Issue #235 All About Email

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #235 of All About Email!

Last week, we began 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. 😂

This week, we conclude with Part Two as we look at:

Let’s go! 👇

🧠 Part Two is the practical side of our two-part series, but context is important, especially as to how you think about Reactivation, Suppression, and List Health.

So, if you haven’t read Part One, make sure you do that now or after reading Part Two below. 👇

If I were keeping it simple for a newsletter, I’d use a short sequence like that described in Issue 220.

I won’t go into the setup details now, or the email content, you can do that later (and pay heed to the trigger condition, remember, it’s nuanced and I’m working on it 🤭).

But here’s the outline of the sequence I currently use:

🚨 A lot of reactivation emails fail because the tone is all wrong.

They’re either (and we’ve all had one of these):

The best reactivation emails are:

💡 The goal is to make the subscriber’s choice easy.

This is where reactivation becomes a list management decision, and that’s going to look different for each of us, {{first_name|friend}}.

Because once someone has gone quiet, and once you’ve given them a fair chance to stay, you still need to decide what happens next.

🚨 And this part matters, because suppression and unsubscribing are not the same thing, even if they both stop someone from receiving your emails.

💡 Suppression is often useful when the issue is the sending strategy rather than consent.

If you suppress someone, you’re deciding not to send to them anymore, often for performance or deliverability reasons, without treating that as a subscriber-led opt-out.

That can make sense when:

💡 Unsubscribing is usually the better path when the subscriber has made their preference obvious, either directly or indirectly.

That includes situations where:

🧠 If suppression is about protecting your sending, unsubscribing is more about acknowledging that the relationship has ended, or at least gone dormant in a more final way.

Holding onto dead weight because it feels uncomfortable isn't a strategy.

💡 What matters is that you don’t keep people forever just because deleting or unsubscribing feels uncomfortable.

💡 A reactivation campaign that leads to fewer subscribers is not necessarily bad news (something I am constantly saying).

In fact, it can be a sign that your list is becoming healthier.

You may end up with:

✅ Bigger is not always better.

A smaller list of people who genuinely want your emails is usually more valuable than a larger list padded with dead silence.

🎉 Your deliverability and reduced ESP bill will also thank you!

Inactive subscribers do not mean you’ve failed; it’s part and parcel of what we do; however, ignoring inactivity forever is not a strategy either.

💡 A good reactivation approach is thoughtful, measured, and based on better signals than opens alone. It respects the audience, protects the list, and helps you make cleaner decisions over time.

🚨 And maybe most importantly, it reminds us of something easy to forget: a subscriber list is not just a potential sales database or a trophy cabinet; it’s about relationships.

That’s it for this week, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

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.

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

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! 👋