Ask An Email Marketer: How Much Is Too Much Email?

From now through the end of 2015, we’ll be collecting your most burning email questions on strategy, deliverability design and more through our Holiday Email Toolkit. Every week, we’ll draw one question to feature here on the blog. Want your question answered in our next Ask An Email Marketer? Head on over to submit it on our Holiday Email Toolkit.

It’s all about finding that email frequency sweet spot when sending in a crowded space like the holiday inbox. Too little and your content might go forgotten. Too much and you risk frustrating customers. So how much is too much email?

It’s a tough question to answer since it really varies depending on your business and audience. But, a good place to start is looking at it from a deliverability perspective. ISPs (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL etc.) track your sending characteristics, one of them being frequency. If you’re looking to increase your sending you’ll want to slowly ramp up, otherwise you’re at risk of being considered a spammer. The higher frequency you send, the more likely certain email servers will think your IP address is sending SPAM.

We found this Return Path report really helpful – retailers who sent an average of three emails a week saw the best results, with a 98% inbox placement rate.