I tried this automation one time before and – I don’t know why – some subscribers just disappeared. Did I do something wrong is that the way this automation normally goes?
And also: is the option “Remove Non-Engaged Contacts” (under engagement management) trust worthy? I want to delete all contacts that hadn’t open my campaigns for the last 3 months, but I read somewhere around here that this feature cannot be trusted – specially if what you’re sending is plain text emails. Is there right?
The two Engagement Tagging automations don’t delete or unsubscribe contacts. If that is happening, you should open up a support ticket so that they can track down the cause of those missing contacts. It’s definitely not related to using those two automations. Another possibility is that there’s a third automation you’re using that is using those tags to unsubscribe contacts. But, those two automations by themselves, unmodified, aren’t unsubscribing or removing contacts.
If you have the Engagement Tagging automations set up, I’d recommend using those rather than the Engagement Management feature. You’re absolutely right that opens can’t be tracked with plain text emails. The Engagement Tagging automation partially bypasses that because they also take site visits into account (via Site Tracking) and any events you’re tracking with Event Tracking. Basically with the automations you’re able to look at any kind of behavior as engagement by adding those behaviors onto the automation as a trigger.
So, with the automations, you’re getting a more reliable read on engagement because you can look at more than just opens and campaign clicks. You’d just set up an automation that unsubscribes the disengaged after a period of time you define. As a best practice, I don’t recommend ever actually deleting contacts because unsubscribes don’t affect your billing so you might as well keep them around as data points.
Just a follow-up question: how can I create an automation do delete the contacts with the tag “inactive” (as the Engagement Tagging automation suggests)?
I would just create a condition “wait X months” and, if the contact is still added to the tag “inactive”, delete them from the list?
You would create an automation that begins when the tag is added. Then, you’d have a wait (your call on how long that wait should be). To be safe, you’d then have an If/Else condition that looks for the tag. If the tag is no longer there, the automation should end. If the tag is still there, they should be unsubscribed with a remove from list action.
Please let me know if you have any other questions about how to set this up.