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Card class: Cross-Channel • Category: Email Marketing
Spike = post-purchase programme over-mailing.

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At a glance

Share of customers who unsubscribed from Dotdigital marketing within 7 days of placing an order. Computed as COUNT(distinct unsubscribers WHERE unsub_timestamp <= order_timestamp + 7 days) ÷ COUNT(distinct purchasers in period). The single best canary for post-purchase over-mailing, when this rate climbs, your post-purchase programme is sending too many touches and customers are firing back the only signal they have.
What it countsCustomers whose Placed Order event is followed within 7 days by an Unsubscribed event on the same contactId. The numerator is distinct contacts; a customer who places two orders in one week and then unsubscribes counts once.
Definition of “sent”n/a, this card is engagement-outcome focused, not send-volume focused.
Open rate basisn/a, count of unsubscribe events.
Bounce handlingn/a, unsubscribes are a separate event type from bounces.
Attribution modelThe 7-day window is fixed for this card. Customers who unsubscribe later (8 to 30 days) appear in the general unsubscribe rate, not here. The 7-day rule isolates “post-purchase fatigue” specifically.
Currencyn/a, ratio metric.
Channel coverageEmail + SMS unsubscribes both count. A customer who unsubscribes from SMS only (via STOP) but stays on email registers here as a partial unsub.
Implicit unsubs (spam complaints)Spam complaints within the 7-day window also count. They are the strongest signal of over-mailing because the customer rejected the message rather than going to the unsubscribe link.
Soft churnCustomers who simply stop opening but don’t actively unsubscribe are NOT counted here, that is dd_dormant_subscribers territory. This card captures only active unsub events.
Time window90D (rolling 90-day rate, more stable than 30D for a relatively rare event)
Alert trigger>3%, driven by sentiment_key: post_purchase_unsub_rate. Below 1.5% is healthy; 1.5 to 3% is acceptable; above 3% suggests post-purchase programme over-mailing.
Rolesowner, marketing

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Calculation

Calculated automatically from your Dotdigital data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

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Worked example

A UK DTC homewares brand on BigCommerce + Dotdigital. Window covers 12 Jan 26 to 12 Apr 26 (90 days).
MetricValue
Distinct purchasers in window18,420
Purchasers who unsubscribed within 7 days612
Post-purchase unsub rate (this card)3.32%
Comparison: general unsub rate (all subscribers)0.42%
Comparison: 30-day post-purchase unsub rate4.91%
Post-purchase programme behaviour over the 7 days following purchase:
Day after purchaseProgramme stepSendsUnsubsUnsub rate per send
Day 0Order confirmation (transactional, not promotional)18,42040.02%
Day 1Thank-you + how-to-use email17,200220.13%
Day 2Cross-sell (“complete the look”)16,840840.50%
Day 3Customer review request16,5201380.84%
Day 5”Care guide” email16,1802181.35%
Day 7Loyalty / referral nudge15,8001460.92%
Total touches across 7 days6612 unsubs
What’s interesting:
  1. 3.32% post-purchase unsub rate trips the >3% alert. This is actionable, the merchant is over-mailing the post-purchase population. Most healthy DTC programmes run at 1.5 to 2.5%.
  2. 6 promotional touches in 7 days is too many. Industry best practice is 2 to 3 touches in the first 7 days post-purchase: a thank-you (Day 1), a review request (Day 5 to 7), and optionally one cross-sell or care-guide. Day 2 + Day 3 + Day 5 + Day 7 promotional sends compound; the audience is recently-purchased customers who came for a specific item, not for daily merchant emails.
  3. The unsub rate climbs day-over-day, peaking at Day 5. The classic over-mailing signature, the first 1 to 2 touches feel welcome; by Day 5 the customer perceives it as spam. The fix is to remove Day 2 and Day 5 entirely, leaving Day 1 (thank-you), Day 3 (review request), and Day 7 (optional loyalty nudge).
  4. Day 0 transactional confirmation has near-zero unsubs (0.02%). This is the right baseline; transactional emails are expected and welcomed. Promotional touches following a transactional touch must clear a higher bar.
  5. The cost of over-mailing is twice the unsub rate. Each unsubscribed customer represents not just one churned email contact but the lost revenue from their next 12 to 24 months of nurture. At a typical email-attributed AOV of £40 and post-purchase repurchase rate of 25%, 612 unsubs represents roughly £6,100 of forfeit pipeline revenue. The 3 to 5 percentage points of saved unsub rate is worth far more than the marginal revenue from Day 2 and Day 5 sends.
The actionable read: cut the post-purchase programme from 6 touches to 3 (Day 1, Day 3, Day 7), retest after 30 days. Most merchants see post-purchase unsub rate drop to 1.5 to 2% with no loss in attributed revenue.

