Keeping your contact list "clean" is very important for the deliverability of your emails. Continuing to reach out to contacts who are no longer engaged will have a negative impact on your sending reputation in the long term. This can result in a lower average open rate, while increasing the likelihood of receiving a SPAM complaint. For this reason, it is very valuable to gain insight into the engagement of your contacts.
In this article, you will learn how to automatically identify, re-engage, and potentially remove contacts using three automations. These automations can be directly imported into your account.
Part 1: Last Engaged - Date
With the 'Contact Last Engaged - Date' automation, you can easily see when the last interaction took place between the contact and your content. When a contact opens an email or clicks on a link, this automation will update a date-based 'custom field'. This allows you to see exactly when your contacts were last engaged.
Please note: It is important to create the custom field before setting up the automation.
A 'custom field' is a piece of information linked to a specific contact, allowing you to collect additional data that is important to you. This information can be used for email campaigns and automations, providing a more personalised customer experience. You can create a custom field via:
'Contacts' > 'Fields' (under 'Manage') > 'Add Field'
Optional: It is possible to add additional start triggers to the automation to measure engagement on a larger scale. This could include actions such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
Part 2: Last Engaged - Re-engagement
The 'Last Engaged - Re-engagement' automation builds upon the information from the previous automation, helping you automatically follow up with contacts who have not shown any interaction for a certain period. This allows you to re-engage contacts before they have a negative impact on your deliverability.
Start trigger
Contacts will only enter this automation if they have not shown any form of interaction for a certain period. This is based on the custom field you created for the 'Last Engaged - Date' automation in part 1. The duration of this period is controlled from the settings of the start trigger and is set to three months by default. However, if you send emails less frequently, you can choose to extend this period.
From the automation, you can then create an email to try to win back contacts. In the email, let them know that you haven't heard from them in a while, and especially highlight the value you have to offer.
Part 3: Last Engaged - Last Chance and Unsubscribe
The 'Last Engaged - Last Chance and Unsubscribe' automation is the third and final part of the engagement series. This automation makes a final attempt to re-engage contacts with your content. If this is unsuccessful, the contact will automatically be removed from the selected list. In the long term, this will have a positive impact on the deliverability of your emails.
Where part 2 ('Last Engaged - Re-engagement') automatically sends an email to contacts after three months, part 3 does so only after six months. Once again, the duration of this period can be adjusted if, for example, you send emails less frequently. You should then create an email from the automation reiterating that you see the contact is no longer interested in your content. If this email is not opened after a week, the contact will automatically be removed from the selected list. You can also choose to remove the contact from all lists. Contacts not on any list will no longer be considered 'Active' within the system.