Unsubscribe rate: Formula, benchmarks, and reduction tips

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The unsubscribe rate of your emails indicates subscriber sentiment and whether your messaging is reaching the right inboxes.

A vote to banish you from the inbox usually means your content or timing missed the mark. Discovering the cause of a high unsubscribe rate is crucial, before it damages your domain reputation and triggers spam filters, impacting future email deliverability.

Omnisend tracks your unsubscribe rate alongside opens, clicks, bounces, and spam reports to provide a detailed overview of campaign performance. Plus, you can calculate unsubscribe rates yourself and follow best practices to reduce them.

Read on to learn the formulas, benchmarks, and proven strategies for optimizing unsubscribe rates and maintaining email deliverability.

What is an unsubscribe rate?

An unsubscribe rate is the percentage of subscribers who remove themselves from your email list during a campaign.

Email unsubscribe rates impact your sender reputation and deliverability scores, affecting how internet service providers handle your future campaigns. High unsubscribe rates can trigger spam filters and damage your ability to reach inboxes effectively.

However, while spikes in unsubscribe rates can be alarming, they can also be opportunities to identify areas for improvement in your marketing.

For instance, sudden increases in unsubscribe rates can appear when messaging frequency becomes overwhelming or content lacks personalization and value. You could use that data to segment your audience, create more compelling offers, and refine your schedule.

Omnisend enables you to compare unsubscribe rates alongside other campaign metrics to understand what drives subscribers away.

Here’s a report example showing the unsubscribe rate (0% in this case) from a test campaign:

How to calculate unsubscribe rate

To calculate your unsubscribe rate, divide the number of recipients who decided to opt out of your campaign by the total number of emails that were successfully delivered, then multiply by 100 to get the percentage of subscribers lost from that campaign.

A simple example

If your campaign reaches 1,000 subscribers and 10 unsubscribe:

• Number of unsubscribes: 10
• Total delivered emails: 1,000
• Calculation: (10 ÷ 1,000) × 100
• Unsubscribe rate: 1%

The example above shows that 10 subscribers opted out for every thousand emails delivered, resulting in a 1% unsubscribe rate.

Tracking with Omnisend

While you can calculate unsubscribe rates manually, email marketing platforms like Omnisend automatically track this metric for every campaign.

Omnisend displays your unsubscribe rate as a percentage in your campaign reports alongside key ecommerce performance metrics like opens, clicks, and sales.

What is a good unsubscribe rate?

For ecommerce businesses, the typical unsubscribe rate average is 0.27%, though unsubscribe rates up to 1% are within acceptable bounds.

Different email types sent to cold versus warm audiences produce varying unsubscribe patterns. Welcome series and promotional emails sent to engaged subscribers typically generate lower unsubscribe rates.

In contrast, reactivation emails targeting people who are still subscribed to your email list but haven’t engaged with your emails for an extended period can produce higher unsubscribe rates as recipients clean their inboxes.

What is a high unsubscribe rate? Anything above 1.5%. A consistently high unsubscribe rate above 1.5% in your campaigns indicates underlying issues.

Common culprits include sending emails too frequently, using low-quality email templates, and sending emails that lack personalization and relevance.

Unsubscribe rate benchmarks by industry

Unsubscribe rates vary between industries. Omnisend’s internal research reveals that the adult industry has the highest unsubscribe rate at 0.149%, while the vaping and smoking industry has the lowest. Here’s a table of the 10 industries with the lowest unsubscribe rate: 

Industry	Unsubscribe rate
Smoking and vaping	0.042% (per 529 million sends)
Apparel	0.061% (per 6.11 billion sends)
Jobs and education	0.068% (per 132 million sends)
Toys and hobbies	0.071% (per 532 million sends)
Games	0.077% (per 153 million sends)
Books and literature	0.077% (per 142 million sends)
Home and garden	0.079% (per 1.49 billion sends)
Arts and entertainment	0.085% (per 308 million sends)
Computers	0.093% (per 231 million sends)
Autos and vehicles	0.100% (per 366 million sends)

What causes a high unsubscribe rate?

When unsubscribe rates climb above normal levels, four factors are usually responsible — poor design, technical problems, irrelevant content, and overwhelming frequency. Each of these issues can rapidly erode subscriber trust and engagement.

1. Poor design practices

Poorly designed emails create a low-quality brand experience that can push your customers to unsubscribe. Common problems include:

• Text too small to read on mobile screens
• Images that stretch or break the layout
• Hard-to-click buttons on touch devices
• Dense blocks of text without proper spacing
• Misaligned columns and sections
• Inconsistent fonts and colors
• Templates that look nothing like your website
• Low-quality product images
• Cluttered layouts that overwhelm readers

These email marketing mistakes make your messages look unprofessional and hard to read, especially on mobile devices where most subscribers check their email.

2. Technical issues

Email technical problems, such as elements failing to load, frustrate subscribers and damage trust in your brand. Common issues include:

• Slow-loading or broken images
• Links that lead to error pages
• Call to action buttons that don’t work
• Forms that fail to submit
• Missing alt text for accessibility

You should test all your images, links, and email modules (such as shoppable elements) to ensure they work correctly before sending your campaign.

3. Content relevance problems

Your customers are likely to unsubscribe when your emails lack relevance. For instance, you might promote products unrelated to their interests, send identical offers repeatedly, or blast generic content without personalization.

Other problems include pushing discounts for items they just purchased, focusing on sales without providing value, and sending promotions that don’t match their buying patterns. 

