10/2025

How to Re-Engage Your Email List (Properly and Without Destroying Deliverability)

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If you’ve ever looked at your email reports and thought, “Half our list doesn’t even open our emails anymore,” you’re not alone.

It’s one of the most common questions I get asked:

“How do we re-engage or reactivate part of our database — the ones that just don’t engage?”

But before we even touch “how”, we need to talk about what and why.

Because re-engagement is not a single email or a three-step flow.

It’s a process that starts long before you hit send and it can go very wrong, very fast, if you don’t understand what’s happening underneath the surface.

So let’s start at the beginning.

What does “engagement” actually mean?

Every marketer has their own idea of what engagement is. Most will tell you it’s opens and clicks.

But opens and clicks are just surface-level indicators. They tell you something happened, not why it happened, or whether it was positive.

Someone can open an email to delete it. They can click by accident. They can ignore every single campaign you send for months and still be a paying customer or client.

Engagement looks different for every business. For some, it’s frequent clicks and conversions. For others, it’s brand awareness - just seeing your name in the inbox.

The key is to define what engagement means for you.

You’ll always have a mix of behaviours in your database:

People who regularly open, click and buy (mainly for D2C or B2C)
People who open occasionally but rarely act
People who never engage at all and probably never will

And that’s okay. No list has 100% active engagement all the time.

What matters is understanding your engagement lifecycle (for B2B & B2C/D2C).

Analyse metrics like:

Time to disengage — how long a new subscriber stays active before they stop engaging.
Time to disengage post-purchase/action — how long a new customer or client stays engaged with your emails before they fade away.
Average active lifespan of an email subscriber - regardless of customer or client status.

These numbers will give you your own benchmarks for what “engaged” and “disengaged” truly mean. Forget the generic “30-day rule” - it’s meaningless without context.

Why do you want to re-engage them?

Marketers love to say “we’re running a re-engagement campaign,” but very few can explain why.

Re-engagement isn’t a goal.

It’s an outcome - the result of having a solid strategy, clean data, and relevant content.

Before you start, ask yourself:

What are we actually trying to achieve?
Are we chasing revenue?
Trying to improve deliverability?
Clearing old data?
Or doing it because leadership said “we need to re-engage everyone”?

If you can’t answer that question clearly, stop right there. You can’t design a strategy around an undefined goal. “Re-engage” is an action - not a purpose.

Prove that engagement drives results

It makes sense on paper that more engaged subscribers = more sales, leads or whatever your bosses are pushing for. But can you prove it?

Sometimes that correlation doesn’t exist as clearly as you think.

Let’s say you’re bringing in 100 new subscribers a month through a lead magnet, webinar, piece of valuable content, a pop-up, or a discount offer.

They sign up, get their incentive or value exhange, open your first few emails, maybe click a few times.

At the same time, older contacts quietly fade away. They don’t open. They don’t click. They don’t unsubscribe.

That’s called list churn, and it’s completely normal!

Email lists are living ecosystems, you’re constantly gaining and losing subscribers. It’s a bit like a leaky bucket. New people flow in; others naturally drop off.

(Remember, they can drop off with unsubscribes, but also invisible churn - those people who just ignore your emails or delete every time they see you.)

The key is understanding what’s healthy churn and what’s avoidable churn.

Invisible churn: people who stop engaging but never unsubscribe, is where you lose the most impact. They’re the ones clogging your list, lowering deliverability, and skewing your engagement metrics.

BUT, it's not to say we don't email them (more on this later on).

Before you invest time and budget in a re-engagement campaign, test whether engagement actually leads to tangible business outcomes.

If you can demonstrate that higher engagement equals higher revenue, retention, impact or assisted conversions, it’s worth your focus.

If you can’t, you might be treating the symptom, not the cause.

Diagnose why people disengage

Disengagement doesn’t happen randomly. It’s the result of something deeper, and if you don’t find the “why,” no re-engagement email in the world will fix it.

