Despite the increasing popularity of social media, messengers and chat apps, e-mail has remained central to digital communications and continues to grow.

In fact, a whopping 306.4 billion e-mails were estimated to have been sent and received each day in 2020 according to statista.

With these facts in mind, we are discussing the subject of resending emails to users who have not opened or clicked on initial emails and whether this is a good exercise.

Within CMAdvantage, you have the option to deploy a resend simply by checking one box, with the additional benefit of being able to change the subject line for the email being resent.

So, is it a good idea to resend the exact same email to recipients? The answer is yes and no! I’ll cover the no’s first as there are definitely more positives than negatives.

One instance where we would not recommend resending is if the news is not so positive. For example, “Sorry you have not won on this occasion”. You probably don’t want to hear that a second time!

Secondly, your recipient may be inclined to opt out if they feel they are being bombarded with emails. However, if you’re confident your content needs to be read and you are not sending the same email the same or next day, then you should feel confident about resending it.

Now onto the many positives. Resending certain emails are a great way to maximise on the work you have put into designing and creating your email.

We have seen time and time again with our clients’ campaigns that resending emails result in a significant increase in the number of opens and clicks. In fact, we have noticed that some resends can double open and clicks rates!

Here are some examples of when you should resend your email.

  1. If you’re sending essential information such as a service message then absolutely you should be resending it to your users to maximise readership.
  2. The first subject line may not have raised any interest. The second email could have a more enticing subject line, especially if it is a time sensitive subject e.g. “Your discount expires soon”. Additionally, using a different subject line would confirm to the user that the second email was not resent accidentally.
  3. The first time could have been the wrong time. For example, perhaps that person was at lunch. With the resend being at a different time of day, the recipient may be more receptive to opening it.
  4. There could have been a soft bounce (temporary failure) with the first send and therefore the resend could result in delivery.

There are further advantages … some subscribers may never engage which could be the result of inactive users. So, if you are not getting the desired results, this could be a good indicator to clean up your database.

Finally, deploying a resend through CMAdvantage saves time manually recreating a new list to retarget.

Now onto the best times to resend your emails:

  1. We find that the fourth day is the sweet spot to deploy the auto resend.
  2. Never send the very next day as you may be seen as spam and result in unsubscribe and complaints. 

If you’re still not sure whether to resend your email, then you could try our split testing feature instead. Create multiple emails with varying subject lines, preheader text, content etc., test to a small portion of your list and automatically launch the winning version.

Read more about split testing here.

Feel free to get in touch for further advice on how to manage your email marketing campaigns.