Question: “In my campaign stats, I noticed a few “abuse complaints.” What does this stat mean, and what should I do with them?”
When people receive unwanted email, they click the “This is spam” or “Junk” button in their email program. MailChimp is alerted whenever your recipients report your email campaign as spam, and we automatically remove those people from your list. We can do this because we’re members of feedback loops at major ISPs (AOL, Hotmail, Comcast, United Online, Roadrunner, and more).
If you’re running your own in-house email program (coding an email with Microsoft FrontPage, sending it with Outlook, through a computer in your broom closet, connected to your local ISP), you’re probably not on a feedback loop. Over time, repeated complaints will get you blocked by those ISPs. This is one reason so many people switch to MailChimp (or any other reputable ESP).
Anyways, it can be reassuring to know that MailChimp has your list management on “auto-pilot” and that we’re cleaning complainers off your list, and preventing future complaints. In theory, you don’t have to do anything to them. We’ve cleaned them for you already.
But you should always log in after every single campaign, and check your abuse complaint stats. It’s sort of a “relevancy” gauge from your own recipients, and you should react accordingly…