Why is my unsubscribe rate so high?

What's the most inevitable thing in the life of an email marketer? Unsubscribes. 

We all know it's coming. But do unsubscribes still hurt? Yes, they do. 

If you have a high unsubscription rate, the problem doesn't stop at reducing your mailing list. A high number of unsubscribes signals to your audience's email providers that you're spamming people.

This may cause email service providers to send your emails directly to the spam folder, which means your emails may never see the light of day.

Understanding why unsubscribes happen is the first step toward preventing a high unsubscribe rate. After all: "A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved." 

Why your unsubscribe rates are high 

• Too many emails: Too many emails is one of the top reasons for high unsubscribe rates. Evaluate whether you're spamming your audience with the number of emails you're sending. Check if reducing the number of emails makes a difference.

• Irrelevant content: If your audience doesn't find your content relevant or valuable, their disinterest will naturally be reflected in your unsubscription rates. If this is the case, you have to understand what your audience is looking for and send content tailored to their interests.

• Too sales-y: As a business emailing current and potential customers, your eventual goal is to sell a product or a service. But if every email is a sales pitch, it quickly gets old. Try to switch it up and offer helpful resources that will make your audience want to read your emails rather than click that unsubscribe button.

• Too boring: Even if your content itself is relevant and valuable, the way it is presented could be boring. People's attention spans are only getting shorter, so it's time you adapted to newer formats like videos, GIFs, and interactive elements like quizzes and polls.

• Too generic: Buying behaviors differ between generations, incomes, geographies, genders, and other factors. So how can one email work for everyone? 
  Extremely generic emails that sound like they were written for anyone make readers lose interest. Email list segmentation and personalization are must-dos if you don't want your emails to sound too generic.

• Too few emails: Could this really be a problem? Well, it's possible that your email frequency is so rare thatrecipients don't even remember you (which means they probably don't remember subscribing or giving consent, either).
  A sudden, random email might make them wonder who you are and why they're receiving an email from you. Finding the balance between too few and too many emails is key to keeping unsubscribe rates in check. 

• Poor list quality: You can't succeed at email marketing with purchased lists. Getting permission from your audience should be your first step before you start doing email marketing.
  Purchased lists not only cause high unsubscribes and spam reports, they also come with a risk of non-compliance with data privacy regulations.

• Inconsistency: Consistency comes in many forms. A recognizable sender name, goal-led email campaigns, and clean CTAs are all part of creating consistent email experiences. Even if one of these is out of place, it could damage your reputation and cause an increase in unsubscribe rates. 

• Poor formatting: If your emails aren't device-optimized, even people who open them aren't going to be able to read them. Companies often spend a lot creating beautiful designs that only look good on desktops.
  81% of people open their emails on mobile devices, so it's important that your emails are readable to them as well.

• Inaccessibility: From disabilities and impairments to firewalls and security programs, a lot of factors can make your email content inaccessible for your audience.
  If your email images don't have alt text, your fonts are unreadable, and important information is in graphics, you're not only risking unsubscribes, but also alienating your audience.

• Not visually appealing: Imagine creating a neat video to go in your email and hiding it between walls of text. Or creating a valuable email but making it look completely cluttered. Wouldn't that make your audience unsubscribe from your emails?
  Neat email templates with appropriate elements and white space make a lot of difference in the way your audience perceives your emails. 

• Lack of testing: Sure, go ahead and change whatever you think isn't working out in your email campaigns. But what if you're wrong?
  Making major changes to your emails without adequate testing on a sample group is a surefire way to increase those unsubscription rates. 

 Email marketing do's to reduce unsubscribe rates 

Reduce email unsubscribe rates with Zoho Campaigns

When it comes to unsubscribe rates, anything less than 2% is generally alright. However, the number fluctuates for different industries, and the only way to keep the number low is to understand why unsubscribes happen in your case. 

As you read in this blog, even if your mailing list is high-quality and you use double opt-in before sending emails, unsubscribes still occur.

Sometimes, it just so happens that your audience unsubscribes from your emails because they don't need them anymore. If you're a local store, the customer may have moved to a different city; or if you're selling kids' toys, the customer's children may all be grown up. In such cases, you can't do anything about the unsubscribes.

So don't fret if you still get some unsubscribes even after trying every possible solution. 

A reputable email marketing software like Zoho Campaigns helps you deal with high unsubscribe rates through essential email marketing features such as mobile-optimized templates, audience segmentation, email limits, A/B testing, and personalization. 

Try Zoho Campaigns for free today