Loyalty glossary · 10. Marketing and engagement (20)
Email Cadence
Email cadence is the timing and frequency pattern of emails sent to loyalty programme members, designed to deliver relevant messages while avoiding list fatigue and opt-out spikes.
Email cadence is not a traffic metric. It is the pacing of a relationship. A programme that treats every day as a reason to email is not engaging members, it is testing their tolerance. The right cadence changes with the member's own behaviour, and anything less is a broadcast list wearing a loyalty badge.
Blanket frequency is the default failure. When every member gets the same number of touches regardless of how they earn or redeem, the programme signals that it does not know who is paying attention. Activity-based qualification solves half the problem, because it tells you who has done something worth responding to, but it does not tell you how often to respond unless cadence is tied to that activity.
The arithmetic exposes the fallacy of sending more to earn more. Suppose a member earns 500 points per month from bonus offers delivered by email. At an open rate of 20 percent, that member sees 100 points worth of offers each month. Push cadence to the point where open rate falls to 15 percent and the same member sees only 75 points worth of offers per month, a 25 point loss from trying to send more. The louder programme did not earn more, it earned less per send.
Active member rate is the honest scoreboard for cadence decisions. A member who stops opening emails becomes inactive, and inactivity spreads through the file like a silent unsubscribe. The programme that sends more often without first earning the right to do so is borrowing engagement from its future self, and the repayment is measured in members who quietly disengage.
Accrual patterns should set the rhythm, not the calendar. A member who has just crossed a tier threshold has a reason to hear from the programme within days. A member who has not earned a point in 3 months needs a re-engagement sequence, not another monthly newsletter. Cadence that ignores accrual is not personalisation, it is automation with a logo.
The best email cadence is the one you would send to a paying subscriber, not a spam folder. It is shorter, more targeted, and less frequent than the default. It treats every send as a cost against the member's patience. Programmes that ignore this eventually pay for it in inactive members who never complain, they just stop opening.