An engaged list is more important than a large list.
If your open rates, click rates, and replies have fallen, it may be time to clean your list. Especially if you have been building it over a sustained period.
Here's why you should focus on subscriber quality over quantity:
Improved deliverability: If your list mainly comprises engaged subscribers, email providers will recognize your reputation. This means your emails are more likely to land in your subscribers' inboxes than in the spam folder.
Engagement: Removing inactive subscribers from your list will likely push your open and click rates up. This gives you better clarity on which strategies and content work for your audience.
Value: You could pay less for a higher-quality list! Cleaning your list might drop you to a lower pricing tier while improving your engagement rates. That's a win-win.
Why you shouldn't fear seeing your subscriber count go down
Have you ever opted in to an email list but unsubscribed later on after losing interest in the sender's emails? This is normal behavior and will likely happen to some of your subscribers over time.
If you have some subscribers who have stopped engaging with your content, it's time to let them go.
When should you clean your list?
Now that we've gone over the benefits and importance of cleaning your list, let's look at when and how often you should do it. There are a few times when you should take the opportunity to do this:
When you import a list: If you're importing a new list or migrating your existing one to Kit, it's a good opportunity to clean your list. You can move forward knowing that your new starting point has the most engaged subscribers.
Sending volume: If you send emails regularly, like a daily newsletter, for example, you'll want to prune your list more often. Otherwise, you won't get true insights from your open rates into what's working for you and what isn't.
Sudden growth: Most lists grow via regular, consistent traffic. On some occasions, however, you could see a sudden influx of subscribers. If this is from a viral piece of content, awesome! It's always good to check the quality of these subscribers because in some cases the sign-ups can be from a spam attack on your Form or Landing Page. Make sure you have double opt-in turned on to avoid this scenario, and if you see a lot of email addresses that look irregular or make no sense at all, you'll need to remove them.
How to clean your list
We've covered the why and the when for cleaning your list. Now, let's look at the how.
If you're on a paid Kit plan, you can use one of these Visual Automation templates for cleaning your list:
Here's when to use each template, and how to use it.
Automatic list cleaning
Use our automatic list cleaning Visual Automation template if you want to automatically clean out new subscribers who don't open at least one email within a certain period.
Once you've set up the Visual Automation and activated it, it will run completely automatically, with no action needed on your part.
How the template works
The automatic list cleaning Visual Automation template looks like this:
This Visual Automation checks if a subscriber has opened at least one email within 180 days of subscribing to your email list. If they haven't, they'll be sent a re-engagement Sequence containing two emails.
If the subscriber hasn't opened any emails 10 days after receiving the last email in the re-engagement Sequence, they'll be automatically unsubscribed.
NOTE: This method targets only new subscribers. To maintain positive deliverability and keep your emails landing in your subscribers' inboxes, we recommend cleaning your entire list following the ad hoc instructions every few months.
How to use the template
Then, customize the template:
Decide how many emails you want to send subscribers before they are automatically unsubscribed from your list.
This Sequence comes with two emails by default, and we suggest keeping it to just two emails, maximum.
This is because subscribers will receive all of the Sequence's emails even if they open its first email (such that they won't be unsubscribed from your list).
Change the default Re-engagement Sequence email content to fit the style of emails you usually send to your audience.
What is a type of email your audience would be clamoring to open? If you can replace one of the stock emails with a "must-read" email at the start of the Re-engagement Sequence, that is ideal.
Publish your Sequence emails when you're done editing them. Otherwise, they won't send.
Change the delay periods, if needed.
Check that the delays of 180 days and 10 days make sense for your business.
When you've finished customizing the Visual Automation, set it as "Active." That's the final step, and you'll now automatically clean out new subscribers who don't open your emails!
Ad hoc list cleaning
Use our ad hoc list cleaning Visual Automation template if you want to clean out all cold subscribers—regardless of whether they're a new or existing subscriber—who don't click links in a set of re-engagement emails you send them.
Cold subscribers are subscribers who haven't opened an email or clicked any email links in the last 90 days (or 30 days, if they've subscribed to your list for fewer than 90 days).
They count as confirmed subscribers on your list, which means they contribute to your list total and your overall monthly cost. Additionally, they work against your total engagement, so giving them the opportunity to re-engage with your content is a great first step.
Using the ad hoc list cleaning template requires you to tag to your cold subscribers before they will receive your automated re-engagement emails, but it does target everybody (including those old subscribers who are collecting dust).
We recommend cleaning out all cold subscribers every few months to maintain the best email deliverability.
How the template works
The ad hoc list cleaning Visual Automation template looks like this:
When subscribers are added to a Tag called "Add to Ad Hoc Cold Subscribers Cleaning Automation," this Visual Automation will send them a Cold Subscriber Re-Engagement Sequence containing two emails.
This Sequence's emails ask subscribers to click a Link Trigger in them to confirm they still want to be on your email list. Subscribers who click the Link Trigger in any of these emails:
Will be temporarily added to a Tag called "Cold Subscriber: Reactivated" to indicate they're no longer a cold subscriber
Will not receive further emails in the Cold Subscriber Cleaning Sequence, if any
Will also have the "Add to Ad Hoc Cold Subscribers Cleaning Automation" Tag removed from them
One week after the Cold Subscriber Re-Engagement Sequence has ended, the Visual Automation checks which subscribers still have the "Add to Ad Hoc Cold Subscribers Cleaning Automation" Tag. These subscribers are unsubscribed from your list and will no longer receive your emails.
Meanwhile, subscribers that have the "Cold Subscriber: Reactivated" Tag will have this Tag removed from them, to keep their subscriber profiles clean.
How to use the template
Then, create the Link Trigger that will add the "Cold Subscriber: Reactivated" Tag to subscribers who click it. Our guide to creating Link Triggers provides the full steps for creating Link Triggers.
Next, customize the Visual Automation:
Decide how many emails you want to send cold subscribers before they are automatically unsubscribed from your list.
Then, add more emails to the Cold Subscriber Re-Engagement Sequence as needed.
Change the default Cold Subscriber Re-Engagement Sequence email content to fit the style of emails you usually send to your audience.
You should also replace the emails' links with the Link Trigger you've created.
Publish your Sequence emails when you're done editing them. Otherwise, they won't send.
Set up the Cold Subscriber Re-Engagement Sequence to exclude subscribers who have the "Cold Subscriber: Reactivated: Tag.
Change the delay period, if needed.
Check that the one-week delay makes sense for your business.
When you've finished customizing the Visual Automation, set it as "Active."
Next, go to the Subscribers page and use the subscriber status dropdown menu to view your cold subscribers.
Select all the cold subscribers in your account. Then, use a Bulk Action to add the "Add to Ad Hoc Cold Subscribers Cleaning Automation" Tag to them.
Your cold subscribers will start receiving the emails in the Cold Subscriber Re-Engagement Sequence. They'll be automatically unsubscribed if they don't click these emails' links within the delay period (which is one week, unless you've changed it) after the sending of the last email.