Don't re-engage the list until you do this

A client once came to me frustrated.

They had tens of thousands of dormant subscribers — people who hadn’t opened an email in months.

So, they did what most marketers do...

They launched a re-engagement campaign.

Subject lines were optimized.

Timing was tested.

They even offered discounts and bonuses.

Crickets...

Hardly anyone opened the emails.

Fewer clicked.

It looked like the list was just… dead.

But here’s the thing:

The list wasn’t dead. Emails never reached their audience.

The real problem? - Their sender reputation was in the gutter.

Too many past sends to unengaged contacts.

Poor list hygiene. Poor response rates. Spam complaints.

They were trying to re-engage ghosts, because the emails weren’t making it to the inbox in the first place.

So we flipped the strategy:

✅ Fixed the root deliverability issues

✅ Segmented by most recent engagement

✅ Cleaned the list and re-built trust with aligned content

✅ Slowly reintroduced traffic and warmed up the domain

Only then did we try re-engagement again — and this time, it worked.

So the takeaway:

—> Your list isn’t the issue, but your email deliverability might be.

If your deliverability is broken, even the best emails won’t convert.

Fix the foundation first.

Then re-engage.

Best,
Alec

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