Latest / The Email Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Newsletters, Open Rates, and Subscriber Growth / How Email Recency Killed My Open Rates
Transcript
- Lucas: Let’s talk about the silence in your inbox. Specifically, the kind of silence that used to mean you were doing something right, but now just means your subscribers are ignoring you. We’ve spent a lot of time on this network talking about how to get people to open emails, but today I want to talk about what happens after the fourth or fifth email in a week. Luna: Yeah, because at some point, the novelty wears off and it just feels like noise. Lucas: Exactly. It’s not just noise; it’s active resentment. There is a growing body of data suggesting that for many direct to consumer brands, the optimal send frequency isn’t daily or even weekly—it’s monthly or bi-weekly. And yet, every quarter, marketing teams feel this pressure to prove their worth by adding another touchpoint. Luna: It’s that vanity metric trap. Sending more feels like working harder, even if it drives engagement down. Lucas: Right. Let’s look at a concrete example from earlier this year. A mid-sized apparel retailer, let’s call them StyleShift, had a subscriber base of two million. They were sending five emails a week. Their open rates hovered around eighteen percent, which sounds healthy until you realize their click-through rate was sitting at one percent. They were burning through their list’s goodwill. Luna: So they were visible, but not valuable? Lucas: Precisely. They decided to cut their send frequency in half. Instead of five emails, they went to two high-quality newsletters per month. Within three months, their open rates didn’t just stabilize—they jumped to twenty-four percent. But here is the real kicker: their revenue per recipient increased by thirty-two percent. Luna: That is a massive jump. Did they change the content, or was it just the spacing out? Lucas: It was mostly the spacing, but with a constraint. Because they only had two slots a month, they couldn’t send those low-effort promotional blasts anymore. Every email had to be genuinely interesting. So the content improved automatically because the volume dropped. It forced editorial discipline. Luna: I see. So the scarcity of the slot made the value higher. That makes sense psychologically. Lucas: It does. Think about your own inbox. When you get an email from a brand every Tuesday and Thursday, you stop reading it. You scan the subject line, decide it’s sales, and archive it. But when you get one good newsletter a month, you actually sit down and read it. You treat it like a magazine article rather than a flyer. Luna: Yeah, I definitely do that. I ignore the daily deal sites instantly, but I keep the ones I actually respect. Lucas: That is the difference between being a utility and being a nuisance. And this brings us to the concept of 'inbox share.' Your subscribers don’t have unlimited attention. If a brand takes up too much space, other brands get pushed out—or worse, the whole channel gets devalued. Luna: So you’re saying that by sending less, you’re actually protecting the value of every single email you do send? Lucas: Yes. And there is a financial argument for this, too. Let’s look at the cost of customer acquisition. If you are paying fifty dollars to acquire a subscriber, and you spam them into unsubscribing in six months, you have wasted that entire investment. By sending less, you extend the lifespan of that subscriber relationship. Luna: Which lowers the effective cost per acquisition over time. It’s a longer game. Lucas: Exactly. But it requires a shift in mindset. Most marketing leaders are evaluated on short-term activity—how many emails did we send? How many clicks did we generate this week? They aren’t rewarded for long-term retention. So they keep pushing volume. Luna: It’s easy to measure volume. Harder to measure the patience it takes to wait for quality. Lucas: Right. And then there is the deliverability angle. Internet service providers and email clients like Gmail and Outlook track engagement metrics very closely. If you send too many emails and people mark them as spam or delete them immediately, your domain reputation drops. Suddenly, your important transactional emails—the receipts, the password resets—are going to the spam folder. Luna: Oh, that is dangerous. Because nobody sees a receipt and realizes it went to junk until it’s too late. Lucas: It’s catastrophic for trust. If a customer doesn’t get their order confirmation, they think you scammed them. So, by reducing promotional volume, you actually protect the technical health of your email infrastructure. It’s a defensive move that pays off offensively. Luna: So less is literally better for the tech side, too? Lucas: For sure. Now, I know what some of our listeners might be thinking. 'But Lucas, if I stop sending, my competitors will just take my customers.' That is a valid fear. But here is the counter-intuitive part: if your competitor is spamming your shared audience, they are training that audience to ignore emails. You become the calm voice in the chaos. Luna: You become the signal in the noise. People crave quiet. Lucas: They do. And we are seeing this play out in other channels, too. Newsletters like The Athletic or Substack publications that send once a day are finding it hard to maintain momentum. The ones that send weekly or bi-weekly often have higher completion rates. Readers want to consume content, not be fed it constantly. Luna: It’s about respecting the reader’s time. Which brings me back to that StyleShift example. Did they try to compensate for lower volume by making the emails longer? Lucas: No, actually. They kept them concise. About eight hundred words. But they added more personalization. Since they weren’t blasting the same generic promo to everyone, they could segment based on past purchases. If you bought running shoes last month, you got tips on trail running. If you bought winter coats, you got care instructions. Luna: That changes the dynamic completely. It’s no longer a broadcast; it’s a conversation. Lucas: Exactly. And that personalization costs money and engineering resources. It’s easier to send one blast to two million people. It’s harder to write two great emails tailored to different segments. But the return on investment is so much higher. Luna: I guess the real question for businesses is: are you optimizing for your convenience or for your customer’s experience? Lucas: That is the core issue. Most companies optimize for their convenience. It’s easy to schedule a campaign. It’s hard to curate a thoughtful message. But in 2026, curation is the premium product. Luna: So, if you’re listening to this and you’re sending daily emails, maybe it’s time to pause and audit your list. Lucas: Definitely. Try cutting your frequency by half for a quarter. See what happens to your engagement. And while you are doing that, make sure you are cleaning your list. Remove the inactive subscribers. Don’t pay for storage space for people who don’t care. Luna: Clean lists, fewer emails, higher value. It sounds simple, but it’s hard to execute. Lucas: It is. It requires confidence. You have to believe that your content is strong enough to stand alone, without needing constant repetition to stay top of mind. Luna: And that belief is usually backed by data. Once you see those open rates climb, it’s hard to go back. Lucas: Exactly. Before we wrap up, I want to mention something about support. If these conversations about marketing strategy have sparked something you’ve actually used in your own work, consider buying me a coffee. It helps keep the show ad-free and independent. The link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Thanks for supporting the work. It really does help us dig deeper into these topics. Lucas: Anytime. Now, back to the data. One last thing on the StyleShift case. After they reduced frequency, they noticed something else. Their unsubscribe rate dropped by forty percent. Luna: Wow. Forty percent is huge. Lucas: It is. Because people weren’t getting annoyed, they stayed subscribed. Even if they weren’t clicking every time, they remained in the ecosystem. And when a big sale came along, they were still there to receive it. It preserved the optionality of the relationship. Luna: Preserving the relationship is key. You never know when that person will be ready to buy again. Lucas: Right. So, the lesson is not just about sending less. It’s about respecting the boundary. In a world where every app wants your attention, giving someone the gift of their own inbox is a powerful brand signal. Luna: It positions you as a partner, not a pest. Lucas: Exactly. And that partnership is what drives long-term revenue. Not the quick hit of a daily push notification. So, next time you plan your email calendar, ask yourself: do I need to send this, or do I just want to feel busy? Luna: A good question to end on. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. I’ll leave you with this thought: the most valuable real estate in marketing isn’t your inbox—it’s your subscriber’s trust. Spend it wisely.