Bronto Blog

The post Email Address Shelf Life generated several interesting comments. One in particular struck me as worthy of responding with a new post. Linda Bustos, a reader and fellow blogger asked:

Would staggering the deployment or “blast” help? Could you segment out the different subscriber types you described? (ie send the first batch to the most recent time lags, then send to the next time group etc)?

After the hair on my arms returned to its normal, dormant state (the word “blast” makes me cringe), I thought about Linda’s question. My gut response was, “Sure. That would be a reasonable strategy.” In fact, I’ve worked with clients in the past helping them implement this approach. I have always cautioned clients that “you must be very careful with this strategy.” The key is sending to small segments - very targeted - and being diligent about tracking the key metrics. When your open rates, click-throughs, and conversions begin to slip while complaints, unsubscribes, and hard bounces rise…it’s time to call it quits.

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