Your list got smaller and your clicks went up

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Good Morning {{first_name}}!

It’s Tuesday - which means it’s time for The Lifecycle Brief! The numbers for unsubscribes last year are out, and they are surprisingly - not surprising.

For years, we’ve been talking about always providing value in our prospects’ inboxes, and when we don’t, they unsubscribe. Well, given how AI has made it super easy to slide into someone’s inbox, it isn’t surprising that unsubscribe rates have gone through the roof.

Across 3.6 million campaigns, unsubscribes nearly tripled last year while clicks went up, which tells me the people who stayed are reading. And they still care about relevant information. How do your numbers look?

Maybe pour a coffee before you check your own unsubscribe report.

What could go wrong? 👀

Let’s dive in.

It is MailerLite’s benchmarks that reveal these unsubscribe numbers. The average unsubscribe rate was 0.22% in 2025, more than double 2024’s 0.08%, while the average click rate rose to 2.09% from 2%.

The average click-to-open rate rose to 6.81% in 2025, up from 5.63%. That means a few things: when emails are curated to the right audience, they still work, and when they still work, people click, and it most likely drives revenue.

Unsubscribing from a newsletter or an email list became much easier last year too. Gmail now allows you to unsubscribe from the top of the email. You no longer have to scroll down and go through a manual process. CASL compliance is also keeping score here, meaning you have to honour all of your unsubscribes within days. Otherwise, it’s a hefty penalty.

So, is this bad for you? If your unsubscribe rate is steady or lowered, you’re good. If you find yourself with a rising unsubscribe rate, you should start paying attention.

Yes, unsubscribing is part of most email campaigns. It’s hard to ignore, and it’s hard to avoid. But here’s the math.

This is purely illustrative. It assumes a weekly send and the per-send rate applied evenly.

Unsubscribes can be costly if you are not paying attention to the small numbers. Over time, they become huge and can make a massive impact on your revenue.

I once worked with a client who assumed that an unsubscribe meant that they no longer wanted to do business with them. An unsubscribe tells you which channel this person no longer wants. The revenue risk comes from not knowing who they are in the pipeline.

Use the “hs_email_sends_since_last_engagement” as a sunset trigger for those with no engagement. Compare those with revenue brought in for the account using roll-up or associated deals.

Just because someone unsubscribes does not mean they don’t want to do business with you.

🩷 Email marketing benchmarks by industry and region: MailerLite’s 3.6 million campaign benchmark shows unsubscribes climbing faster than clicks. Readers can compare their own numbers against one consistent dataset.

🧡 Gmail’s Manage subscriptions view: Gmail lets users see every subscription in one place and leave in one click. Frequent senders feel this first.

💛 HubSpot September 2026 product updates: This release adds the Churn Risk buyer intent signal and Breeze-built segments. Both are useful for routing opt-outs from at-risk clients to the right owner.

💚 Gartner: 61% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience: Gartner also found that irrelevant outreach pushes most buyers to avoid a supplier. That’s the case for matching channel to engagement level.

💙 ZeroBounce Email List Decay Report 2026: At least 23% of a list decays every year before anyone unsubscribes, which compounds the loss above.

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We are now almost two weeks into Q4 - feeling the pressure yet (if you work in sales?!) Well, the Q3 Signals Report is dropping this week, and I’ll send you over a quick email once it does!

Skipped this entire email? No worries - here’s the DL.

Unsubscribes nearly tripled while clicks went up, so the lists getting smaller are also getting better, and that part is good news. The other good news is that more unsubscribes are not a bad thing - as long as your revenue isn’t impacted.

There’s a huge difference between “nah, I’m unsubscribing because you’re not for me,” vs. “I’m unsubscribing because I already know what I get from you, and I can call you if my needs change.”