What an Email Unsubscribe Rate Is and How to Lower It

What is an email unsubscribe rate?

The email unsubscribe rate is the percentage of people who unsubscribe from you. Unlike conversion rate or revenue per email, this metric doesn’t need third-party tracking tools — your email marketing software can cut it. For example, here’s where to find the metric in Selzy:

Unsubscribing from marketing newsletters is a common situation. Think about your own inbox. How many times have you clicked the unsubscribe link in emails because the content is irrelevant or you keep receiving too many newsletters? 

People unsubscribing is not a problem in itself — you can’t really avoid it. However, once the metric is too high, it may start negatively affecting your campaigns. Too many subscribers clicking that footer link — and your emails will have trouble bypassing spam filters. Then, your deliverability goes down, along with the domain reputation. Congrats, you got yourself the one-way ticket to spam.

To prevent your email campaigns from ending up in that tragic scenario, we’ve gathered some tips that will help you keep the unsubscribe rate low enough so it doesn’t become your problem.

How to calculate the unsubscribe rate

ESPs like Selzy calculate the unsubscribe rate for you automatically. However, if you want to learn more about this process, here’s how to do it yourself.

The unsubscribe rate formula looks like this:

Let’s say, 3 recipients out of 1,000 unsubscribed from your newsletter. In this case, your unsubscribe rate would be 0.3% (3/1,000×100). This is a pretty good rate, meaning that the audience enjoys your newsletter and finds your messages relevant and valuable. 

However, if more than 5 of 1,000 recipients opt out of your newsletter, your rate will be more than 0.5%. In this case, you should start investigating why people don’t want to keep getting your messages.

Unsubscribe rate benchmarks

Now you know that the unsubscribe rate can become a problem if it’s too high — but what is too high? And what is low enough? It depends but here are some interesting numbers and factors affecting your personal benchmarks.

For example, one factor that determines your good and bad unsubscribe rates is the industry. According to Selzy, the average unsubscribe rate for Marketing is 0.09%, while the average rate in IT is just 0.03%. 

Other variables include the country of operation and even the time of the day. For example, GetResponse found that the average unsubscribe rate in Belgium is 0.32%, while in Vietnam it’s 0.06%. As for the time, most unsubscribes (0.14%) happen at 7 AM, 8 AM, and 5 PM.

So, rather than aiming at specific numbers, stay within your industry’s average rate according to the latest benchmark reports. Your campaigns’ historical data can also help you look for abnormalities in the metric over time. So, don’t forget to check the reporting and track your newsletter’s unsubscribe rate regularly.

Why people unsubscribe from emails

To keep your unsubscribe rate low, you should first understand why your subscribers choose to leave you. Here are some of them:

• You send too many newsletters. Reaching out to your audience as often as possible affects your email metrics not in a fun way. According to Mailgun, the most common unsubscribe reason is too many emails. So, send fewer messages and use the reporting feature to identify the type of emails that resonate with your audience the most.
• Your subject lines are misleading. No one likes receiving deceptive messages, so if your email subjects don’t look trustworthy, people can and will opt out. So, avoid using email spam words in your emails, and don’t overhype your offers so they look more reliable. Instead, make them simple and transparent to let people know they can trust your brand.
• Your content is irrelevant. It might happen if you don’t segment your mailing list correctly. For example, if you own a pet care brand, you should only send dog-related content to the customers who own dogs. Or else, your audience will find your emails irrelevant and unsubscribe.
• The subscribers don’t see value in your emails. By subscribing to any newsletter, people want to gain something from it. The value in question may come in the shape of a discount, free shipping, useful insights, or just entertainment. If you don’t provide value to your recipients, they won’t see a point in a subscription.
• You provide a poor user experience. Making good-looking emails is not enough. They need to function properly in all email clients and on all devices for email accessibility and to provide a frictionless experience. If your emails are not responsive and the layout is wacky, no matter the content, people will get frustrated and click the unsubscribe link.

