• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 21, 2025

Email marketers often try to re-engage customers by asking, “Do you want to hear from us?” The answer for many consumers is “Hell, no.” 

It’s not that they dislike the brand, but they may not need to engage with it at this time.

And if that’s the case, a re-engagement email is simply annoying, writes Ryan Phelan, CEO of RPE Origin, in an article in MarTech. 

Phelan lays out three reasons why re-engagement emails do not work.

One is that traditional engagement metrics may not tell you anything. “The open rate is not an intent metric,” Phelan observes. And while other numbers may be more meaningful — i.e., the click-through and conversion rate — they are not all that should be considered.

“Your re-engagement program needs a good profile of your buyers,” Phelan adds. “That’s not just one flat profile that includes everybody, but a profile that looks at personas and different types of consumers.”

Phelan reinforces this by telling of an annoying re-engagement email he received as a consumer.

"If this brand had looked at my purchase history before putting me into a re-engagement program, the data would have shown I paid an enormous amount for a product two years ago. If it had looked at my website visits, it would have detected intent on other products, but not conversion. The consideration and usage cycles for that product are long."

Another problem is that the brand may be too sure of itself. 

Many email marketers think their emails are works of art,” Phelan writes. “They expect every customer to open and read every email (a misconception that MPP aids and abets). But let’s admit that customers don’t need your products after every send.

Then there’s this problem: Many recipients are just not in the mood. 

“You’re sending customers emails at 5:30 or 6 in the morning,” Phelan writes. “We aren’t in the headspace to click through to a website and browse products we haven’t been interested in. We haven’t had our first coffee of the day yet.” 

Obviously, that’s not the time to try to re-engage.