Any way to re-send emails to users who don't open them on Substack?
I have about a 50% open rate, which is great, but there are a few posts I know more users would love but emails get forgotten and buried.
Is there a way to see which users opened which emails and 're-send' the emails that they missed?
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DON'T do this. You're misinterpreting your readers' minds.
As someone who works in email marketing, I have heard this request before from people who are new to this space – particularly those with small lists who are trying to maximize their coverage of their audience. It is literally the exact OPPOSITE of what you should be doing.
You've got a great open rate. Keep up the good work. But don't hammer people who don't open. It's not that they've forgotten or the email got buried. They're not reading because they don't want to.
Anyone who doesn't open emails consistently after a few months should be REMOVED from your list, not sent more emails. This is because engagement with your emails (opening, clicking links) is a signal to email providers (particularly Gmail, the largest email inbox provider by market share, but also by a few others – particularly Microsoft) that people want your content. When you continue sending emails to people who aren't engaging with them, it's a signal to the email providers that you're spamming people – sending them content they don't want. And that's when they start throttling your emails, discarding them without delivery, sending them to the junk folder, or putting you in the dreaded "promotions" tab.
The ONLY time you should try resending emails to people (and I don't know if this is possible or how this works on Substack as I've never used it) is when you have a campaign that does EXTRAORDINARILY well. If, for example, you're normally getting 25% open rates and one email subject line you send gets a 50% open rate, then that's a good idea to resend that one because it'll like bring a bunch of people back into your active users list. But resending emails people don't want to read is an bad signal to the email providers, not a good one.
The study of email deliverability is incredibly challenging because email providers use obscurity of their rules as a way of trying to beat spammers. But of the few "rules" that are clearly stated by them to big email senders, "Only send email to people who want to engage with it," is pretty much rule #1.
Great answer. Thanks.
So should I be emailing people who haven't opened in a while and asking if they want to unsubscribe? Or is there a better way to do it. Thanks!
If you want to try and reactivate people, I recommend one of two things that I've seen work:
Send them your most popular email from the past few weeks with a subject line that's something like: "RE: [best performing subject line that got people to open]" – and a message at the top of the email that says something like, "Just wanted to make sure you saw this really popular email that lots of people seemed to like!" if they don't open it/engage with it, drop 'em.
Send an email to those folks that's something like, "Should I remove you from the list?" With a frank email that says something like, "My records show you haven't opened an email from me in a few months. Since I don't want to keep sending you emails you don't want, I'm going to remove you from my list in a few days unless you click the button below to let me know you want to stay on the list." (in your own voice, etc.)
That way you're just removing people if they take no action, versus asking if they want to be unsubscribed – people who want to be unsubbed won't take action, either.
The other point I should have made above is that people who aren't engaging with your emails are also WAY more likely to mark your emails as spam at some point. These are the folks who wait like six months, open an email, and just push the spam button – which obviously hurts your deliverability. So you really want to focus on the folks who ARE engaging with your emails (opening, clicking, etc.) and get people who aren't doing those things off your list as quickly as possible.
Interested to know, why are you emailing?
In general? I write articles about AI and send them to people who want to learn.
I see.