Why It Matters
Email blasts still have their place — flash sales, company-wide announcements, breaking news — but they're a blunt instrument. Sending the same message to everyone on your list ignores the fact that a first-time subscriber and a two-year loyal customer have very different needs. Open rates for untargeted blasts typically hover around 15–20%, while segmented sends regularly hit 25–35%.
How It Works
You write one message, select your entire list (or a large portion of it), and hit send. There's no dynamic content, no conditional logic, no segmentation. The appeal is obvious: it's fast. But that speed comes at a cost. Subscribers who get irrelevant content are more likely to unsubscribe or, worse, mark you as spam. And complaint rates above 0.1% start hurting your sender reputation with providers like Gmail.
Quick Tips
- Reserve blasts for genuinely universal messages — product outages, major announcements, or time-sensitive offers everyone wants
- Even within a "blast," segment out inactive subscribers (no opens in 90+ days) to protect your deliverability
- Add at least a first-name merge tag — it's the bare minimum personalization and takes zero extra effort