Here are common causes I see across my clients I work with (B2B, B2C, D2C, charities - all different types):

Deliverability issues: your emails never even reach inboxes
Poor data quality: duplicates, invalid contacts, outdated lists, lack of data collection strategy
Irrelevant content: the wrong messages for the wrong segments
Content fatigue: the same tone, same design, same offers - I call this inbox numbness
Acquisition mismatch: people who never wanted your emails to begin with

You will ALWAYS have disengaged subscribers - this is really normal.

But when the majority of your list stops responding, it’s a red flag that your data, strategy or deliverability is fundamentally broken.

Rule out deliverability first - you MUST do this

This is the part most marketers skip — and it’s the reason their re-engagement campaigns backfire.

I get called into businesses all the time where someone says:

“We’ve got a big list, we just need to re-engage them.”

And before I even look at content, design, or segmentation, I stop them. Because if you’ve got a deliverability issue, even a small one, sending to disengaged data will tank your sender reputation overnight.

Those 'cold' contacts are already giving you negative signals: deleting, ignoring, or filtering your emails into spam. When you start blasting them again, mailbox providers see that behaviour and assume your content is unwanted.

Even if your deliverability is fine today, you can still break it tomorrow if you don’t have preventative measures in place.

Before you even think about re-engaging anyone, do a full deliverability audit.

That’s where my Email Deliverability Masterclasses come in.

I teach the exact six-step audit process I use with clients - the same one that uncovers the hidden issues your ESP can’t show you. You’ll learn how to measure sender reputation, analyse authentication, and understand how Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo actually decide where your emails land.

There’s a session for B2B and one for B2C/D2C, both count towards your CPD and are a must forevery marketer. If you want to start there, you can check upcoming dates here →

If your list is old, you have a data problem

Disengagement often starts at the top of the funnel. Email is a big part of the CRM function; it relies on the same three pillars: systems, strategy, and data.

And when your data is off, everything downstream collapses.

Think about how contacts are acquired:

In B2C, they might opt in via a discount pop-up (just to get the discount) or purchase flow during checkout
In B2B, they might “opt in” automatically after submitting an enquiry form - through legitimate interest and then get your 'newsletters'

Those are two completely different intent levels. The above are called consequential opt-ins.

Someone who signs up because they want your content (e.g., your newsletter or a free resource, engagement magnet, webinar, discount code) is a warm opt-in.

Someone who ends up on your list because they bought something or filled out a form is a cold opt-in - they didn’t necessarily want ongoing emails.

If you treat both types of people the same, you’re already creating disengagement!!

Then there’s the data itself.

Are you collecting enough information to understand your audience?

Do you know who they are, what they’ve bought, what they care about, or what their buying cycle looks like?

If not, you’ll end up sending broad, irrelevant messages that people ignore. And once someone ignores you long enough, that’s the beginning of disengagement.

Finally, your systems play a part. Clunky integrations, broken automation, and disconnected tools make it impossible to send the right message at the right time.

These are all core CRM problems that show up as email problems. You can read more about this in my PPPP™ Framework here and Data Collection Strategy guide here — both explain how to build the right foundations before you ever press send.

The “Keep or Kill” exercise

Once you’ve audited deliverability, cleaned your data, and fixed your systems, you’re ready to look at the disengaged segment itself.

You’re going to do what I call the Keep or Kill exercise.

It sounds harsh, but it’s essential (we're not actually killing people hehe).

Look at your disengaged segment and separate them into two groups:

🗑 Kill list:

These are the contacts that are too high-risk, too old, or too low-value to justify the effort.

No activity for years
Invalid or outdated domains
Inactive B2B contacts who’ve changed jobs
Long-term non-responders who likely have you in spam

Keeping them on your list is a waste of send volume and reputation. They won’t come back, and that’s okay.

💌 Keep list:

These are people who don’t engage, but still matter.

Customers or clients who purchase regularly/timely but never click emails
Seasonal buyers who only shop at certain times of year
People who see your brand name in their inbox but rarely interact
Out of market (more for B2B), people who check your content regulary but email engagement is limited

For them, email isn’t a performance channel - it’s an awareness tool. They might not open, but they still see you. And that still counts.

