So, you’re busy, I get that, me too, BUT you need to keep your audience tidy!
So, before we begin, it’s worth giving you a rundown of what each subscriber status means:
Subscribed
Someone who has opted in to receive your email marketing
Counts toward monthly plan limit?: Yes
Can receive: All types of marketing
Unsubscribed
Previously subscribed, but has since unsubscribed (boo)
Counts toward monthly plan limit?: Yes
Can receive: Ads, postcards, and transactional emails like order notifications
Cannot receive: Marketing emails
Non-subscribed
Added to your audience but hasn’t opted in to receive email marketing
Counts toward monthly plan limit?: Yes
Can receive: Ads, postcards, and transactional emails like order notifications
Cannot receive: Marketing emails
Cleaned
Hard bounced or soft bounced a few times
Counts toward monthly plan limit?: No
Can receive: Nothing
Pending
Opted in using ‘double optin’ but not confirmed
Counts toward monthly plan limit?: No
Can receive: Nothing
Now, ideally, you want an audience/list full of subscribers, BUT there are scenarios where you will want to keep ‘non-subscribed’ people, like if you have a Shopify store connected up and have a bunch of transactional emails set up in Mailchimp. Otherwise, you’re gonna want to remove anyone who is NOT a subscriber. Which is what we’re gonna do here.
First, head to Mailchimp and click on ‘audiences’
Make sure you select the right audience!
Once there, click on the ‘of them are subscribers’ link, not the first one
Now edit that segment
Change the condition to be ‘is not’ subscribed
Now you’re left with everyone who is not subscribed. Let’s get rid of them – select all using the menu
Now archive them all. Don’t worry, you can unarchive people if you make a mistake. By archiving them you aren’t paying to host them in Mailchimp
Job done. Money saved, audience cleaned.