List hygiene and warming up
A smaller, engaged list beats a big stale one — measurably.
Mailbox providers decide where your mail goes largely on how people react to it. That makes a smaller engaged list genuinely better than a big stale one — not a consolation, a mechanism.
Why a smaller list performs better
Opens, clicks, replies and “not spam” are positive signals. Deletions without reading, complaints and bounces are negative. The proportion is what matters.
Mail 10,000 people where 2,000 are engaged and you look like a sender with a 20% engagement rate — and 8,000 people are pushing the average down for the 2,000 who want to hear from you. Mail only the 2,000 and everything improves, including how the mail lands for them.
It's also cheaper
You pay per email. Not sending to people who never open is a straight saving as well as a delivery improvement.
Retiring the never-engaged
Build a segment for people you’ve mailed repeatedly who have never opened or clicked — the engagement rules do this in one line.
Then, in order:
- Try a win-back first. One honest email: is this still useful? Some come back.
- Stop mailing the rest. Exclude the segment from regular campaigns, or set them to not subscribed.
Roughly a year of silence is a reasonable line, though it depends on how often you send.
Warming up a new sender
A brand-new domain has no reputation, and a first send of fifty thousand from an unknown sender looks exactly like a spammer. Ramp instead:
- Start with your most engaged few hundred.
- Roughly double every few days, if bounces and complaints stay clean.
- Mail the least engaged last, once you have a record.
Your daily limit rises on a similar curve, so the platform is nudging you along the path you’d want anyway.
Send more often, not less
This surprises people. Long gaps produce complaints: someone who hears from you twice a year has forgotten subscribing by the time you write.
A predictable rhythm — monthly, fortnightly, whatever you can sustain — keeps you recognised, and recognition is most of what prevents a spam report.
Common issues
I don't want to delete contacts
Don’t. Exclude them from sends instead — a segment does that and keeps the records. Deleting also loses the memory of anyone’s opt-out.
My open rate looks fine, so is my list fine?
Open rate is unreliable — Apple Mail opens messages on people’s behalf. Clicks are the honest measure of engagement.
I bought a list. Can I mail it?
Not here, and not anywhere reputable. It will bounce heavily and generate complaints, which stops your sending — and in many places it isn’t legal.
FAQs
How often should I clean?+
Review engagement a couple of times a year. With a segment doing the work there’s nothing to maintain — it’s current every time you look.
Should I remove people who never open but do buy?+
No — and this is why judgement beats a rule. If you can measure purchases, weigh those above opens. Engagement rules are a proxy for value, not a replacement for knowing your customers.