Hey,

A couple of weeks ago - before Le Deluge of Deals - I spoke about the great email debate: the arguments for and against what we generally call “list culling” or sometimes call “list hygiene” (or what I deeply wish we could call “list optimization”).

You can read that email here if you missed it.

Spoiler alert: I came down heavily in favor of list culling - which you might have guessed by my desire to dub it list optimization, being the canny sort that you are.

Anyway, this email naturally triggered a question from many of you: how do you do it, exactly?

This is a process which should be handled delicately.

You work very hard to get readers on your list, of course, so you want to avoid removing any subscribers who are in fact engaged – readers who enjoy your emails, who want to be on your list, who open things or click things or buy thing in ways which aren’t always captured by the tracking system for your email marketing service.

This is not the only aspect which needs careful management, so let’s look at how you can safely handle list optimization (I’m totally going to make this a thing).

The particulars are important, so I’ve broken down the exact steps below for the two email marketing services which I use and recommend – MailerLite and ConvertKit. If you use another service you should be able to transpose the advice.

I Wouldn’t Start From Here

Even the most amazing list in the world will have some disengaged readers on it – that comes with the territory – so don’t take this as scolding, just a reminder.

The best way to handle this situation is to minimize disengagement in the first place. And you do that by following as many best practices as you can reasonably incorporate into your email marketing endeavors.

​This is a good overview if you want a refresh.

Email marketing isn’t exactly filled with quick wins, but there’s a few in the video embedded in the above guide which can help you improve open rates overnight. Easy stuff anyone can do.

Anyway, everyone will need to optimize their list eventually – whether they do it or not is another matter, a debate we covered two weeks ago in some detail.

The recommend steps are as follows:

• Identify the disengaged
• Reengage any you can
• Unsubscribe those you can't.

But don’t forget to:

• Tag any false positives

I’ll explain each of these below, with the exact steps noted for both MailerLite and ConvertKit, as promised.

Disengagement Party

The first thing you need to do is make a list of subscribers for potential removal from your mailing list.

While you won’t be removing them immediately – I always recommend at least some attempt to reengage subscribers first – it’s still extremely important to handle this step carefully.

You need to minimize false positives here; you don’t want to cut someone from your list who still wants to be there.

Email marketing services will often give you some kind of start with this, breaking these subscribers out into a tag or segment or group for you to consider removing.

Note that some platforms call these inactive subscribers (MailerLite) or cold subscribers (ConvertKit) which can all be treated as synonyms for disengaged subscribers here.

But it’s important to note how providers build these segments differently, as you may wish to make alternative choices.

ConvertKit

This is one area where ConvertKit falls short of MailerLite because it can be weirdly restrictive in the segments you can build.

ConvertKit handily earmarks cold subscribers for you – which it defines as subscribers who haven’t opened or clicked anything in 3 months – but then doesn’t allow you to adjust the parameters on that or build your own custom list of disengaged subscribers like MailerLite.

However, you can filter that list with tags, so I do just that, removing everyone who is tagged with “Never Cull” – more on that towards the end of this email, but as the name suggests it’s a list of subscribers who I don’t want to put through any list optimization process, because I already know they are receiving my messages and want to stay on my list.

Anywho, that leaves me with a filtered list of subscribers who I can attempt to reengage. Because of the limitations above, this process is super quick in ConvertKit so let’s move on.

MailerLite

There is much more freedom with MailerLite than ConvertKit to define your own list of disengaged subscribers using a wide variety of metrics.

MailerLite identifies a list of Inactive Subscribers in your account, but even more helpfully allows you to adjust the parameters (take note, ConvertKit). You’ll find that on the Subscriber tab in your MailerLite interface – click “Clean up inactive” to view the list.

Please note that MailerLite has different parameters to ConvertKit here, and defines Inactives as those who haven’t opened an email in 6 months, but who also have received at least 10 emails. You can adjust either metric by using the dropdown menus on the top right of your screen (pictured).

