The Mail Blaze Subscriber Score: Everything you need to know

Email marketing isn’t just about getting your message out to your audience, it’s about getting them to engage with it. With segmentation and targeted messaging you’re able to subtly nudge your audience to complete actions that can support your bottom line AND improve your email sender reputation.

To help you learn and implement strategies to enhance email engagement, we’ve developed our own unique Mail Blaze score to help you understand and segment your audience better. When you understand and can use the data to your advantage, you’re able to impact your campaign performance and your sender reputation.

What is the Mail Blaze Score?

The Mail Blaze score is an engagement scoring system we’ve developed that rates your subscribers' individual score on a scale of 0-5 based on their recent email behaviour. This means you can track the engagement levels of your audience over time and refine your activities.

We spend a lot of time advising clients that they shouldn’t treat their audience the same as their intent around why they signed up for your communication could be

A breakdown of the Mail Blaze Score:

Understanding Email Engagement

Email engagement encompasses all the ways subscribers interact with your messages, from the moment they see your email in their inbox to the actions they take after opening it.

The primary engagement metrics include:

Open Rates

When a subscriber opens your email, it signals initial interest in your subject line and sender name. While opens indicate basic engagement, they're just the first step in the engagement journey.

Click Rates

Clicks represent deeper engagement; subscribers who click are actively interested in your content and willing to take action. Click behavior is one of the strongest indicators of genuine subscriber engagement.

Recent Activity

The recency of engagement matters significantly. A subscriber who clicked last week is far more valuable than one who last engaged six months ago. The Mail Blaze Score emphasises recent activity to ensure your segmentation reflects current subscriber behavior.

Why Email Engagement Matters

Email engagement directly correlates with business success across multiple dimensions:

Revenue Generation

Engaged subscribers are significantly more likely to make purchases. Subscribers with higher Mail Blaze Scores typically generate 3-5 times more revenue per email than disengaged subscribers.

Cost Efficiency

Focusing your efforts on engaged subscribers reduces wasted resources. Instead of sending the same message to your entire list, you can create targeted campaigns that deliver better results with less effort.

List Quality

Engagement metrics help you identify and address list quality issues before they become problems. Regular monitoring of Mail Blaze Scores helps maintain a healthy, responsive subscriber base.

What’s the deal with Engagement and Sender Reputation?

Your sender reputation is essentially your credibility score with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook. This reputation determines whether your emails reach the inbox, get filtered to spam, or are blocked entirely.

How Engagement Impacts Sender Reputation

Engagement gives ISPs a way to recognise your credibility and filter the correct information to a subscribers.

Positive Engagement Signals:

• High open rates demonstrate that recipients want your emails
• Click activity shows valuable, relevant content
• Low spam complaints indicate satisfied subscribers
• Low bounce rates suggest good list hygiene

Negative Engagement Signals:

• Low open rates suggest irrelevant or unwanted content
• High spam complaints directly damage reputation
• High bounce rates indicate poor list management
• Lack of engagement over time signals disinterested subscribers

How to use the Mail Blaze Score to segment your audience

• Once you’re in your account, you can navigate to the LIST main navigation item and then click on LISTS again.
• Now select the list you want to segment.
• Click on SEGMENT SUBSCRIBERS on the left-hand menu and then click on the ADD NEW button on the right.
• Name your segment and click on ADD CONDITION. Select the MAIL BLAZE SCORE field and use the Operator to set what the value needed is going to be.

For example if I only want to create a segment for the Mail Blaze score users that have a score of 1. Then I would name my segment Mail Blaze Score 1 and set the Operator as “IS” and the Value as “1”

• Now click on SAVE CHANGES and your segment has been created.

Ways to use the Mail Blaze score:

By using Mail Blaze Scores to segment your audience, you can:

• Send more emails to highly engaged subscribers (Scores 4-5) without reputation risk
• Reduce frequency to moderately engaged subscribers (Scores 2-3) to prevent fatigue or run a targeted drive to learn more about what could get their engagement levels up
• Implement re-engagement campaigns for disengaged subscribers (Scores 0-1)
• Exclude completely unengaged subscribers from regular campaigns

Practical Segmentation Strategies

Champion Segment (Scores 4-5)

Your most valuable subscribers deserve your best content and highest frequency. These subscribers can typically handle more frequent emails and are prime candidates for:

• Exclusive offers and early access
• Premium content and insider information
• Product launches and announcements
• Survey requests and feedback opportunities

Engaged Segment (Scores 2-3)

These subscribers show consistent interest but need careful nurturing. Optimal strategies include:

• 2-3 emails per week maximum
• High-value content focused on education and solutions
• Gentle promotional content mixed with valuable information
• Personalised recommendations based on click history

At-Risk Segment (Score 1)

Subscribers showing minimal engagement need immediate attention:

• Reduce email frequency to once per week
• Focus on your most compelling content
• Test different subject lines and send times
• Consider preference center updates

Win-Back Segment (Score 0)

Completely disengaged subscribers require special handling:

• Create dedicated re-engagement campaigns
• Offer compelling incentives to re-engage
• Use different subject line approaches
• Set clear expectations for future communication
• Establish sunset policies for non-responsive subscribers

Implementation Best Practices

Regularly monitor your scoring

Review Mail Blaze Scores weekly to identify trends and adjust strategies accordingly. Subscribers can move between segments based on their recent behaviour.

Automated Workflows

Set up automated email sequences that trigger based on score changes. For example, when a subscriber drops from Score 3 to Score 1, automatically enroll them in a re-engagement sequence.

Content Optimisation

Use Mail Blaze Scores to inform your content strategy. Analyse which content types drive clicks among different score segments and tailor future emails accordingly.

Testing and Refinement

Continuously test different approaches for each score segment. What works for Score 5 subscribers may not work for Score 2 subscribers.

The Mail Blaze Score can help you improve how you manage your subscribers and take your email marketing from a spray-and-pray approach into a precision-targeted strategy.

By understanding engagement levels and their impact on sender reputation, you can create more effective campaigns that drive better results while protecting your ability to reach subscribers' inboxes.

Start implementing Mail Blaze Score segmentation today. If you need any assistance, kindly reach out to our support team.