The internet is undoubtedly a double-edged sword. And particularly if it is in email marketing advice. Many still believe that email marketing has not evolved much over the years. Hence, they are left with outdated and inaccurate information. Generative AI has changed the game. It can regurgitate outdated advice found in its training data. This leads to even more confusion.

It is a common myth that unsubscribes negatively impact sender reputation. It is not true. Inbox providers filter spam based on more than 100 user actions and unsubscribes are not in those. The misconception stems further from the new deliverability requirements by Google and Yahoo. These email service providers have included unsubscribe functionality. It is basically aimed to separate genuine spam complaints from users who are simply looking to unsubscribe. Hence, it reduces the misuse of the spam report button. If you report an email as spam in Gmail, it will ask if you want to unsubscribe or just report it as spam.

Another misconception is that email clicks affect sender reputation. Most of the email providers prioritize subscriber engagement in order to determine email deliverability. However, they do not track clicks due to privacy concerns. Moreover, email opens do not directly affect sender reputations too. Email opens are the inventions of marketers that is designed to approximate email reads.

Using click rates as part of engagement metrics is highly recommended. Clicks are a proxy for the subscriber activity.  Inbox providers monitor this but do not share. The activities include read/dwell time, starring, foldering, marking as important, marking as unread, forwarding and so on.