One way to find out why your customers unsubscribe is by adding “an exit poll” to your unsubscribe page. In Selzy, you can edit the “Unsubscribe reasons” survey in Campaign defaults. Here’s what the settings menu will look like:

If you’re using Selzy and want to get more insights about why your subscribers leave, check out the guide on unsubscribe pages in our Help Center. 

Another way to explore the possible unsubscribe reasons is self-reflection. Analyze your inbox and the brands you are subscribed to. What makes you interested in receiving their newsletter? Why did you unsubscribe from other newsletters? Finding answers to these questions might help you point out possible factors for unsubscribing and improve your emails.

How to lower your email unsubscribe rates

Whether you already have a high unsubscribe rate or just want to prevent it from happening, you can follow these tips to enhance your email marketing campaigns:

• Segment your email list. As we’ve mentioned before, a wrong segmentation or no segmentation whatsoever may lead to higher unsubscribe rates, as your audience might find your email content irrelevant. Segmentation will help you deliver relevant content to your target audience and make them interested in receiving your emails. By the way, we have a guide on email segmentation ideas backed up by real examples.
• Use subscriber data to personalize content. Personalization is a great way to build trusting relationships with your audience. 83% of consumers prefer receiving hyper-personalized marketing messages. Simply adding subscribers’ first names in the subject won’t cut it — you need to leverage tons of data from location to browsing history. 

Spotify is a great example of how a brand can use personalization in its marketing campaigns. In the email above, the platform is recommending its users a selection of playlists that would match their taste. The audience will probably be curious to listen to the song selections to find new favorites or to simply check how well the platform knows them and their taste.

• Provide valuable content in your emails. As your audience expects to get some value from subscribing to your newsletter, make sure to deliver the content that is worth subscribing to. Valuable content can take many forms, such as exclusive offers, educational content, downloadable content, real-life stories, etc.

Friendly’s email is offering a discount coupon to the brand’s subscribers. Receiving this email, the customers will probably look forward to other emails by Friendly, hoping for more discounts and deals. So, consider sending out such offers to prove to your customers that it is worth being subscribed to you.

• Optimize your email frequency. Too many emails can easily overwhelm your subscribers. Omnisend found out the sweet spot of 10 to 19 emails per month. If you absolutely need to send promotional emails more often, set up the email preference center. It’s boiled down to a bunch of lists that receive different campaigns, and your subscribers can be in all of them or some of them — that way, they can receive less emails and only those they want. That’s a great way of keeping your unsubscribe rate at bay!

This Christmas-themed interactive email by TWO UK is quite simple yet effective, interesting, and engaging. Interactive elements in emails require AMP blocks, which are a bit harder to implement than your typical HTML email. However, the power of interactive and gamified campaigns is immeasurable when it comes to lowering unsubscribe rates and standing out among the competitors. So, such an investment of time and effort will surely return!

• Improve email design and formatting. Convenient layouts and responsive design contribute to a positive user experience and increase engagement rates. Luckily, most email marketing tools provide responsive email templates, so you won’t need to make your email from scratch. 
• Gather feedback from your subscribers. You can directly ask your audience what type of content they would want to receive or if they like your emails at all to make their experience better. This will help you create relevant and engaging content that your subscribers would find interesting. Offering them something in return, such as a discount promo code or in-store credit is a great motivation so you get more answers. Or, if you can’t offer compensation for taking part in a survey, make it as frictionless for readers as possible. For example, this email from Rind has only one question, and the survey itself is embedded in the email.

By the way, you can learn how to embed a survey in an email in our blog too.

Final thoughts

Although the unsubscribe rate is often overlooked by marketing professionals and business owners, it is an essential metric that you should track regularly. Keeping track of this indicator, you can identify how relevant the content of your emails is and control your deliverability rates. If your unsubscribe rate is above 0.5%, it’s time you start worrying and making changes in your email marketing strategy. Here’s a list of what you can do to keep the unsubscribe rates low and your customers happy with your emails:

• Segment your mailing list.
• Leverage subscriber data for personalization.
• Create valuable content.
• Don’t send emails too often.
• Use responsive email templates.
• Include calls to action.
• Gather feedback from subscribers and improve your emails accordingly.