# Strategies For Email Marketing Success in 2025 > A NachoTuesday interview — the C-Suite Insights series from NachoNacho, the B2B SaaS and AI > marketplace. In conversation with Shub Goel, Co-Founder, InboxAlly. - **Page:** https://nachonacho.com/nachotuesday/video/Strategies-For-Email-Marketing-Success-in-2025 - **Guest:** Shub Goel, Co-Founder, InboxAlly - **Guest on LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/in/shubhneet/ - **Recorded:** 2025-01-21 - **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1LF4-3ALqM&t=3s ## Summary This webinar underscores the vital importance of "list health" – the quality and cleanliness of an email list – as the cornerstone of successful email deliverability and sender reputation. By focusing on metrics like bounce rate, complaint rate, unsubscribe rate, and engagement rate, and implementing best practices such as double opt-in, regular list cleaning, and valuable content delivery, senders can significantly improve their inbox placement and ensure their messages reach their intended audience. Key Talking Points: List Health Drives Inbox Delivery and Sender Reputation : The overall quality of an email list directly impacts whether emails land in the inbox or spam folder, as mailbox providers heavily weigh list health in their sender reputation scoring. Monitor Key Metrics for List Health Assessment : Tracking bounce rate, complaint rate, unsubscribe rate, and engagement rate provides crucial insights into list quality and subscriber behavior, enabling proactive adjustments. Implement Best Practices for Sustained List Health : Employing double opt-in, regular list cleaning, segmentation, personalization, valuable content, and easy unsubscription are essential strategies for maintaining a healthy and engaged email list. ## Full transcript Hello, hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to yet another inbox delivery masterclass. Today, we're going to be talking about inbox delivery, specifically list health. This is a topic that's very near and dear to my heart; it's something that I've been working on for quite a while now, and it's really, really important to email marketers, to anyone who's sending email at scale. So, let's dive right in. So, what is list health? List health, in a nutshell, is the overall quality of your email list. So, what do we mean by quality? Quality means how engaged your subscribers are, how active they are, and how clean your list is. So, you know, are you sending to valid email addresses? Are you sending to people who actually want to receive emails from you? List health is really, really important because it directly impacts your inbox delivery rates. So, if you have a healthy list, you're more likely to land in the inbox, and if you have an unhealthy list, you're more likely to land in the spam folder. So, it's really, really critical to maintain a healthy list. So, why is list health important? Well, as I mentioned, it impacts inbox delivery rates, but it also impacts your sender reputation. Sender reputation is essentially your credit score as an email sender. Mailbox providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook all assign a sender reputation to every email sender, and this sender reputation is based on a number of factors, including your list health. So, if you have a healthy list, you're more likely to have a good sender reputation, and if you have an unhealthy list, you're more likely to have a bad sender reputation. Sender reputation directly impacts inbox delivery rates, so it's a virtuous cycle. You want to maintain a healthy list to maintain a good sender reputation and improve your inbox delivery rates. So, how do you measure list health? Well, there are a number of metrics that you can use to measure list health, and some of the most important metrics include bounce rate, complaint rate, unsubscribe rate, and engagement rate. Let's talk about each of these metrics in turn. Bounce rate is the percentage of emails that bounce back to you as a sender. So, what does bounce mean? Bounce means that the email was not delivered to the recipient. There are two types of bounces: hard bounces and soft bounces. Hard bounces are permanent delivery failures. This means that the email address is invalid, it doesn't exist, or it's been permanently disabled. Soft bounces are temporary delivery failures. So, this means that the email address is valid, but the email could not be delivered at this time due to a temporary issue, such as a full inbox or a server issue. Bounce rate is a really important metric to track because high bounce rates can negatively impact your sender reputation. So, what is a good bounce rate? Generally speaking, a good bounce rate is below two percent. If your bounce rate is above two percent, you should definitely investigate and try to reduce it. So, how do you reduce your bounce rate? Well, the first thing you should do is to clean your email list. What does it mean to clean your email list? It means to remove invalid email addresses from your list. There are a number of ways to clean your email list. You can use an email verification service to identify invalid email addresses. You can also remove unengaged subscribers from your list – people who haven't opened or clicked on your emails in a while. You can also