📩 The Gradual Approach to Reviving Dead Lists

That is how you want dormant subscribers to come back into your list. Not in a flood that scares the inbox gods.

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Email operators, we are already a week into the new year.
You have probably cleaned your list, fixed the obvious issues, and done the “normal” deliverability work.

Now it is time for something a bit more advanced.

Quick warning before we start: if you are not comfortable with exports, imports, and basic data plumbing, get someone technical to help you set this up. You can break a good list faster than you think.

If you have followed my work for a while, you already know about simple re-engagement segments. That bulk approach works fine on smaller lists. The trouble starts when your list grows and your dormant segment turns into a giant block of cold subscribers.

Drop that entire group into one send and you can tank your engagement and deliverability in a single day.

So what do you do instead?

You drip. You slowly feed dormant subscribers back into your active list in controlled batches. I call this the Drip Method, and while it might feel a little extreme at first, it gives you precise control over how much “cold” traffic you reintroduce at any given time.

Here is how it works.

Step 1: Build, export, and delete your dormant segment

First, define exactly who counts as “dormant” for this process.

In my newsletter world, a dormant subscriber is someone who:

• Has clicked at least 3 times in the last 365 days

• Has not clicked in the last 30 days

• Has never marked spam

• Has never unsubscribed

• Has not been sent in the last 14 days

I am interested in people who used to care, who proved that by clicking multiple times, but for some reason stopped engaging recently. Maybe you had deliverability issues for a stretch. Maybe their inbox got messy. Either way, they are not hopeless, just sleeping.

Important note: if you track subscribers who have converted or purchased from one of your advertisers, do not include them in this dormant segment. They belong in a separate “customer” or “buyer” group with its own rules.

Once you have the segment built:

1. Export that segment to a file.

2. Double-check that the export contains what you expect.

3. Only then, delete those subscribers from your email platform.

Yes, delete them.

And yes, I am serious about the export step. Everyone deletes the wrong data at some point, myself included. Always have a backup before you hit delete, even if you are convinced you will never need it.

Step 2: Load the dormant subscribers into a lead distribution system

Next, you need somewhere safe to hold this dormant group and control how it flows back into your email platform.

That is where a lead distribution system comes in. The exact tool is up to you. What matters is that it can:

• Store your dormant subscribers

• Tag or label them in a way you understand

• Feed them back to your ESP based on clear, repeatable rules

I am not going to promote a specific tool here. There are several options, each with tradeoffs. If you are seriously considering this, and you know you have the team or resources to pull it off, reach out and I can point you in the right direction.

The key idea: your ESP is no longer the single source of truth for this segment. The lead distribution system holds the full dormant pool and decides when each subscriber gets another shot.

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Step 3: Drip subscribers back into your list in small daily batches

Now the fun part.

With your dormant subscribers sitting in the distribution system, you set up an automated feed that sends a fixed number of them back into your email list every day.

The “right” number depends on:

• The size of your active list

• How aggressive you want to be with reactivation

• How many days or weeks you plan to run this re-engagement pass

For example, if you have a large active list, you might bring back a few hundred or a few thousand dormant subscribers per day. Smaller list, smaller daily drip. The point is control. You decide the pace instead of dumping everyone in at once.

If you run a newsletter, do not drop these subscribers into welcome flows or heavy automation. That can confuse them and send strange signals to the inbox providers. Just let them quietly start receiving your regular content again.

Two important tracking notes:

• Make sure each returning dormant subscriber carries a tag or field that marks them as part of this Drip Method.

• Report on how many of them open or click again after they come back. That is your real re-engagement number, not just how many you imported.

Once you reach the end of the dormant pool, you can:

• Review performance

• Adjust your rules or pacing

• Run the whole process again later if it makes sense

The system is repeatable. You can drip, pause, tweak, and drip again without slamming your list with a massive cold segment.

When you manage dormant subscribers this way, they do not feel like a risky “all or nothing” blast. They become a controlled stream that flows back into your active list at a pace the inbox can handle.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Back into the inbox they go.

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