These days, it seems Zombies are everywhere. While

Brad Pitt battles zombies on the big screen in World

War Z, email marketers are also quietly waging war

against the "undead." That is, the unengaged and

inactive subscribers who clog marketers' lists and

never engage with marketing emails.This war is also

fought with judges: those pesky ISPs and mail servers

that allocate a score based on senders' results. Kill

more zombies, improve your score, and receive all

the glory of higher Inbox Placement Rates! It is no

wonder marketers everywhere are geared up for the

slaughter of zombies!

The unfortunate by-product of this war on zombies is

the removal of innocent subscribers who may appear to

be zombies, but are very much alive. In Max Brooks's

novel, World War Z, a "quisling" is a human that begins

acting like a zombie. Take for example, customers who

read their email on their mobile device or use Gmail with

images disabled by default. They never register an open,

but still enjoy the steady rhythm of your mail and are active

customers on your website. Removing them comes at a

significant price: the loss of a human customer!

The simplest definition of an inactive subscriber is

someone who no longer reads your email, but hasn't

yet taken action to stop receiving it. Knowing exactly

who is reading your email is impossible. Open and click

measurements are clearly not perfect-sometimes

over-represented and sometimes under-represented­

depending on the situation. Plus, currently, there is no

way to measure views in the customer's inbox (emails

that haven't been opened but are still acknowledged by

the subscriber). So, you don't really know who is acting

with your email, and who isn't.

CATER

Compared to other channels, sending email is relatively

inexpensive, so there is little incentive to remove inactive

subscribers beyond solving for deliverability challenges.

And while removing inactive addresses may help

deliverability in the short term, increasing engagement

through better email marketing is the only effective

long-term solution.

Marketers need to avoid unnecessarily removing active

subscribers. If you aren't experiencing deliverability

challenges, then you should never throwaway a

perfectly deliverable email address.

If you are experiencing deliverability challenges

related to low engagement, then the goal should be

to cut only as many addresses as necessary, but not

more. First, focus on the most egregious and least

valuable inactive subscribers at domains where your

reputation is negatively affected. You might define these

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as subscribers who have never opened or clicked, made

a purchase, visited your website, or positively interacted

with your brand via social media. After you remove those,

measure the effect on deliverability and revenue. If the

results are negligible, then move on to the subscribers

that haven't opened or clicked in 12 months, made a

purchase, visited your website or interacted with your

brand in social media in 12 months. And so on until

deliverability improves.

Segmenting inactive subscribers by channel also informs

your win-back program, both in terms of the content of

your message and the channel of delivery. For example,

if a customer has visited your website within the last six

months, but hasn't engaged with your email for 12

months, then you can attempt an "intercept" on the web­

site. The message might ask the subscriber to visit your

preference center where he or she can choose how they

want to be communicated with, and how often. Allowing

your users to select their preferences not only illustrates

your attentiveness to their needs and desires, but also

keeps you from eliminating a valuable quisling!

You can view the post at: www./eadspend.com/defining-removing-inactives

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HERE IS A SIMPLE EXERCISE THAT MARKETERS CAN USE TO DEFINE INACTIVE

SUBSCRIBERS, AND MAKE CUTS AS NECESSARY:

At which domain? Are your

deliverability challenges at

that domain related to low

engagement rates?

2. Date of last email activity;

create sub-segments:

Don't remove anyone.

Don't remove anyone.

Proceed to defining

Inactive segments.

1. Domain: Identify addresses

at the domains where you are

experiencing deliverabili ty

challenges first.

No historical activity

No activity within 12 months

No activity within 6 months

Activity within 6 months

Yahoo! J Hotmail

Gmail

AOL

You can view the post at: www./eadspend.com/defining-removing-inactives

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3. Date oflast purchase;

create sub-segments:

4. Customer segments

(if available); create

sub-segments:

5. Date oflast website visit;

create sub-segments:

6. Date of last social media

activity; create sub-segments:

No recorded purchases

No recorded purchases within 12 months

No recorded purchases within 6 months

Recorded purchase within 6 months

Least valuable customer segment

Mid-level customer segment

Top-level customer segment

No website visit ever

No website visit within 12 months

No website visit within 6 months

Website visit within 6 months

No social activity ever

No social activity within the last 12 months

No social activity within the last 6 months

Social activity within the last 6 months

You can view the post at: www./eadspend.com/defining-removing-inactives

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IJ Removing Segments

Segment 1:

Domains: Yahoo!, Gmail, AOL, and/or Hotmail + I

No historical email activity recorded + No historical

purchases + Least valuable customer segment +

No website activity + No social media activity.

The success of

your program will

be defined by:

.... ..... III"""" III""""

You can view the post at: www./eadspend.com/defining-removing-inactives

If deliverability challenges

subside, then move on. If

not, then remove the next

least valuable segment.

Improved deliverability metrics,

especially Inbox Placement Rate,

at the domains in question.

No degradation in revenue from

your email program.

If neither success metric is

realized, then stop and reevaluate.