implement a double opt-in process for new subscribers. Double opt-in means that when someone subscribes to your email list, they have to confirm their subscription by clicking on a link in a confirmation email. Double opt-in helps to ensure that you're only sending to people who actually want to receive emails from you. So that's bounce rate. Let's talk about complaint rate now. Complaint rate is the percentage of emails that recipients mark as spam. When someone marks your email as spam, they're essentially telling the mailbox provider that they don't want to receive emails from you anymore. Complaint rate is a really, really important metric to track because high complaint rates can severely damage your sender reputation. So, what is a good complaint rate? Generally speaking, a good complaint rate is below zero point one percent. If your complaint rate is above zero point one percent, you should definitely investigate and try to reduce it. So, how do you reduce your complaint rate? Well, the first thing you should do is to make sure that you're only sending to people who have actually opted in to receive emails from you. You should never buy email lists; you should never scrape email addresses from the web; you should only send to people who have explicitly given you permission to send them emails. You should also make it easy for people to unsubscribe from your email list. You should include an unsubscribe link in every email that you send, and you should honor unsubscribe requests promptly. You should also segment your email list. Segmentation means dividing your email list into smaller groups based on different criteria, such as demographics, interests, or engagement level. Segmentation allows you to send more relevant and targeted emails to your subscribers, which can help to reduce your complaint rate. So that's complaint rate. Let's talk about unsubscribe rate now. Unsubscribe rate is the percentage of emails that recipients unsubscribe from your email list. Unsubscribe rate is a natural part of email marketing. People will unsubscribe from your email list over time, and that's okay. You shouldn't try to prevent people from unsubscribing; in fact, you should make it easy for them. If people can't easily unsubscribe, they're more likely to mark your email as spam instead. So, while unsubscribe rate is a metric you should track, it's not as critical as bounce rate or complaint rate. So, what is a good unsubscribe rate? Generally speaking, a good unsubscribe rate is below zero point five percent. If your unsubscribe rate is above zero point five percent, you should definitely investigate and try to understand why people are unsubscribing. So, how do you reduce your unsubscribe rate? Well, the first thing you should do is to make sure that you're sending relevant and valuable emails to your subscribers. You should segment your email list, personalize your emails, and provide valuable content. You should also send emails on a regular basis but not too frequently, so you don't overwhelm your subscribers with too many emails. So that's unsubscribe rate. Let's talk about engagement rate now. Engagement rate is the percentage of emails that recipients open or click on. Engagement rate is a really, really important metric to track because it directly reflects how interested your subscribers are in your emails. High engagement rates are a positive signal to mailbox providers, and they can improve your sender reputation and inbox delivery rates. So, what is a good engagement rate? Generally speaking, a good engagement rate is above 15 percent. If your engagement rate is below 15 percent, you should definitely investigate and try to improve it. So, how do you improve your engagement rate? Well, the first thing you should do is to segment your email list, personalize your emails, and provide valuable content to your subscribers. You should also test different email subject lines and email content to see what resonates best with your subscribers. You should also send emails at optimal times. You can use email marketing analytics to track when your subscribers are most likely to open and click on your emails. So, those are some of the key metrics that you can use to measure list health: bounce rate, complaint rate, unsubscribe rate, and engagement rate. So, how do you maintain a healthy list? Well, there are a number of best practices that you can follow, and some of the most important include using double opt-in, cleaning your email list regularly, segmenting your email list, personalizing your emails, providing valuable content to your subscribers, making it easy for people to unsubscribe, and monitoring your list health metrics regularly. So, those are some of the best practices for maintaining a healthy list. In summary, list health is really, really important for inbox delivery. It impacts your sender reputation and inbox delivery rates. You can measure list health using metrics such as bounce rate, complaint rate, unsubscribe rate, and engagement rate. You can maintain a healthy list by following best practices such as using double opt-in, cleaning your email list regularly, and providing valuable content to your subscribers. --- All NachoTuesday interviews: https://nachonacho.com/nachotuesday About NachoNacho: https://nachonacho.com/llms.txt