Fixing Low Engagement · Part 1: Stop Sending to Inactive Contacts
- Judith Prugger
- Jun 25
- 2 min read
June 30th, 2025
Still sending to subscribers who haven’t clicked or opened your emails in months? Emailing chronically inactive contacts tanks your email metrics—and quietly destroys your sender reputation in the process.
Why Inactive Subscribers Are Risky
When your emails go unopened, inbox providers take notice. Keep sending anyway, and you’ll start landing in spam—even for contacts who do engage.
Here’s Exactly How to Fix It
📉 1. Suppress Chronically Inactive Subscribers
Mailbox providers rely on real engagement (clicks and verified opens). If someone hasn’t clicked—and their only opens are flagged as Apple privacy opens—they’re likely inactive and should be suppressed.
Build a clean segment in Klaviyo:
Go to Lists & Segments → Create Segment
Use the filters shown in the screenshot to isolate subscribers who haven’t opened or clicked in the last 180+ days (excluding Apple privacy opens)
Name it “Inactive 180+ Days (Clicks & Verified Opens Only)”
Suppress this segment: Click the ••• (three dots) next to the segment name → Suppress. This ensures you won’t accidentally send to them again in campaigns or flows.
💬 Could you try to win them back? Maybe. If you have their email or phone number, you could try a re-engagement campaign—or, if you’ve got a postal address, even send a direct mail piece. Paid ads can help too. But more often than not, these contacts are simply not interested—and keeping them around does more harm than good.
💡Klaviyo’s prebuilt “Never Engaged” segment only includes people who’ve never interacted. We recommend suppressing anyone who hasn’t clicked or had a verified open in 180+ days—even if they used to engage—to better protect deliverability.
📊 2. Segment by Engagement (30/60/90 Days)
If your deliverability or engagement metrics are down, avoid blasting your full list. Start small, rebuild trust with inbox providers, and scale intentionally.
How to do it:
Create segments for:
Opened/clicked in the last 30 days
Opened/clicked in the last 60 days
Opened/clicked in the last 90 days
Tip: Filter out Apple Privacy Opens for more accurate segmentation.
Start by sending to the 30-day segment
3. Then, expand to the 60- and 90-day groups as your click rates stay strong and spam complaints remain low
💡Don’t rush it. Expanding too quickly—even with solid click rates—can trigger spam filters if you're not consistently monitoring engagement and deliverability.
Next Steps & What's Coming
You've got the strategy—now let’s put it into action. Choose your path below, and stay tuned for Part 2 where we’ll tackle bounce handling (and how to clean out the addresses quietly hurting your deliverability).
Using Klaviyo yet? It’s built for smarter segmentation and better inboxing. → Try it now
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