The options here are better than ConvertKit, for sure, but still a little restrictive for my tastes. Luckily, you can build a list with slightly different parameters by simply building a Segment in MailerLite in the normal way.

And if you don’t know how to build you own Segments on MailerLite, that’s something you should really learn – it’s so handy in so many ways. Read their guide here.

Anyway, once you know how to build segments – and it’s quite easy – then you can build your own custom list of disengaged subscribers, which might be those who haven’t opened/clicked in 3 months, 6 months, or longer.

You can focus on those who came in through more aggressive list-building methods (like competitions, group promos, or ads).

Or you can do things like focus on older subscribers – often we make a few mistakes starting out and more readers slip through the net before we get better at email.

It’s really up to you, there are many ways of approach this. If you want a starting point, go with the MailerLite default suggestion, and then tweak a few parameters to see how that changes things. If someone has been on your list for a while, and hasn’t opened or clicked anything in six months, then they are good candidates for culling, but you can be more aggressive or conservative as you prefer.

I use the word candidates there because there’s a very important step first – a final safety valve, one which helps ensure you’re removing the right people, and which also acts as a super minimal reengagement campaign of sorts.

Come Back To What You Know

Before unsubscribing anyone from your list you should attempt to reengage them first – and we can define that very simply as any efforts to get inactive subscribers to start opening and clicking things again.

The topic of reengagement is a huge and complicated one and deserves its own email some time in the future, so we’ll just restrict ourselves to two simple reengagement methods today.

Super Basic Reengagement

Actual reengagement is a bit more involved, and we will take about that another time; this is the bare minimum I recommend before moving towards unsubscribing anybody.

I call it the Stay/Go email, others call it the Keep Me email or the Winback email or even the Breakup email. Either way, it’s just a simple, short email asking readers if they wish to remain on your list or not.

This email should be stripped down, pared back, as basic as possible.

You should remove any images, headers, graphics, buttons, links – you want to keep this as minimal as possibly, but you will need at least one button/link (on top of your mandatory unsubscribe link which all emails are legally required to contain).

Word this email diplomatically. People can be a little sensitive to these emails if they are clunkily worded – make sure you don’t come across as scolding or defensive.

In other words, this can be a good place to use the passive voice. For example, I might say something like this:

I’m sure I could finesse that a little more if I spent longer than thirty seconds on it, but you get the idea. No blaming, no finger wagging. Be friendly, understanding, and keep the door open – people do return.

BTW that link just goes to an adorable puppy on my site. I dunno, I just feel like a puppy is the least people deserve these days.

The destination URL you pick doesn’t really matter, what is important is what you do with that information - i.e. the list of subscribers who click that link, which your provider should track.

I have set things up in ConvertKit so that anyone clicking the link automatically gets tagged with “Never Cull” so they get left out of this reengagement/culling process in the future.

You can do the same in MailerLite but the process is a little different. Set up a Group called “Never Cull” or “The Untouchables” or whatever you want to call your list of subscribers which should be spared any list culling process.

And then either create a mini automation to add anyone to the group who hits the links, or simply add them manually yourself to your “Never Cull” group before moving on with the list culling process. (Search their Help Pages for “automated link triggers” for a neat way to automate this.)

You don’t need to send them anywhere in particular, but I thought this was a good moment to lighten the mood a little, in case my carefully worded Stay/Go email wasn’t carefully worded enough! Also, it’s a puppy. But you can send them anywhere you like.

Some people also add a link to their sign up pages in these emails, or their Amazon Follow page, or their social channels – in case readers want to keep engaged in a different way.

I get the logic; I just place more importance in absolutely maximizing deliverability with this email – and thus minimizing links and images. On that note be extremely careful with the subject line of this email - you need to max out deliverability and reach as many Inboxes as possible so steer clear of any remotely spammy words in that subject line. (Same goes for all your reengagement emails if you do a proper reengagement sequence.)

By paring back the email as much as possible, you will reach a few extra readers who might have been missing your regular newsletters.

