Successful marketing starts with focusing on the right audience. Focus your efforts on engaged contacts, re-engage those who have gone quiet, and give one final attempt before marking contacts inactive.

Keeping your contact list healthy also affects your Omnisend subscription cost. Unsubscribed contacts do not count toward your billable contact limit, so identifying and unsubscribing truly inactive contacts can move you to a lower pricing tier.

In this article, we share a few segment ideas to help you measure your contacts' activity and identify their place within your marketing strategy.

Two main parameters define an engaged contact: engagement with your marketing messages and purchase behavior. Both are equally important – brand recognition and purchase activity together indicate healthy engagement.

Start by identifying your most frequently engaged contacts using the following filter groups:

You can adjust the timeframe to match your customer life cycle. If your offerings are seasonal, extend the timeframe to 6–12 months to account for off-season inactivity, or filter by purchase recency instead of email engagement during quiet periods.

It happens that a contact places an order but never engages with your marketing emails. You do not need to delete this contact immediately. Try reaching them through a different channel, such as SMS, Push Notifications, or Facebook Custom Audiences.

Create a segment of contacts whose Subscription status is Subscribed to Email channel, who have Placed order at least 1 time in the last 3 months, and have not Opened a message at least 1 time in the last 3 months, where Channel is Email.

Some contacts actively engage with your campaigns but have never placed an order. To identify them, create a segment with Subscription status is Subscribed to Email channel and who have Opened message at least 3 times in the last 3 months, where Channel is Email and Marketing Activity Type is Campaign.

Every contact has a lifecycle. After exhausting re-engagement options – discounts, special offers, and alternative channels – be ready to mark contacts as inactive and remove them from your sending lists.

Create a segment of all contacts whose Subscription status is Subscribed to Email channel and who have not Opened message at least 1 time in the last 3 months, where Channel is Email and Marketing Activity Type is Campaign.

You can adjust the timeframe to suit your marketing strategy. The earlier you identify disengaging contacts, the more time you have to act.

If contacts do not re-engage after all your efforts, unsubscribe them. Continuing to send campaigns to inactive contacts damages your sender reputation. For step-by-step instructions on safely unsubscribing, see Segment and Unsubscribe Inactive Contacts.

Why does my Sunsetting Segment show only a small number of contacts?

The pre-built segment uses a 90-day default, which may be too short if you send less than weekly. Increase the timeframe to 120–180 days and add a have not clicked filter alongside have not opened, connected with OR. Segments update in real time – adjust one filter at a time.

When should I use AND, and when should I use OR between filters?

Use AND when a contact must meet all conditions (subscribed AND no opens AND no purchases). Use OR when meeting any one condition is enough (no opens OR no clicks).