List cleanup

Why it exists

People who never open your emails still receive them, and inboxes notice: a list full of readers who ignore you pushes your issues toward spam for everyone else. They also count toward your plan's subscribers. List cleanup asks them once whether they still want your newsletter, and stops sending to those who don't answer.

How it works

It runs each time an issue goes out, for each contact on the list:

1. Cold contacts get a last-chance email instead of the issue. A contact is cold after 6 ignored issues in a row and 180 days without a sign of life. Opens, clicks, signing up again and the confirmation click are signs of life, and any of them starts the count over.
2. One click keeps them. The email has a “Yes, keep sending it” button. Clicking it puts them back in your list as before.
3. No answer makes them dormant. Until they answer, they get no issues. At your first send 14 days or more after the last-chance email, those who didn't click become dormant.

Dormant contacts stay in your list: they're never unsubscribed or deleted, and you can mark any of them active from the Contacts page. They don't count toward your plan's subscribers.

Before you send

When you send now, the send step counts what the cleanup will do: how many get the issue, how many get the last-chance email instead, how many are still waiting to answer one and how many become dormant. A scheduled issue runs the cleanup when it goes out. The campaign's report then shows the last-chance emails apart from the issue.

Settings

List cleanup is on for new newsletters. In the List cleanup section of the newsletter's settings, turn it off, or change when a contact counts as cold: 2 to 100 ignored issues, counting from the first issue Botensten Mailsent them, and 30 to 3650 quiet days. A weekly newsletter can go lower on days.