What Happened When We Tested Newsletter Email Cadence

Quick left-field one today.

I bang on about testing all the time.

Test your offers. Test your messaging. Test your nav. Test your layout. and on. and on. and on.

I actually do practice what I preach, too.

I received advice to test increasing the cadence of this newsletter.

I was reluctant.

I expected more emails to result in more unsubscribes.

But what actually happened surprised me.

When we increased cadence to 5 emails a week:

• Our unsubscribe rates reduced

• Our open rates increased

• And our click-through rates increased

There is a small caveat with this test.

I didn’t just send more emails.

I also changed the format.

Instead of one big “weekly newsletter” with loads of sections.

I made each email smaller and more digestible.

More like a daily snack.

And less like a Sunday roast.

Frequency is not the villain.

Boring, bloated emails are.

Now, the other side of this…

Even if the numbers look good to me, I still want to respect how you actually want to receive content.

This week, a reader emailed me and basically said…

“Love the value. Hate the inbox wars. Don’t make me unsubscribe.”

Fair point.

So I’ve added a preference option.

If daily is too much, you can switch to a weekly round-up and still stay in the loop.

Switch to weekly here: Update email preferences

And if you ever want to come back to daily, you can.

Chat soon,

Peter