Unengaged Subscriber Sunset

Set this journey up when campaign reports show reach growing while a widening share of subscribers has not clicked, changed a preference or bought anything for a long time. Check first that clicks, preference center changes and product or purchase activity sit on the same person identity, that the active customer flag is current, and that service notices run outside the marketing list. If the silence sits in one channel whose permission just closed, or opens are simply unobservable, fix the measurement and the permission first; do not sunset people you cannot measure.

Incremental preference-update rate vs control

What this journey wants is an explicit choice from a silent person; a stop applied without an answer, or opens on the final campaign, do not show that value.

How it is counted: Among all subscribers assigned at entry to the journey group and the control group, the share who update their communication preferences within the same follow-up window from assignment; the gap between the groups is the journey's effect. Whether the email was delivered, opened or clicked does not change the denominator.

Also track

• Silent stop shareThe share of entrants whose non-essential marketing stops without any answer; read next to preference updates, it shows how much of the list the journey is cleaning.
• Engagement after the final campaignEngagement or a purchase within the roughly 7 days after the final campaign, as a share of those who received it; it shows who one campaign brought back and is no argument for sending more.
• Unsubscribes and complaintsTrack email unsubscribes, push opt-outs and complaints per touch; an unsubscribe is itself an explicit choice and is applied at once, while rising complaints say the final campaign reached the wrong people.
• Active customers moved to lower frequencyThose judged still active at entry and moved to reduced frequency without a message, as a share of entrants; use it to confirm you really separate active customers from people who merely ignore messages.

• Trigger and entryEntry starts when no meaningful engagement is recorded against recent marketing messages for the period you define. At entry, randomly split eligible subscribers into a journey group and a control group that keeps its usual calendar and gets none of this journey's messages.
• Who must not enterAnyone who already opted out or unsubscribed stays out; an existing refusal is applied at once and never becomes the reason for a final campaign. So does a person the Permission Recovery journey is still holding. A marketing subscriber holds one instance at a time; no second flow opens for the same person.
• Timing and channelsSomeone still an active customer gets no message; frequency drops and only important messages remain. Everyone else gets an email opening the preference center, a preference check after 3 to 5 days, a push if nothing changed, a response check after 2 to 3 days, then one final campaign and about 7 days of waiting.
• Exit and handoffAn updated preference, any response, or engagement or a purchase after the final campaign ends the journey and cancels what is queued. If the silence outlasts the final campaign, non-essential marketing stops. That stop leaves service and mandatory messages untouched and closes no account or paid membership; there is no handoff to another journey.
• Frequency and consentA silent subscriber receives no more than three messages: the email, the push and the single final campaign, with push used only where permission exists. Whenever the person changes a preference or unsubscribes, the choice takes effect immediately and the remaining touches are dropped.

1. 1If the preference-update gap does not beat the control group, the journey is only shortening the list rather than producing a choice; open counts on the final campaign do not make up for it, since mail clients that load images record opens nobody read. Decide on the preference gap and the unsubscribe trend together.
2. 2Treat the result as specific to the email, push, final campaign order and these waits. Winning back a lapsed paid relationship belongs to the Lapsed Customer Win-Back journey; do not credit a return there to this one. While the Permission Recovery journey is trying to reopen a channel, do not count that person's silence here.
3. 3Preference updates are rare, so when the gap looks small, first enter the control group's baseline rate and the smallest difference you want to detect into the sample size calculator to see how many subscribers each arm needs; do not decide before your entries reach that number.
4. 4Reaching the stop exit leaves the account and the paid membership open, and service and mandatory messages continue unchanged. Never read silence as proof the product is unused; if the active customer share keeps rising, tighten the entry definition.