Hello Community,
This is a quick little FAQ with suggestions on performing a pulse check for your email contacts. The purpose of a pulse check is to decide which contacts are worth keeping and which should be removed for their low value. Throughout this FAQ, I'll be linking to relevant support articles that provide step-by-step and visual guidance for each suggestion. All of these support articles are also available via the Help âť” icon in your account.
Step 1: Figure out the unengaged contacts
Constant Contact has several tools available for this. However, which one you choose will depend heavily on how you've chosen to engage your contacts.
You engage all of your contacts regularly.
The best way to isolate your low-value contacts would be with our pre-built Low Engagement Segment.
You have many contacts that you haven't emailed/messaged in a long time.
The best path is to create a segment with the following criteria: Email Activity > Were Not Sent > Any Email > In the last > choose your preferred time frame.
You have many contacts that aren't even on a list.
Use our available filter on your Contacts page to find these list-less contacts. Then, determine if you want to simply get rid of them, or if you'd prefer to manually move them into specific lists.
Another option is to move all of the list-less contacts into a single, new list on their own for the sake of sending a re-engagement email.
Step 2: Re-engage these contacts with a pulse check
Now that you've filtered the contacts that need to be re-engaged, you can send your email to re-engage them. The following suggestions are for how these contacts will be considered "engaged" enough to keep. Which path you choose will largely depend on how much effort you want to put in vs. how much you want your contacts to put in to prove they still want to be subscribed.
Send a Reconfirm Opt-In email to the unengaged contacts.
This is a very straightforward method of both putting the unengaged contacts into an inactive status, as well as setting the onus on them to confirm they want to continue receiving emails.
Use click segmentation to have contacts confirm.
This method adds a contact to a selected list when they click a specific link in your email. The risk here is that auto-clicks from mail screeners (particularly prolific among Apple Mail and Outlook users) can result in false positives.
I'd recommend a big, obvious button, but you can also use regular text or an image.
You'll need to set up multiple if you want the contacts to indicate each list they want to be on.
If you go with this method, I'd recommend also creating a custom landing page as a thank-you page and linking to that. You can use the same one for each click segmentation link, since the segmentation is based on the specific text, image, or button being linked.
Require the pulse-check contacts to use a sign-up form.
While this will require extra work from the contact, it will ensure you're not ending up with auto-clicks from email screeners and will, in essence, make the contact prove they still want to be receiving your emails.
I recommend using a landing page form you create specifically for this pulse-check message.
Bear in mind sign-up landing pages will assign contacts to every list associated with them. Therefore, if you're offering multiple lists as options, you'd have to set up multiple sign-up pages and separate links in your pulse-check email.
You can also set up a coded form and install it on your website, then link to that instead in your pulse-check message. Coded forms allow for multiple list options and selections.
Ask the contacts to email you directly.
Depending on the number of contacts you anticipate actually following through on the pulse check, this might be the messier one, but it also has an extra degree of assurance from the contact that they want to receive your emails.
If going this route, I'd recommend using a mailto: link with a pre-coded subject and message. It will ease the burden of the contact having to do the extra work, and make sure you're getting something easily recognizable in your inbox.
If using a mailto: link with a pre-coded message, you'll need to decide if you want multiple mailto: links to cover each list option individually, or to instead convey to the contact that they need to explicitly specify which list(s) they want to join in their email response.
Link to a survey in your email.
Surveys will allow you to capture contacts' info automatically, or allow them to enter it manually if you decide to include questions for identification. In addition, the contacts can also provide responses to specific questions. You can even ask what topics (i.e., lists) they're interested in, if applicable, so you can add them to the correct list(s) based on their responses.
Highlight the existing Unsubscribe and Update Preferences options.
Every email sent through us will contain a Compliance block that allows contacts to manage their subscription to you. This is, by default, in the footer of emails, but can be moved elsewhere in your email.
The Unsubscribe link is coded to the specific contact, and the coded link is only accessible when the email is sent out. Similarly, the Update Profile link, if enabled, will allow contacts to manage their list preferences based on the options you provide.
See our Community's Editing Footer FAQ for more details on the Compliance block and other tips for editing your email footer.
If you run into any trouble following the steps above, I would recommend trying to contact a live support agent through Chat or by calling in, so they can go through your preferred process step-by-step with you. Calling in will also allow the agent to screen-share your Constant Contact tab to highlight where to go, if you want them to.
You can also reach out to any of our other listed support channels, including here in the Community. Bear in mind that making significant account changes, like managing your contacts, requires live permission confirmations, so only phone support can assist with actually doing those for you.