AI customer segmentation for e-commerce

Sunset Segments: Retiring Dead Subscribers Without Losing Revenue

The subscriber has not opened anything in six months. Keeping them on the list does not keep them as a customer, it just costs you money and deliverability.

A sunset policy retires subscribers with no engagement in 180 days, or 365 for low-frequency senders, through a short win-back sequence and then permanent suppression. Klaviyo bills by active non-suppressed profiles, so every dead subscriber you keep is a line item, and the sunset flow's median open rate is 3.66 percent.

The 180-day line

The standard sunset policy draws the line at 180 days without engagement: no opens, no clicks, no purchases. Low-frequency senders, the brands that mail monthly or less, use 365 days, because a subscriber who gets one email a month has fewer chances to engage. The line is not a guess, it is a definition, and the definition has to be written down before anyone argues about it.

The tiers matter because the recovery chances differ. A subscriber inactive for 90 to 180 days is recoverable: a win-back email has a real chance. A subscriber inactive for 180 to 365 days gets one email, then sunset. A subscriber inactive for more than a year is not a subscriber anymore, they are a row in a database, and keeping them is a cost, not an asset.

The win-back sequence, kept short

The sequence is three stages, and it is short on purpose. Active, then approaching the threshold, then win-back, then sunset and suppress permanently. The win-back itself is at most two emails: the first asks if they still want to hear from you, the second offers something worth coming back for. The median open rate on a Klaviyo sunset flow is 3.66 percent, which tells you the truth about the audience: almost nobody comes back, and that is the point of the policy.

A long win-back sequence sent to people who have ignored you for six months is not a win-back sequence, it is spam with a nicer name. Two emails, then done. The subscribers who were going to return will return on the first one. The rest were never coming back, and the sequence should not pretend otherwise.

What suppression costs, and what it saves

Klaviyo bills by active, non-suppressed profiles, which means every dead subscriber on the list is a line item on the invoice. Suppressing them is not just a deliverability move, it is a cost move: the profiles you suppress stop counting toward the bill. Suppression is a manual bulk action in Klaviyo, not a flow action, so someone has to do it on purpose, once a month, as a habit.

What it saves is the sender reputation. A list padded with dead addresses pushes the spam complaint rate up, and Gmail and Yahoo cap complaints at 0.10 percent, never reaching 0.30 percent. A 0.30 percent complaint rate does not just hurt the campaign, it hurts every campaign after it. The sunset policy is the mechanism that keeps the list under the ceiling.

The complaint ceiling that forces the decision

The decision is not really a decision, because the ceiling makes it for you. A list that keeps its dead subscribers will cross 0.10 percent complaints eventually, and the deliverability damage from crossing it costs more than any revenue the dead subscribers were ever going to generate. They were not going to generate any: they have not opened in six months.

Write the policy down, set the 180-day line, run the two-email win-back, and suppress the remainder monthly. The list will shrink, the complaint rate will fall, and the revenue per send will rise, because the mail is going to people who actually read it.

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Frequently asked questions

What is a sunset segment?

A segment of subscribers with no engagement in a set period, usually 180 days, who go through a short win-back sequence and then get suppressed permanently. It retires dead subscribers instead of mailing them forever.

How long before a subscriber counts as inactive?

The standard is 180 days without an open, click, or purchase. Low-frequency senders use 365 days. Subscribers inactive 90 to 180 days are recoverable; 180 to 365 get one email, then sunset.

What is a win-back campaign?

A short sequence, at most two emails, sent to inactive subscribers before suppression. The first asks if they still want to hear from you; the second offers something worth coming back for. The median open rate on a Klaviyo sunset flow is 3.66 percent.

Does Klaviyo charge for suppressed profiles?

No. Klaviyo bills by active, non-suppressed profiles, so suppressing dead subscribers lowers the bill. Suppression is a manual bulk action, not a flow action, so it has to be done on purpose.