The email industry spends a lot of time talking about best practices for reaching an engaged audience—and for good reason. But what about the subscribers who aren’t engaging? Why would someone sign up just to ignore your emails? Are they the crazy ones… or is it us? (Probably a little of both.) Taking the time to understand why some subscribers go quiet can help marketers adjust their approach and boost engagement across the board.
You’re likely already aware of some key engagement signals such as click-through rate, read rate, conversion rate. Your CTR tells you that people found the email intriguing enough to want to see your website. The read rate, which can be determined with pixels, can tell you if people are reading or skimming your content. Conversion rate means you compelled them to not only click through but to spend some money or take a specific action. These are all good signals that help you determine your most engaged segment.
But what are the unengaged signals you should keep track of? There are a lot of scenarios, so let’s break down some common unengaged signals.
Opening but not clicking
Opens are great but are not super reliable anymore post Apple MPP. However, they can still be useful. If you’re looking at unique opens, excluding MPP opens, then it’s clear these people are on the cusp of engagement. They like you, but they don’t love you yet. What can you do? Review your creative and utilize your zero-party data.
Is your CTA clear and compelling, and not buried too low in the design?
Many people know that images are clickable, but not everyone! You still need clear CTAs and they need to stand out.
Is your email design too long and overwhelming?
Think: too many images, walls of text, or a bunch of tiny content blocks that don’t display well on mobile. Remember, the goal isn’t to cram everything into the email—it’s to entice readers to click through to your website, where all the end-game content lives. Don’t overload the inbox when a simple teaser does the trick.
Are you bulk sending all campaigns regardless of interest? Is the content actually relevant?
Have a preference center and use it at the point of sign-up. Send the people what they want! Make them excited to see your From Name pop-up in their inbox.
Do you give them all of the information in the email and offer no reason to click to the website?
Running a sale? You’re probably feeling pressure to showcase every discounted item—but that’s way too much for a quick-scan in the inbox. Instead, give subscribers a taste, spark their curiosity, and send them to your beautiful, filter-friendly website to explore more. Use category CTAs, not a million product links. That’s what landing pages are for!
Are your subject lines too vague?
A catchy subject line can spark curiosity—but if no one’s clicking, it might’ve been too vague or overhyped. Misleading readers can backfire, leading to disappointment, disengagement, or even another important negative signal: spam complaints.
Completely ignored
Getting ignored hurts. If someone hasn’t opened/clicked within 6-9 months, it’s time to look into sunsetting. You can also try a win-back campaign, but if they don’t act, you must honor their choice. They could be ignoring you for many reasons, here are a couple common examples:
Subscription only mailbox
Many people use a secondary email just for sign-ups or one-time purchases—keeping their primary inbox reserved for personal and important messages. If someone opened your welcome email and then vanished, chances are you landed in their “subscription-only” inbox.
Abandoned mailbox
Building on that last point—some people eventually abandon their “subscription-only” email altogether. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve ditched over the years! With more providers offering temporary addresses, you might start seeing bounces when access is revoked. But be careful: abandoned inboxes can become recycled spam traps or trigger mailbox-full soft bounces, both of which can hurt your sender reputation.
Previously VIP, but haven’t been engaging
Are your subscribers ghosting you after what felt like a promising relationship? Oof. Sometimes they just move on—but a targeted win-back campaign based on purchase history can help. It’s also worth asking yourself: did you get a little too excited and love-bomb them with emails? VIPs can get especially overwhelmed by layered campaigns—exclusive offers, bulk promos, back-in-stock alerts, review requests, you name it. Set limits on how many emails a subscriber can receive in a given timeframe, or risk getting left on read.
Brand new
It’s like they RSVP’d but then never showed up. Rude! Why did these people sign up, but then never interact with your brand?
They might be part of a list poisoning or mailbombing attack, or a simple typo.
Mailbombing/mail flooding attacks flood an inbox by submitting hundreds of subscription forms. List poisoning is sneakier—bad actors (like competitors or cybercriminals) add fake or invalid addresses to your list, either manually or with bots. These are obviously the more nefarious possibilities—but sometimes, it’s as simple as someone making a typo when filling out your form, which keeps your messages from reaching them. Protect yourself with double opt-in, honeypot fields (invisible to humans, not bots), and real-time validation to catch typos and bogus sign-ups before they cause damage.
They’re engaging with you elsewhere
Some brands require sign-ups for both email and SMS to unlock a welcome offer—but not everyone wants both. They might engage with your texts and ignore email or prefer Instagram ads and TikTok influencers instead. Letting people choose either email or SMS can help you avoid adding unengaged subscribers from the start.
They just wanted a welcome code
They were hoping for a welcome code, but you gave it to them in the pop-up instead of sending it to their email. You’ve gained a subscriber and maybe made a quick sale, but you missed the chance to get them to engage with your program. To build a more engaged email list, offer the welcome code immediately, but save a freebie or extra benefit for the welcome email— and make sure they know to look for it. Optimize your welcome email to drive engagement and consider adding a preference center to capture any zero-party data you missed at sign-up.
Turning challenges into wins
No one likes to be ignored, but these negative signals reveal ways to improve your email program. You don’t want people to be overwhelmed and jaded. You especially don’t want them to take the next step and mark you as spam. Turn these challenges into wins by:
- Reviewing your segments
- Identifying trends like when interest drops off (e.g., do people stop engaging at a certain point?)
- Cleaning up and optimizing your preference center
- A/B testing your content
- Trying a different sending cadence.
Reaching the inbox is constantly getting trickier, so lean on your learnings to stay top of mind for your subscribers. Check out our 2025 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report to see how your email performance stacks up.