Only message active users

Message active, engaged users to get better response rates and protect your sending reputation by building an active-users audience with recency rules.

Written By Markus from Featurebase

Last updated 5 days ago

Overview

The best way to get strong engagement from Outbound messages is to send them to active, engaged people. Messaging users who have gone quiet lowers your response rates and, for Email, can hurt your sending reputation through bounces and spam complaints.

Use audience rules to focus each message on people who are actually using your product.


Build an active-users audience

In a message's audience rules, add conditions that match recent activity. Group them with or logic so a person qualifies if they match any one of them, for example:

  • Last active in the last 30 days

  • Signed up in the last 30 days

  • Recently used a key feature

Adapt the specific rules to the user and company attributes you send to Featurebase. The goal is to include anyone showing recent signs of life and exclude people who have gone silent. For more ways to group and target people, see How to segment your users.

Tip: Keep the audience Dynamic so people enter and leave as their activity changes, and use Preview audience to check who currently matches before you set the message live.


Don't message users who have gone quiet

If someone shows no activity for a long stretch, for example more than 180 days, it is usually safer to leave them out than to keep messaging them. Long-inactive recipients are more likely to ignore, delete, or mark your message as spam.


Protect your email deliverability

This matters most for Email. When too many recipients never open your emails, or mark them as spam, mailbox providers start treating you as a low-quality sender and route more of your emails to the spam folder, including the ones people actually want.

Featurebase already checks unsubscribes, subscription opt-outs, invalid addresses, and suppression before sending, so a clean, active audience works alongside those safeguards to keep your delivery healthy. For more, see Email marketing best practices.


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