Email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook track whether your contacts engage with your emails with opens, clicks, and purchases. High engagement keeps you in the inbox. Low engagement sends you to spam.
In this article, you'll learn how to identify your most engaged Contacts, segment by activity, and send campaigns that protect your deliverability.
Why Engaged Contacts Matter for Deliverability
Contacts who don't engage with your email campaigns generate spam complaints, bounces, and damage your sender reputation. Email providers interpret low engagement as a signal that your content is irrelevant or unwanted.
Positive engagement signals:
Opens, reads, and clicks.
Moves your email to the Primary folder or marks it as important.
Adds you to the Safe Senders List.
Clicks "Not Spam" to rescue your email from the spam folder.
Negative signals:
Bounces (invalid email address).
Deletes without opening.
Marks as spam.
Unsubscribes (less damaging than spam complaints, but still a warning sign).
Email providers aggregate this data. If negative signals dominate, your future campaigns land in spam – even for engaged Contacts.
💡 Best practice: Send only to contacts who opened or clicked in the last 6–12 months.
Segment Active Contacts
Create segments to identify your most active Contacts. Combine three key metrics: purchases, clicks, and opens.
1. Segment by Purchase Recency
Start with Contacts who placed an order recently and expand the timeframe:
Placed an order in the last 7 days (most engaged).
Placed an order in the last 14, 21, 30, or 45 days.
Placed an order at least 1 time in total (least engaged).
2. Segment by Click Behavior
Combine your "Placed order any time" segment with Contacts who clicked a campaign link:
Placed order any time + Clicked in the last 7 days.
Placed order any time + Clicked in the last 14, 21 days.
Expand the timeframe as needed.
3. Segment by Opens
After targeting clickers, add a final layer for Contacts who opened (but didn't click):
Placed order any time + Clicked any time + Opened in the last 7 days.
Placed order any time + Clicked any time + Opened in the last 14 days.
Expand the timeframe as needed.
💡 How to use these segments:
Send your most important campaigns (sales, launches) to your most engaged segments first. Gradually expand to less-engaged groups if needed.
💬 Learn more: Segment Contacts by Engagement Level.
Send Engaging Content
Your Contacts subscribed because they were interested in your products, but they may only care about specific products. Tailor your campaigns to match their preferences.
How to personalize campaigns:
Collect preferences via Signup Forms: Ask: "What are you interested in?" (e.g., New Arrivals, Sale Alerts, Style Tips).
Send surveys to learn priorities: Let contacts update their subscription preferences or favorite categories.
Segment by past behavior: Target contacts who clicked products in a specific category or purchased a specific item.
Offer incentives: Re-engage quiet contacts with exclusive discounts or early access.
Set expectations upfront: Use Welcome Automation to explain what emails you'll send and how often: "Expect 2 emails per week: Tuesday for new arrivals, Friday for weekend sales."
When Contacts know what to expect and see content that matches their interests, engagement improves.
Send Campaigns Consistently
Consistency builds trust and keeps your sender reputation strong.
Send on a Predictable Schedule
Pick a regular cadence (e.g., every Tuesday at 10 AM), so Contacts expect your campaigns. Test send times to match when your audience is most active.
💬 Read more: Best Time to Send Email.
Only Import Engaged Contacts
If you're migrating from another email platform, import only Contacts who opened or clicked in the last 6–12 months. Old, inactive lists damage deliverability immediately.
When email providers see low engagement from your first campaigns, they assume all future campaigns are spam – even if you later send to engaged Contacts.
💬 Learn more: Email Deliverability When Switching to a New ESP.
Quality Over Quantity
A small list of engaged Contacts performs better than a large list of inactive Contacts. Prioritize engagement over list size.
💬 Clean your list: Clean Your Email List to Improve Deliverability.
FAQ
How often should I clean my Contact list?
Clean your list every 3–6 months. Remove Contacts who haven't opened or clicked in 6–12 months to protect deliverability.
What engagement rate is healthy?
Average open rate: ~20%. Click rate: ~2–3%. If your rates fall below these benchmarks, review your segmentation and content strategy.
Should I delete unengaged Contacts or just stop emailing them?
Unsubscribe them. Keeping inactive Contacts inflates your list size and distorts reporting. Focus budget and effort on engaged subscribers.
Should I re-engage inactive Contacts before removing them?
Yes. Send a "We miss you" campaign with a special offer. If they don't respond within 7–14 days, unsubscribe them.
What are server clicks (spam clicks)?
A server click, also known as a bot click, spam click, or non-human interaction, occurs when the anti-spam filter of the receiving mail server checks the validity of links in an email. For example, Gmail's anti-spam filters may click links in suspicious emails to ensure they're not malicious, helping determine whether to deliver the email to the inbox or mark it as spam.
Why do server clicks affect my email reporting, and why am I seeing an increase?
Server clicks, aimed at enhancing inbox security, complicate reporting on email activity. Due to a global rise in phishing attacks, mailbox providers tighten security settings, resulting in an increase in server clicks.
Note: While Omnisend reliably tracks clicks, it's important to note that we can't distinguish clicks made by anti-spam software. Aggressive spam filters often interact with links in emails, making it challenging to precisely identify genuine user engagement.
If you notice an unusually high number of clicks from a single domain or user, it may be indicative of spam filter activity.
What should I do if I notice a sudden increase in opens, clicks, or unsubscribes, and how can I prevent this in the future?
If you suspect server clicks are impacting your email data, follow these recommendations. Check newly linked URLs for potential issues and assess your list's health by removing inactive or unengaged subscribers, as described in the guide above.
To prevent future occurrences, adhere to best practices: encourage subscribers to add you to their Safe Senders List (mark your emails as safe) and promote it in Welcome emails or signup forms. Also, ensure you only link to content hosted on your website and include an active unsubscribe button in all emails.
If you have any questions, please write to [email protected] or chat with us via in-app chat.