email service providers (ESPs) that your messages may not be relevant or wanted by your subscribers. This can lead to your emails being filtered into the spam folder for all recipients, including the engaged ones.

Wasted Resources

Unengaged contacts cost you money and resources. By default, you're paying for email marketing services based on the number of contacts in your subscriber list. Sending emails to uninterested recipients is a waste of your marketing budget, as you're not likely to see a return on investment from these contacts.

Diminished Sender Reputation

A poor sender reputation can have long-lasting consequences. ESPs continuously evaluate your sender reputation based on factors like engagement rates, spam complaints, and bounce rates. Consistently emailing unengaged contacts can harm your sender score, making it harder to reach the inbox of engaged contacts.

Reduced Open Rates

Unengaged contacts are unlikely to open your emails, which can artificially lower your overall open rate. A lower open rate can make it more challenging to measure the true engagement of your email campaigns, as it's skewed by the inactivity of these contacts.

Unsubscribes and Complaints

When unengaged contacts receive emails they no longer want, they may choose to unsubscribe or mark your emails as spam. This not only hurts your sender reputation but also tarnishes your brand's image and could lead to legal compliance issues with email marketing regulations like the CAN-SPAM Act.

Missed Opportunities

By focusing on unengaged contacts, you may be missing out on opportunities to nurture and engage with potential customers who are genuinely interested in your products or services. Your time and resources could be better spent targeting those who are more likely to convert.

Quality Over Quantity

It's often more beneficial to have a smaller, engaged email list than a large one filled with uninterested recipients. A smaller list of engaged contacts is more likely to lead to higher conversion rates and a stronger return on investment. Ideally, this approach will support a better, more optimized growth marketing strategy.

Data Privacy and Consent

Continuing to send emails to unengaged contacts without their explicit consent may violate data privacy regulations, such as GDPR in Europe or the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States. Respecting user preferences and permissions is crucial for legal compliance and maintaining a positive brand reputation.

Final Thoughts

A concentrated effort on improving the health of your mailing lists will ensure you are able to reach your engaged audience. It will result in fewer bounced emails and ultimately show an overall increase in ROI. Continuing to send emails to unengaged contacts can harm your email marketing efforts in terms of deliverability, resource allocation, sender reputation, and customer relationships. It's generally a best practice to regularly clean your email list by removing unengaged contacts and focusing your efforts on nurturing and engaging with those who genuinely want to hear from you.

Additionally, you can accept the challenge of finding new ways to engage with this segment of your contacts. Just because they aren't responding to your recent emails doesn't mean they aren't interested in your services or products, it just means they are not responding to those specific communications. Try sending out a re-engagement campaign to your unengaged subscribers and see if you can renew their interest. If they still don't engage, then it's probably time to set them free. Let the cleansing begin.