Latest / The Email Marketing Podcast with Fexingo: Newsletters, Open Rates, and Subscriber Growth / Why You Should Kill Your Own Email List
Transcript
- Lucas: You know that feeling when you open your email dashboard and see a list of 50,000 names and you think, wow, this is impressive? Luna: I get that. It's like a vanity metric, but a really satisfying one. Lucas: Right. But here's the uncomfortable truth: a big list with a lot of dead weight is actually hurting your performance. Today I want to talk about why you should regularly kill parts of your own email list. Luna: Kill? That sounds dramatic. But I have a feeling you mean something like strategic pruning. Lucas: Exactly. I'm talking about intentionally removing subscribers who haven't engaged in a while. And not just moving them to a dormant segment — actually removing them. Because email service providers, or ESPs, look at your engagement rate when deciding whether to deliver your emails to the inbox or the spam folder. Luna: I've heard that Gmail and Outlook basically treat a high percentage of unopened emails as a signal that your content isn't wanted. So your whole list suffers. Lucas: That's exactly it. In fact, Mailchimp's 2025 benchmarks released last quarter showed that lists with fewer than 10,000 subscribers had a 21 percent higher open rate than lists with 50,000 to 100,000 subscribers. And that's not because small lists are inherently better — it's because large lists tend to accumulate more inactive people. Luna: So you're saying the smaller list actually performs better. That's a tough sell to someone who's spent years building up numbers. Lucas: It is. But let me give you a concrete example. TheSkimm, the daily newsletter, has talked about their approach. They do quarterly re-engagement campaigns. They send a 'still want this?' email, and if someone doesn't click, they remove them. They've publicly said that after each purge, their open rates jumped by 10 to 15 percentage points. Luna: And Morning Brew does something similar. I remember reading that they have a 'three strikes' rule — if someone hasn't opened in three months, they get a final email, and then they're out. Lucas: Exactly. So the framework I recommend is a 'three-strikes-and-you're-out' approach, but with clear definitions. Strike one: no opens in the last 60 days. Strike two: no clicks in the last 90 days. Strike three: you send a re-engagement email with a compelling subject line like, 'Should we stay together?' If they don't click within 14 days, you remove them. Luna: I like that it's time-bound. But what about people who still want to receive emails but just don't open? Like, maybe they're saving them for later? Lucas: That's a fair point. But the data shows that if someone hasn't opened an email in 90 days, the likelihood they'll ever open again drops below 5 percent. And if they haven't clicked in 180 days, it's almost zero. So you're really not losing much. And in fact, you're protecting your sender reputation. Luna: Sender reputation — that's the score ISPs assign to the IP address you're sending from, right? Lucas: Yes. And it's influenced by factors like bounce rate, spam complaints, and engagement. A high bounce rate from old addresses can hurt you. So pruning also removes invalid addresses that cause hard bounces. Actually, let me share a stat from an ESP called SendGrid: they found that a list with a 2 percent hard bounce rate is ten times more likely to have deliverability issues than one with a 0.5 percent bounce rate. Luna: Wow. So a little bit of dead weight can have an outsized effect. This is making me rethink my own newsletter. I have about 8,000 subscribers, but I bet 2,000 of them haven't opened in months. Lucas: And those 2,000 could be dragging down your open rate by several points. Let's do the math: if your current open rate is 25 percent on 8,000, that's 2,000 opens. If you remove the 2,000 inactive, your list becomes 6,000, but your opens stay around 2,000 — so your open rate jumps to 33 percent. That's a big improvement. Luna: And a 33 percent open rate looks much better to advertisers or sponsors, too. So there's a business case beyond just deliverability. Lucas: Absolutely. Higher engagement metrics make your list more valuable. But I want to caution against being too aggressive. You don't want to remove someone who just had a busy month. That's why the 60-90-14 day timeline is a good balance. Also, consider the nature of your content. If you send weekly, 60 days is about 8 emails — plenty of chances to engage. Luna: What about the re-engagement email itself? What should it say? Lucas: Keep it short. Subject line: 'Are you still there?' or 'We miss you.' Body: one sentence saying we noticed you haven't been opening, and if you still want to hear from us, click here. And be transparent: if you don't click, we'll remove you. Some people actually appreciate the honesty. And you can even offer a link to update preferences — maybe they want less frequency. Luna: I've seen some brands offer a small incentive to click, like a discount code or a free download. That can work, but it might attract people who just want the freebie. Lucas: Right. So I'd avoid incentives for re-engagement. You want to confirm genuine interest, not collect one-time clickers. And after you prune, monitor your metrics for the next month. You should see your open rate and click to open rate improve. If they don't, something else is off — maybe your subject lines or content. Luna: One thing I've wondered: should you prune all at once, or gradually? Lucas: Gradually. If you remove 10,000 subscribers overnight, ISPs might see a sudden drop in send volume as suspicious. Instead, do it over a week or two. Many ESPs have tools to automate this — you can set up a segment of inactive subscribers and schedule a re-engagement campaign that runs monthly. Luna: That's smart. So the takeaway here is: a smaller, engaged list is better than a big, disengaged one. Prune regularly, and your deliverability and metrics will thank you. Lucas: Exactly. And if today's episode helped you think differently about your list, maybe it's worth sharing with a colleague. Or if you've gotten value from the show in general, you can support us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's a small way to keep these episodes ad-free and independent. Luna: Yeah, it's a low-key way to say thanks if the show's been useful. We appreciate it. Lucas: So back to pruning: one last tip. Before you hit delete, export your inactive list and save it. If you ever change your content strategy or frequency, you can import them back with a fresh re-engagement. But otherwise, let them go. Luna: That's a good safety net. I think a lot of marketers are afraid to lose subscribers, but this episode makes me feel like it's actually a healthy practice. Lucas: It really is. Think of it like gardening — you have to prune the dead branches so the healthy ones can thrive. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.