Do you know who’s on your email list?

It’s easy to assume email problems come from the people hitting send. But sometimes the real issue is much bigger — and higher up the org chart.

If you’re in senior leadership and your email metrics feel like a slog with low opens, lower clicks and unsubscribes creeping up, it’s tempting to blame the email team. Before you do, ask yourself: Do you actually know who’s on your list and why they’re there?

When ‘good’ metrics hide a bigger problem

A while back, I worked with a client in the B2B financial services space. Their email performance was weak. They had very low open and click-through rates. Their unsubscribe and spam complaint rates, however, were within industry guidelines.

Unsubscribe rate and spam complaint rate

But when I compared those unsubscribe and spam complaint rates to their click rates, the problem became clear.

Unsubscribe-to-click rate and spam-complaint-to-click rate

If you look at unsubscribes or spam complaints in isolation, they might seem acceptable. But compared to how many people actually clicked, the real story emerges — the unsubscribe-to-click and spam-complaint-to-click rates were off the charts.

When negative engagement (unsubscribes or spam reports) outweighs positive engagement (clicks), that’s a major red flag. The list was built entirely from website opt-ins. So far, so good, right? Here’s the rub. The website’s only goal was to generate leads for the sales team — and it did, maybe a little too well.

Anyone who entered an email address into a form on the site was dropped into an aggressive (but efficient) lead-nurturing journey with rep outreach. After a few calls and follow-ups, you either became a client, were deemed unqualified or said thanks but no thanks. Then you were tossed into the ongoing email program.

Dig deeper: 3 high-impact tactics to drive email engagement

Same message, new — very different — audience

That email program consisted of two monthly sends:

A promotional offer segmented by industry.
A company newsletter.

Here’s where things went off the rails. This was a service most businesses would use once a year at most, if that. Sending monthly promotional emails and salesy newsletters to people who had already used the service, been deemed unqualified or declined the offer was a misstep.

It was like reaching out to everyone who ever applied for a job at your company — those you hired, those you rejected and those who turned you down — and asking if they’d like to apply again. For the same position, with the same job description and the same salary.

The approach missed the mark entirely — and came across as tone-deaf. These were people who had already completed their journey with the brand one way or another, yet they were still receiving messages as if it hadn’t even begun.

It wasn’t that the emails were badly written. It wasn’t that the creative team didn’t segment. It wasn’t even that the email marketers weren’t optimizing.

The message didn’t match the audience — and that decision came from upper management.

A misaligned email program

Let’s break it down. The lead nurture journey ends when someone becomes a customer or is deemed unlikely to become one anytime soon. That’s the natural stopping point.

Is it a bad idea to keep in touch with people who’ve expressed interest? Not at all. But it calls for a new messaging strategy — one that isn’t just a rehash of what they already experienced with the brand.

Sticking with the same approach, built to drive leads for the sales team, only creates disengagement.

Low open rates.
Barely any clicks.
Rising unsubscribes.

Not because the content was bad or the cadence too frequent (though that can happen) — but because the value wasn’t there. The emails simply weren’t relevant to the people receiving them.

Dig deeper: 5 ways to tune up your unsubscribe process before the holidays

There are smarter and more respectful options

This brand had several better paths it could’ve taken.

Adjust the message: Shift from sales-heavy promos to long-term, value-first content. Focus on staying top of mind so if these folks become qualified later or change their minds, your brand is still in the running.
Change the audience: Keep the promo emails but send them only to fresh leads who haven’t completed the full sales cycle. Build new lists of potential leads who might actually be in market.
Redefine the role of email: Maybe your ongoing program should focus less on acquisition and more on retention, referrals and reviews. Clients who already love you are far more likely to recommend you — if you ask them to.
Do nothing: (OK, mostly joking — but not entirely.) If none of the above are feasible, maybe you don’t need an email program at all, at least not for this segment or purpose.

Who’s advocating for the subscriber?

This ties back to a past article I wrote for MarTech, “Who’s advocating for your email subscribers?” We’re often so focused on conversion metrics that we forget there are real people behind those opens, clicks, unsubscribes and spam complaints.

In this case, the list was treated like a resource to be mined rather than a relationship to be nurtured. And that’s a problem.

Email isn’t free. It costs time, budget and brand equity. And if you’re sending irrelevant messages to people who’ve already opted out mentally, you’re not just wasting all three — you’re burning bridges.