Latest / The Email Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Newsletters, Open Rates, and Subscriber Growth / How Email Throttling Improves Subscriber Experience
Transcript
- Lucas: There's this counterintuitive idea in email marketing that the more you send to your most engaged subscribers, the more they'll ignore you. And I've got the data to back it up. Luna: I love that. Because on paper, you'd think your most loyal readers want to hear from you every day. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the trap. A lot of marketers see high open rates from their best segment and think, 'Oh, they want more.' So they increase frequency. But what actually happens is inbox fatigue sets in slowly, then all at once. Luna: I've experienced that myself. I subscribe to a handful of newsletters I genuinely like, but if they email me twice a day, I start archiving without reading. Lucas: Right. So today we're talking about email throttling — the deliberate, data-backed reduction of send frequency to your top segments. And I want to ground this in a real case I came across from a mid-size e-commerce brand. They sell outdoor gear, think camping and hiking. Their email list had about 150,000 subscribers, and their most engaged quartile was getting five emails a week. Luna: Five a week? That's a lot for outdoor gear. Lucas: It was. And their open rates for that segment had dropped from 45% to 32% over six months. So they decided to test a throttle: they cut that segment down to three emails a week — still a solid cadence — and measured the impact over 60 days. Luna: What happened? Lucas: Open rates bounced back to 38% — a six-point gain — and click-through rates went up by 12%. But here's the kicker: unsubscribe rates from that segment dropped by almost half. Luna: That's fascinating. They actually preserved their list by sending less. Lucas: Exactly. The psychology is simple: when something appears in your inbox less often, each message feels more important. You're not competing with yourself for attention. Luna: So how do you identify which subscribers to throttle? It can't just be everyone who opens a lot. Lucas: Great question. The best approach is to build a composite engagement score. You factor in recency of last open, click frequency, purchase history, and even email replies or survey responses. The brand I mentioned used a simple three-tier system. Tier one: active in the last 30 days, opened at least 4 of the last 10 emails, and purchased in the last 90 days. Those are your throttle candidates. Luna: So you're not throttling everyone. You're selectively reducing for your best audience. Lucas: Right. Tier two might be moderately engaged — they open occasionally but haven't bought recently. You don't throttle them as aggressively. And tier three is low engagement — those are reactivation or suppression candidates. Luna: What about new subscribers? If I just joined your list, I probably want a few welcome emails in quick succession. Throttling there seems wrong. Lucas: Absolutely not. You never throttle your welcome sequence. That's a proven revenue driver — we covered that in episode 58. The throttle applies to your ongoing promotional or content cadence after someone has been on your list for at least a month or two. Luna: That makes sense. So the throttle is for the steady state, not the onboarding. Lucas: Exactly. And the key is to test incrementally. Don't go from five emails a week to one overnight. Drop by one or two and measure engagement for at least 30 days. The brand I mentioned tested for 60 days before rolling it out to their entire high-engagement segment. Luna: You mentioned data. What metrics do you track to know if throttling is working? Lucas: Primary metric is open rate over time — not just a one-day spike. Secondary is click-through rate and, for e-commerce, revenue per email. But also watch for negative signals: if unsubscribe rates spike or spam complaints increase, you've probably over-throttled. That's a sign your content isn't valuable enough or you cut too deep. Luna: I'm thinking about the opposite scenario. What if you throttle and engagement doesn't improve — or worse, drops? Lucas: That's a real risk. If your audience is used to hearing from you daily, they may feel neglected. But in practice, most marketers find that short-term dips level out within two to three weeks. The key is to communicate the change. Some brands include a note in their first post-throttle email: 'We're sending you fewer emails to make sure every one is worth your time.' That sets expectations and reduces confusion. Luna: I've seen brands do that well. It actually makes me trust them more. Lucas: Exactly. Transparency builds trust. And throttling is really about aligning your send cadence with what your subscribers actually want. Which brings me to another point: you can also use preference centers. Let subscribers choose their frequency. Some might want weekly, others bi-weekly. Luna: That's a more user-driven approach to throttling. Let the subscriber set the limit. Lucas: Right. And that data is gold. If someone chooses weekly over daily, you know they're still interested but they value their inbox space. That's a much stronger signal than just an open. Luna: So in a way, throttling is a form of list hygiene. You're pruning not by deleting people, but by adjusting frequency. Lucas: That's a great way to put it. And it's less aggressive than full suppression. You keep the relationship warm but not overwhelming. Luna: If today's conversation sparked something you've actually used in your own email marketing, that's exactly why we do this show. And the reason we can keep these episodes ad-free is listener support. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small thing that makes a big difference. If you found value here, you can head to buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's all lowercase, no spaces. And it genuinely helps us keep the podcast independent. Luna: Now, back to throttling — I want to talk about a potential pitfall: what if your best subscribers are also your biggest purchasers? Cutting frequency might actually reduce revenue. Lucas: That's a legitimate concern. But the outdoor gear brand actually saw revenue per email increase because each email had higher engagement. And overall revenue from that segment stayed flat — they were sending fewer emails but each one performed better. So total revenue wasn't hurt. Luna: So the trade-off is lower volume but higher quality. That's a net positive for subscriber experience. Lucas: Exactly. And if you're worried about revenue, you can always test a small subset first — say 10% of your top segment — and compare against a control group that keeps the old frequency. Luna: I've also seen brands throttle by content type. For example, sending promotional emails less often but keeping the educational newsletter at the same cadence. Lucas: That's smart. Content-type throttling is even more nuanced. You might decide that your weekly 'tips and tricks' email stays, but your 'flash sale' alerts go from three per week to one. That way you preserve the relationship-building content while reducing noise. Luna: Are there any tools that make this easier? I know some email service providers have built-in frequency capping. Lucas: Most major platforms do now. Klaviyo has a 'message frequency' setting per segment. Mailchimp has 'send time optimization' that can also help spread out sends. But you can also do it manually with segmentation and automation rules. Luna: I want to circle back to the psychology. Why does throttling work? Is it just scarcity? Lucas: Partly. But there's also the concept of 'email relevance decay.' If you send too often, each email has less time to be relevant. By spacing them out, you increase the chance that the content aligns with what the subscriber cares about on that day. Luna: So it's about timing as much as volume. Lucas: Exactly. And one more thing — throttling can actually improve deliverability. ISPs like Gmail look at engagement signals. If your top subscribers ignore emails because you send too many, your sender reputation takes a hit. Throttling keeps engagement high, which protects your deliverability. Luna: That's a hidden benefit. It's not just about the subscriber's inbox experience, it's about getting into the inbox at all. Lucas: Right. So to summarize: throttling isn't about sending less for the sake of less. It's about sending the right amount to the right people at the right time. Start with your most engaged segment, test a 20-30% reduction, measure over 30-60 days, and let the data guide you. Luna: And communicate the change to your subscribers. A little transparency goes a long way. Lucas: Absolutely. So next time you look at your email calendar and think 'I should send more,' pause and ask yourself: 'Do they actually want more? Or do they want better?' The answer might surprise you. Luna: On that note, thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with another episode.