Some unsubscribes are healthy: people who are not interested leave, keeping your list engaged. A rising rate, though, is a warning sign.
Common reasons
- Too many emails.
- Content not relevant to them.
- They never really signed up, or forgot they did.
- Only promotional emails, no value.
How to reduce them
- Set expectations at sign-up: say what and how often you will send.
- Segment: send relevant content to each group.
- Offer a frequency choice: weekly or monthly.
- Mix value and offers.
- Welcome new subscribers properly.
Track the rate
Calculate it per campaign with our email metrics calculator. Compare campaigns to see which content or frequency causes spikes.
Make unsubscribing easy
A hidden unsubscribe link leads to spam complaints instead, which hurt deliverability far more. Large senders to Gmail and Yahoo must offer easy unsubscribe. Read Gmail and Yahoo sender rules.
Clean your list
Remove inactive and invalid addresses regularly; our email list cleaner helps with formatting and duplicates.
Want the full picture? This article is part of Email marketing: the complete guide, our in-depth guide with everything in one place.