The lack of segmentation and personalization means subscribers receive irrelevant messages that don’t align with their customer journey.

4. Email frequency issues

Bombarding inboxes is a guaranteed way to drive people to unsubscribe. Sending multiple emails per day, not having a consistent email marketing schedule, and ignoring time zone preferences can quickly overwhelm subscribers.

The problem compounds when promotional campaigns overlap with automated messages, creating an overwhelming volume of emails.

Without strategic spacing between sales promotions and proper management of reminder emails, subscribers will feel harassed rather than informed. Check out our latest research on the best times to send emails to optimize your schedule.

Signs you need to review your campaigns

Watch for declining open rates, decreased click-through engagement, and rising spam complaints. Multiple bounced emails often signal list quality issues or reputation problems. 

Monitor customer feedback through support channels and reviews, as negative comments about email frequency or content relevance warrant immediate review.

Proven strategies to reduce email unsubscribe rates

Follow these seven strategies to reduce your unsubscribe rates:

• Segment your audience: Segmentation enables personalized campaigns that match content to individual preferences and shopping habits. You could target subscribers based on their purchase history, browsing patterns, engagement levels, or demographic information such as age or location.
• Improve content quality: Create emails that deliver value beyond constant sales pitches. Product tips, educational content, and relevant industry insights can retain subscribers. To establish authority, include customer success stories, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive information.
• Optimize frequency: Establish a consistent sending schedule that respects your subscribers’ inboxes. Space out promotional campaigns and automated flows to prevent overwhelming your audience. Monitor open rates to balance staying top-of-mind and becoming a nuisance.
• Design with care: Your emails must display perfectly across all devices and email clients. Use clean and logical layouts, readable fonts, and high-quality images. Edit your template to match your brand colors to create a cohesive brand experience.
• Provide options: Give your subscribers control over what emails they receive. Instead of forcing an all-or-nothing choice, let them choose content types and channels. For example, you could let customers opt out of receiving discount code campaigns but stay subscribed to tips and guides. Offering that flexibility could help retain subscribers who might otherwise unsubscribe completely.
• A/B testing: Test different versions of your subject lines, offers, and content to discover what makes subscribers click. Once you find winning combinations, like “Flash sale” versus “Special discount,” apply those insights to keep subscribers engaged across all campaigns.
• Highlight subscriber benefits: Make membership value clear through exclusive offers, early access, member-only content, and sneak peeks into upcoming products. Show subscribers they’re getting special treatment and demonstrate the ongoing benefits of staying subscribed to your emails.

How Omnisend can help improve your unsubscribe rate

Omnisend monitors your unsubscribe rate for every email campaign and provides tools to optimize your approach. For instance, you can split-test emails to find the best versions and segment your audience for better targeting. 

Here’s how you can use Omnisend to improve your unsubscribe rate:

Dynamic segmentation for targeted emails 

Segment your audience based on their transactional events and purchase behaviors. Filter customers by items they buy, average order value, and purchase recency.

With Omnisend’s lifecycle stage mapping, you can prioritize retention strategies for your most valuable shoppers while identifying who needs re-engagement.

Automation for personalized campaigns 

Create automated campaigns that adapt to subscriber engagement patterns. Welcome series, promotional flows, and winback campaigns trigger based on customer behavior.

Your real-time campaign reports show unsubscribe rates alongside revenue, open rates, and click rates to reveal which sequences work best.

Analytics to guide your strategy 

Track campaign performance through detailed reports showing each segment’s sales, engagement, and unsubscribe metrics.

Compare results across different audience segments and message types. Use A/B testing to optimize subject lines, content, and sending times before rolling out to your full list.

Integration with ecommerce platforms

Omnisend offers pre-built integrations for WooCommerce, Shopify, Wix, PrestaShop, OpenCart, BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, and more.

Integration allows you to use your store data for customer segmentation, marketing automation, cart recovery, and upsell processes.

If you have a custom platform, you can integrate through Omnisend’s API using front-end and back-end integration.

Front-end integration enables features like signup forms and welcome emails, while back-end integration is more advanced with expanded subscriber list segmentation and custom automation workflows.

Customer success stories

Companies in every industry have significantly improved subscriber retention and engagement using Omnisend. Here are three examples:

123Presets 

Photo editing tool provider 123Presets faced deliverability and engagement challenges. After switching to Omnisend, it implemented targeted campaigns and automation workflows, doubling revenue and improving deliverability. Read the case study.

Organic Aromas 

Oil diffusers retailer Organic Aromas needed to boost subscriber engagement. Using Omnisend’s features, it achieved a 150% increase in signups and enhanced customer retention through personalized campaigns. Read the case study.

The Cake Store 

The Cake Store wanted to enhance its email marketing effectiveness. Adopting Omnisend helped it achieve a 32-fold increase in conversions, showing substantial improvement in subscriber engagement. Read the case study.

Conclusion: Monitoring and optimizing unsubscribe rates

Your unsubscribe rate directly impacts email deliverability and your ability to reach customer inboxes effectively. Regularly monitor this metric to protect your sender reputation and maintain strong customer relationships.

Beyond tracking your unsubscribe rate and other metrics, focus on creating value through targeted content and thoughtful scheduling. Use segmentation, personalization, and automation to reach the right subscribers at optimal times.

Use high unsubscribe rates as an opportunity to improve your approach in future email campaigns. It’s normal to lose a few subscribers, and if you build and maintain your list, email could be your most effective marketing channel.

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