Sending to a mostly quiet audience does more than waste sends. Inbox providers watch how people react to your email, and a big send that nobody opens teaches them to put your next email in spam, including for the readers who love you.
The health check shows you this before you send.
Where to find it:
Step 2, Audience, of any broadcast, just under the recipient count and the Always leave out box.
What you see:
The audience is split by each person's most recent open or click.
- Opened or clicked in the last 30 days.
- Opened or clicked 31 to 90 days ago.
- Not engaged in the last 90 days.
Each shows how many people and what share of the audience that is. The numbers update with every change you make to the audience.
The warning:
When an audience of 50 or more people is at least half not engaged in the last 90 days, the box turns amber and a warning appears, for example 71% of this audience has not opened or clicked anything in 90 days. It suggests two ways forward: leave the quiet people out, or send in waves on the Review & send step, so the engaged people go first and you decide on the rest.
What to do about it:
- To keep only recent readers, open Advanced filters, and under Also include people who match add Last opened, within last, 90 days. See Building A Custom Audience.
- To send in waves, go to step 4, Review & send, and set up Send in waves. See Sending A Broadcast In Waves.
- To win quiet people back gently, send them a short, friendly email on its own before including them in big sends.
Good to know:
Engagement here means opens and clicks on email sent by the Mailer itself. People whose only activity was in another email tool before you moved count as not engaged until they open or click something you send from here. Verify Leads uses a wider set of evidence, including purchases, so the two can read differently for the same person. See Verify Leads: Clean An Old List Before You Mail It.
A real example:
For the Black Friday bundle email, Leafwise Gardening's audience of Newsletter and Free Seed Starting Guide showed 765 people active in the last 30 days, 119 from 31 to 90 days, and 276 not engaged: a healthy 24%. When Anna tried sending to Imported from old autoresponder instead, the box turned amber: 71% of this audience had not opened or clicked anything in 90 days. She sent that list its own short email in waves instead.
Tips:
- Check the split before every large send.
- Keep your regular sends aimed at people who opened or clicked recently, and bring others back in small groups.
- See The Suppression List and Hard And Soft Bounces for addresses that should never be mailed again.