Deeper Reengagement

The above isn’t a true reengagement campaign – also known as a winback campaign.

Ideally, you would have something a little more involved and, well, engaging.

In a perfect world, you would have another reader magnet or some other kind of cookie or fun thing you could drop to get readers excited again. A sequence of emails which warms them up and perhaps gives them a cool pressie too can be a wonderful way to get readers engaged again, anmd can also weed out any false positives in your process.

BTW if you struggle to think of ideas for one reader magnet, let alone two, then I strongly recommend Newsletter Ninja 2: If You Give A Reader A Cookie by Tammi Labrecque.

Get Ready to Panic

Whatever reengagement approach you go for, the next step is the same. We remove the remaining disengaged subscribers. Aaaaaagh!

Hit The Road Jack89

The removal process is quite straightforward, but you don’t want to make any errors here, naturally.

A common one is to delete subscribers rather than unsubscribing them. You shouldn’t delete subscribers unless they specifically request deletion (which you must comply with, under GDPR rules).

This is where users of platforms like Mailchimp get royally boned because Mailchimp still charges you for unsubscribes. Most platforms don’t, so just move to one which doesn’t engage in this thievery.

There are a bunch of reasons why unsubscribing is better than deleting but, for starters, you need to keep records of how people subscribed to your list, in case you are ever required to prove that under GDPR. Plus it’s useful for you in case the subscriber ever returns – which does happen BTW.

In short, don’t delete. Unsubscribe them. But make sure you are unsubscribing the right people.

This should be everyone who was sent the Stay/Go email seven days ago, minus everyone who clicked your Keep Me link, or who sent you a manual reply asking to be kept on the list - there will always be some of those (take note, automation fans!).

Here are the exact steps for MailerLite and ConvertKit – where the processes couldn’t be more different.

Unsubscribing on MailerLite

The specific process is more straightforward on MailerLite – but there’s still room for error here, so be careful.

• Go to your Subscriber tab again and click Groups
• Hit the Create Group button and name your Group something like “Walk the plank mateys” or maybe “December 2022 List Culling” if you are more professional than me
• Make a Group from everyone who was sent your Stay/Go Email minus anyone in your “Never Cull” Group. Instructions here on how to use MailerLite Groups
• Select all – i.e. the checkbox below Export
• Hit the Actions button beside that and Select Move To Unsubscribed.

That’s it, they are now unsubscribed. They don’t get any further confirmation from you (and you shouldn’t send one either your Stay/Go email sufficed).

Unsubscribing on ConvertKit

I do prefer ConvertKit to MailerLite in many ways, but this isn’t one of them! The process for removing unsubscribes is unnecessarily convoluted. (The process for deleting them – which you shouldn’t do – is much easier, so be careful.)

The short version is you must build a small little zero-email automation and push everyone through it – there is no other way of doing this, unless you want to unsubscribe everyone manually. Yeah, I know.

This is what my bulk unsubscribe automation looks like.

Basically this will run anytime I tag anyone with the tag “Bulk Unsubscribe.” And I’ll tag everyone who was sent the Stay/Go email seven days previously, minus everyone tagged with “Never Cull” of course.

So, it is easy enough to handle, once you get your head around it and set up the automation.

Leave It To The Robots?

Of course, if you want to get fancy you could automate the entire process of identifying disengaged readers, attempting reengagement, and then unsubscribing - or any part thereof. But I feel like that’s overkill for me personally; I actually like handling this manually.

I don’t run this culling process that regularly – the most frequently I’ve ever done it was once or twice a year. But that’s enough to get the incredible benefits we spoke about a couple of weeks ago.

However, if you are more focused on list-building promotions, boosting your list with ads, or do anything else which might require more proactive list optimization or more rapid mailing list growth, then feel free to do it more frequently than me.

Or even go a step further and automate everything.

Dave

P.S. Writing music this week is Mockingbirds by Grant Lee Buffalo.