In partnership with
Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋
Welcome to Issue #234 of All About Email!
Last week, I was inspired by Megan Boshuyzen, and we talked about local newsletters and how to run one.
This week, we are beginning a two-part series on Newsletter Reactivation. I really tried cramming everything into one newsletter, but no one is reading almost 2,500 words in one email. 😂
Let’s go! 👇
Build Webinars That Keep Working After You Stop
Webinars can be one of the most effective ways to generate leads, build trust, and drive real engagement. But only if they're built to perform.
The Wistia Webinar Guidebook walks through exactly how to do it. From planning and promotion to delivery and follow-up, it covers the full webinar lifecycle so you're not just showing up live, but turning every event into a scalable growth channel.
Inside, you'll find how to attract the right audience, keep viewers engaged from start to finish, and repurpose content long after the event ends. Because the best webinars don't stop when the stream does. They keep working across landing pages, campaigns, and on-demand experiences.
If you're looking to create webinars that actually convert and keep delivering value over time, this guide covers everything you need.
How Do You Think About Reactivation, Suppression, and List Health?
In the email community, “inactive subscribers” is a topic that is constantly in conversation and can bring some strong opinions.
🤷♂️ Some treat inactive subscribers as ticking time bombs who must be removed immediately. Others keep emailing quiet subscribers forever, hoping one day they’ll suddenly wake up, open, click, and become loyal readers again.
The truth sits somewhere in the middle, and it’s more nuanced.
🚨 I am actively working on myself (especially in light of the AI inbox), and if you’ve been a subscriber for a while, you might remember me discussing this in Issue 220, when we had a “sunset party”.
So, yes, I am calling myself out on this one. 🤭
Your Inactive Subscribers Are Not the Enemy
✅ Let’s start here: having inactive subscribers is normal, that’s just email.
It doesn’t automatically mean your newsletter is bad, your deliverability is broken, or every quiet subscriber wants to be removed.
People get busy.
They skim, or AI does it for them.
They read but never click.
They save emails “for later” and never come back.
They change jobs, priorities, habits, and interests.
💡 The real problem is not that some subscribers go quiet. It’s when you have no idea what quiet actually means, and no plan for what to do about it.
The Big Mistake People Make
🚨 A lot of reactivation advice is too simplistic.
You’ll hear things like:
Remove anyone who hasn’t opened in 60 or 90 days.
Run a win-back campaign every quarter.
If they don’t click, they’re dead weight.
Clean your list aggressively to improve deliverability.
💡 Some of that can be useful in the right context. But without nuance, it can also be dangerous:
Open rates are not the whole truth (not even close). If you build your whole reactivation strategy on opens alone, you’re making decisions with blurry information.
Privacy protections, image blocking, previews, and inbox behaviour muddy the data. Some people look inactive when they aren’t. Others look active when they barely care.
🧠 Note: If you read Issue 220, you might find some of the information above regarding triggers a bit contradictory, but I wrote Issue 220 four months ago, and some things have changed/evolved.
My knowledge has improved, and I’m always testing.
What Reactivation is Actually For
A good reactivation strategy is not about squeezing one last click out of a tired subscriber.
💡 It’s about four things:
Protecting long-term deliverability.
Respecting the subscriber relationship.
Giving disengaged readers an easy choice.
Keeping your list healthier over time.
✅ A good reactivation campaign does not need to “save” everyone. It just needs to help you stop pretending every subscriber is equally engaged when they clearly aren’t.
Stop Looking at Opens Alone
If you’re trying to work out whether someone is genuinely inactive, opens should not be your only signal.
Look for stronger indicators where you can, such as:
Click activity.
Replies.
Website visits from newsletter traffic.
Purchases or conversions.
Poll or survey activity.
Signup source.
How recently they joined.
Whether they’ve ever clicked at all.
A subscriber who hasn’t opened in months but clicked two weeks ago is not the same as someone who signed up nine months ago and has done nothing since.
💡 Not all “inactive” subscribers are equally inactive. That’s why lazy or overly simplistic rules lead to bad decisions.
Define Inactivity for Your Newsletter
A daily newsletter, a weekly newsletter, and a monthly newsletter should not all use the same threshold:
If you send weekly, someone who hasn’t engaged in 8 to 12 weeks might be worth reviewing.
If you send monthly, you probably need a longer window.
If you have seasonal or irregular sends, context matters even more.
🧠 Ask yourself:
How often do I send?
What counts as meaningful engagement?
How quickly do subscribers usually settle into a habit?
Is my goal traffic, replies, conversions, sponsorship value, or something else?
🚨 “Inactive” should be defined by your publishing rhythm and business model, not by a random LinkedIn post from someone selling fear (there is way too much crap advice on LinkedIn right now).
Final Thoughts
Inactive subscribers aren’t the enemy, and aggressive pruning isn’t always the answer.
💡 Smarter list health means defining inactivity in context, looking beyond opens, and using reactivation to respect readers, protect deliverability, and make better decisions over time.
Next week in Part Two, we will look at:
A Simple Reactivation Sequence.
What These Emails Should Sound Like.
Suppress or Unsubscribe? (they are different).
Results and some final thoughts.
That’s it for this week, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋
All About Email - Playlist 🎧
Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.
Email Still Wins. Here's How to Use It Better.
59% of Americans say most marketing emails offer no real value. That's not a threat, it's an opening. Get the AI-powered playbook for building email campaigns that actually convert.
Inside you'll discover:
How top brands achieve 3,600% ROI from email marketing
AI personalization techniques that drive 82% higher conversion rates
Tactics that have delivered 30% better open rates and 50% higher clickthroughs
How to build sequences for every stage of the customer journey, from welcome to re-engagement
Download your free AI-powered email marketing playbook today.
Sponsorship Opportunities
🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.
Email Marketing News & Tips
This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:
30 Days of Growth - 30 Days. 30 Ways to Grow Your Newsletter. (Growth In Reverse)
Q&A - What’s the best way to build reputation on new IPs? (EmailKarma)
Warmup Tools - 7 Options to Improve Email Deliverability. (EmailTooltester)
🤯 One Spammer - Caused Gmail and email users all kinds of headaches. (Jesse Hanley)
In Five Weeks - Grow a loyal newsletter audience with this blueprint. (Inbox Collective)
2026 MTA Buyers Guide - The MailOps Guide to Evaluating and Selecting an MTA. (Kumo)
Preflight Dispatch - Lots of changes, updates and improvements to email rendering and the overall experience! (Preflight)
💡 Don’t Believe Everything - The spam folder and opens. (Laura Atkins)
Does it Email? - Here I'm looking at random(), which will produce a random value each time the email is opened. (Mark Robbins)
🧠 Understanding “Disposable” - Disposable emails are still functionally valid addresses, and all email addresses are disposable if you think about it! (Alison Gootee)
Acquired - Welcoming Simtheory and Ortto to Canva. (Canva)
proofjump - Faster email campaign review and approvals [h/t Megan Boshuyzen]. (ProofJump)
AI Import - Turn Any Email Design Into an Editable Template in Minutes with Email Love. (Email Love)
😎 A Cool use of AI - Maintain a healthy email audience with Audience Optimization. (Klaviyo)
If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.
I hope you have a great week! 👋
