A high email unsubscribe rate, typically 1% or above, signals a problem. Common causes: sending too often, irrelevant content, bought lists, or emailing people who've gone inactive. Track trends over time instead of panicking over one spike.
If you're consistently at 1% or higher, something's probably a little broken.
So that ongoing 1% or higher is typically a red flag. I think it could mean a number of things. Number one is you're going to be emailing folks way too often. Maybe you're sending like a daily email when your pop-up said that you're going to send weekly. Or it could be that the content that you're sending is just not relevant and/or it could be kind of annoying to people. Maybe even too, like the way in which you acquired your list, buying lists, etc., just wasn't folks that actually opted in and therefore they never actually cared about you or knew about you. And then the last part could be like you're sending to unengaged people who probably should just be suppressed entirely.
So a high unsubscribe rate in hindsight can also mean that you're being bold, but it could also mean that you're kind of screwing up.
You have to diagnose. It just really depends. But if you launch like a controversial campaign and you get a 1% unsubscribe spike, that might be fine. But if you're consistently at that 1% or higher, then it's pretty likely that you have a problem.
The key is looking at trends and not just one-off spikes.
