Unsubscribes: The Hidden Cost of Email Automation

Set and Forget, Right?

Email automation is meant to make marketing smarter. It ensures the right message reaches the right person at the right time, saving time, increasing efficiency, and driving engagement.

But what if it’s also driving away more customers than you realize?

Recent data from Zeta Global ’s 2024 benchmark reports challenges a common assumption:

• Automated emails don’t always perform better than batch emails in list retention.
• While triggers deliver more engagement per send, they also generate more costly unsubscribes.
• Cadence—when and how often automated emails are sent—may be more important than total volume.

It’s not a reason to stop using automation—but it is a reason to take a closer look at how you’re using it.

?Why Are More People Unsubscribing?

Most businesses focus on how many emails they send, but in automation, the real issue is cadence.

Cadence is the timing between emails in an automated sequence. A well-timed message nurtures engagement. A poorly timed one? It can feel spammy, intrusive, or irrelevant.

Recent unsubscribe trends show that automated emails do not always drive lower unsubscribes than batch & promotional emails.

1. How and When Triggers Generate More Unsubscribes

Zeta Global’s full-year data for 2024 shows that:

• Triggered emails consistently maintained an unsubscribe rate similar to or slightly higher than batch emails.
• The gap between them narrowed over time, but the assumption that automation leads to lower churn is not always true.

This raises an important point: when automation sequences generate unsubscribes matters as much as the rate itself.

Why? Because not all unsubscribes cost the same.

A triggered unsubscribe often happens right after a key engagement point—such as an abandoned cart, welcome series, or re-engagement email.

• These are recently engaged customers, meaning their exit may be more costly than someone churning after months of inactivity.
• If an unsubscribe happens immediately after an abandoned cart reminder, it’s not just a lost subscriber—it’s a lost high-intent potential customer.

A batch unsubscribe, on the other hand, happens after multiple touchpoints and is often a natural part of long-term list management.

• These subscribers have likely already generated value before they leave.

2. Why Batch Emails Outperform Expectations in Churn Control

Many marketers fear batch sends because they assume high frequency leads to list fatigue. But the Zeta data shows:

• Batch email unsubscribe rates are stable, even as engagement fluctuates.
• Trigger sequences have similar or higher unsubscribe rates, despite being targeted.
• This suggests that frequency alone is not the cause of churn.

If a batch email subscriber leaves after months of engagement, the business has had multiple chances to extract value from them.

If a triggered email subscriber unsubscribes after just one touchpoint, that could be an indication of acquisition problems, poor segmentation, or overly aggressive timing.

?3. Why Cadence in Automation Matters More Than Frequency

The real issue isn’t how many emails you send, it’s how quickly follow-ups happen and how long automation sequences last.

• A poorly timed abandoned cart email could feel intrusive if sent too soon.
• A welcome series that stretches over multiple weeks might push subscribers to churn if they weren’t expecting that level of communication.
• A re-engagement email could remind someone to unsubscribe if they forgot they were still on the list.

Key Fixes for Smarter Automation

Instead of just reducing frequency, businesses should:

• Reassess timing delays in automation sequences.
• Test shorter vs. longer welcome series and trigger flows.
• Monitor unsubscribe trends by automation type, not just overall churn.

Automation shouldn’t be about sending less—it should be about sending better.

?The Takeaway

• The assumption that automated emails are always safer than batch sends doesn’t hold up in the data.
• Automation sequences need to be actively managed—not just “set and forget.”
• An unsubscribe from a recently engaged customer is far more costly than a batch unsubscribe from someone who has already contributed value.

If unsubscribes from automated sequences aren’t tracked, businesses may underestimate how much automation contributes to list churn—especially among their highest-value customers.

The solution?

• Stop focusing only on frequency. Start testing cadence—when and how follow-ups happen.
• Measure automation churn separately from batch churn. Not all unsubscribes mean the same thing.
• Fix high-risk automation touchpoints before assuming batch email is the problem.

Businesses that optimize their automation sequences—especially their welcome series, behavioral triggers, and re-engagement campaigns—will see the best results.

For those who don’t? They may be losing some of their most valuable customers without even realizing it.

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