Jimmy Kim explains why a huge email list of people who never open messages actually makes less money than a small list of engaged readers. Inactive subscribers tank your deliverability with email providers like Gmail and Yahoo, and they increase spam complaints. A smaller, engaged list converts better and reaches inboxes more reliably.
We've seen brands with half a million subscribers making less money than brands with 50,000 subscribers.
And because when you have 500,000 list and it's full of dead weight, people who subscribed 3 years ago who haven't opened an email sent, just a zombie list.
Yeah, 100%. And those people aren't just neutral in the grand scheme of things. They're actually probably hurting you more than they're helping you. How so? But when you send to them, if they don't open, they don't click, and, and maybe even they mark you as spam, potentially Gmail and the other providers, Yahoo, et cetera, they're gonna go, oh, people don't actually want this sender's email.
So your deliverability ends up tanking.
That's right. You're actually being punished for emailing people who don't care.
No, that's the truth. A big unsubscribed or unengaged list is worse than a small engaged list.
Yeah, always. And yet marketers are scared to let anyone go.