This exercise helps you decide where to invest effort and where to let go. It’s not about shrinking your list - it’s about protecting it.

How to actually re-engage people

Once your house is in order, you can finally start re-engaging - safely please.

Here are three strategies that work.

1. Pattern Interrupts

Humans are creatures of habit. We see the same patterns in our inbox every day - the same type of subject lines, the same designs, the same tone. In your work inbox and your personal.

So when something unexpected appears, it grabs attention.

That’s what a pattern interrupt does.

It makes people stop scrolling, look twice, and think: “Wait… what’s this?”

Examples:

Change your “from” name to something playful or personal
Use humour or curiosity instead of a corporate tone
Send a plain-text email instead of a polished template
Do something fun and self-aware

As long as it's DIFFERENT.

When I wanted to re-engage my cold segment, I changed my sender name to Queen of CRM and sent an email titled “Off with [first name]'s engagement!” complete with a spinning wheel GIF when you open the email.

It re-engaged subscribers who hadn’t opened in nearly two months. Why? Because it broke the pattern.

Take a look:

The engagement I got:

For people who have previously did NOTHING (with a pinch of salt, as you can NEVER rely on opens and clicks reliably remember, so my copy was not assumptive) I got:

46 (excluding bots) people opened this one
25 people clicked
I got 3 people to unsubscribe - this was a goal of the email too
4 people actually replied to me!

2. Offer a clear value exchange

Most re-engagement emails fail because they say, “We miss you, here’s 10% off.” That’s not value.

These people are not in buying mode (some maybe though), they’re in “prove you’re worth my attention again” mode.

So give them something that actually helps.

It could be:

A tool, checklist, or guide
Educational content that solves a small problem
Exclusive insight they can’t find elsewhere

For example, in B2B, offer a quick resource addressing the exact pain point that made them subscribe in the first place.

In B2C, offer something genuinely useful, not just another sale.

3. Remind them who you are and WHY they came into your world in the first place

Disengaged subscribers often forget why they’re on your list or they hear from you.

Remind them.

“You downloaded this from us back in 2019. We’re cleaning up our database and wanted to check if you still want if [xxxx] is still a topic you're looking to [xxxx].”

Honesty goes a long way. It triggers memory, trust, and micro-emotion, all the things that rebuild connection.

Measure success properly

Re-engagement isn’t about getting everyone to open or click again. If you’re chasing a 100% engagement rate, you’ll burn out.

Here’s how to measure success in context:

Positive engagement: clicks, replies, purchases, new sessions, increase traffic to website, sign ups etc - IMPACT PEOPLE, unsubs (yes this is GOOD)
Negative signals: complaints, hard bounces, lack of engagement
Deliverability: inbox placement and domain reputation trends

Remember, opens are not a reliable success metric. People open to delete, to unsubscribe, to check.

They open out of habit. You’re not measuring curiosity - you’re measuring impact.

Even if they don’t click, just seeing your name in the inbox can create familiarity, trust, and eventual conversion.

Email isn’t a conversion tool, it’s an awareness and nurture channel first.

Beth's final thoughts

Wow this was a long one...sorry!

If you take nothing else from this blog, remember this:

Don’t try to re-engage before you repair!!!!

Fix your deliverability first
Clean your data
Define your strategy
Then re-engage with creativity, value, and emotion

Because re-engagement isn’t about chasing old opens, it’s about rebuilding trust and relevance.

It’s one of the hardest things to do in email marketing, but when you get it right, it changes everything.

Want to learn how to do this properly?

You’ve got two options:

Do it yourself:

Join upcoming masterclasses here →
They’re CPD-accredited, packed with ungooglable insights, and include my full six-step deliverability audit template.

Read my newsletter to get as much info on all things email →
RE:markable is the weekly email about emails. Dropping the latest email marketing news, updates, insights, free resources, upcoming masterclasses, webinars, and of course, a little inbox mischief.

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If you want help auditing, strategising, and transforming your CRM and email performance, I’ll guide you through the full rebuild.

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