We Stopped Hacking Our Newsletter and Open Rates Nearly Doubled

For about a year, the newsletter at a fintech startup I worked with was a growth machine on paper. The list grew from 8,000 to 52,000 subscribers. We had exit-intent popups, giveaway entries, a co-registration deal with a partner, and subject lines engineered for curiosity. Leadership loved the chart.

Then someone asked how many of those subscribers had ever opened an email. The answer was uncomfortable.

The numbers behind the curve

• Average open rate had slid from 41 percent to 17 percent.
• Around 60 percent of subscribers had not opened a single email in ninety days.
• Spam complaints were creeping up, and some of our emails had started landing in promotions or junk folders more often.
• Revenue attributed to the newsletter was flat despite a sixfold larger list.

We had grown an audience of people who did not want to hear from us.

What we changed

We cleaned the list

We sent a short re-engagement email to everyone inactive for ninety days, asking if they wanted to stay. Those who did not respond within two weeks were removed. The list dropped from 52,000 to about 19,000. It felt like a loss. It was not.

We rewrote subject lines to be accurate

No more vague teasers. Subject lines described what was inside, such as How to read your credit report in ten minutes. Opens per email rose, but more importantly, complaints fell sharply.

We removed the giveaway signups

People who joined to win a gadget left as soon as the contest ended. We replaced the giveaway with a simple, honest description of what the newsletter covered and how often it arrived.

We sent less

We moved from three emails a week to one. Each email got more attention from the team and, as it turned out, from readers.

The results after four months

1. Open rate rose from 17 percent to 33 percent.
2. Click rate roughly tripled.
3. Spam complaints dropped to a fraction of their earlier level.
4. Product signups from newsletter links increased by about 40 percent, from a list less than half the size.

What I took away

List size is a vanity metric unless the people on it want to be there. The tactics that inflate a list usually do so by recruiting people with weak interest, and email providers notice when your audience ignores you.

A smaller list of people who read you is worth more than a large list of people who tolerate you.

If your newsletter numbers look great but revenue does not move, start by asking how many of your subscribers actually opened your last email. That one figure will tell you whether you have an audience or just an address book.

Cover: Photo by Justin Morgan on Unsplash.