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Sibling cards merchants should reference together

CardWhy pair it with Post-Purchase Unsub Rate
Unsubscribe RateThe general baseline. If post-purchase unsub is much higher than the general rate, post-purchase programme over-mailing is confirmed.
Send CadenceDiagnostic. Counts the touches per period; over-mailing shows up here as 4+ touches in the first 7 days post-purchase.
Welcome Programme StatusThe complementary lifecycle programme. Welcome unsub rates are typically lower because the customer has just opted in; if Welcome unsub is also climbing, the issue is broader than post-purchase.
Bounce RateOften co-moves with unsub rate. A list-quality issue produces both.
Spam RateImplicit unsubscribe. Rising spam complaints in the 7-day post-purchase window are the strongest over-mailing signal.
Email-Attributed RevenueThe trade-off. Cutting post-purchase touches reduces unsubs but may also reduce attributed revenue; pair to monitor net effect over 30 days.
Repeat Customer Rate (commerce)The downstream impact. Unsubs from post-purchase programme can’t be reached by future nurture; repeat-rate erodes 30 to 90 days later.
Klaviyo Post-Purchase Unsub RateKlaviyo equivalent. Same definition, comparable bands.

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Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in Dotdigital: Dotdigital does not expose a “post-purchase unsub” view natively. The closest screens for cross-checking the inputs: Where to look in BigCommerce / Magento: The denominator (purchasers in the period) comes from the connected commerce platform. In BigCommerce: Analytics → Orders → unique customers in window. The match between BC unique purchasers and Dotdigital Placed Order event count is the diagnostic for “is the order pixel firing on every order”. Why our number may legitimately differ from Dotdigital’s reports:
ReasonDirectionWhy
Window anchor. Vortex IQ anchors on the order timestamp; some Dotdigital reports anchor on the unsub timestamp. The two views agree on totals but disagree on which window an unsub falls in.None on rate; differs in time-bucket distributionUse Vortex IQ for the over-mailing diagnosis; use Dotdigital’s view for raw unsub trends.
Implicit vs explicit unsubscribe. This card pools unsubscribe-link clicks AND spam complaints. Some Dotdigital reports separate them.Vortex IQ slightly higherSpam complaints are a stronger signal of over-mailing; including them is deliberate.
Time-zone. Dotdigital reports run on account locale; Vortex IQ on UTC.Boundary days offAverages out across the 90-day window.
Multi-purchase in window. A customer who bought twice in the window and then unsubscribed counts once on Vortex IQ; some Dotdigital exports count once per order, inflating the rate.Vortex IQ lower (usually)The distinct-customer view is the right one.
Refunded orders. The denominator includes refunded orders; some merchants want to exclude.Either, drift typically <1ppFilter on the commerce platform side if needed.
Cross-connector reconciliation:
CardExpected relationshipWhat causes legitimate divergence
klaviyo.klv_xc_unsub_after_post_purchaseSame definition, comparable bandsKlaviyo’s healthy band is 1 to 2.5%, slightly tighter than Dotdigital’s 1.5 to 3% because Klaviyo’s automation depth allows more granular post-purchase targeting.
bigcommerce.bc_repeat_customer_rateInverse relationship over 30 to 90 daysA 1pp climb in this card typically produces a 0.3 to 0.6pp drop in 90-day repeat rate, the unsubscribed customers can’t be reached by nurture.
dotdigital.dd_unsubscribe_rateThis card should be 3 to 6× higher than the general rateIf they’re equal, your post-purchase programme isn’t driving incremental unsubs (good). If this card is 10× higher, the post-purchase programme is single-handedly driving the unsub problem.
The most useful view is the gap between this card and the general unsubscribe rate. A 0.5pp general rate paired with a 3.3% post-purchase rate is a 6.6× over-index, that’s the over-mailing signature.

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

What’s a healthy post-purchase unsub rate? Below 1.5% is healthy; 1.5 to 3% is acceptable; above 3% suggests over-mailing. The benchmark varies by category: B2B and considered-purchase verticals (homewares, furniture) typically see 1 to 2%; impulse-purchase verticals (fast fashion, beauty) see 2 to 3.5%; flash-sale / one-time-promotion businesses can see 4%+ and consider it a cost of doing business. Compare against your own general unsub rate; if this card is 5 to 10× higher, the gap is the over-mailing signal. My post-purchase unsub rate is 4% but our revenue is fine. Should I care? Yes. The unsubscribed customers are gone from your nurture stream forever; you can never email them again without a fresh re-opt-in. At a 4% rate over 12 months, you’re losing 48% of your purchaser base from email coverage. Post-purchase nurture is one of the highest-ROI marketing efforts (existing customers convert 5 to 10× higher than first-timers); losing it costs more than the marginal Day 5 promotional send delivers. How quickly will the rate drop after I cut programme touches? The post-purchase unsub rate is a 90-day rolling window, so changes show up over weeks, not days. Cut Day 2 and Day 5 sends today; the card’s reading will start dropping from Day 30 onward; full effect is visible by Day 90. To see the immediate impact faster, look at the per-step unsub-per-send rate in the Dotdigital programme report rather than the rolling 90-day card. Should I send to recent purchasers at all? Yes, but selectively. Day-1 thank-you and Day-7 review request are nearly always net-positive. Day-2 and Day-3 cross-sell sends drive incremental revenue but at high unsub cost; test removing them. Day-5 “care guide” or “how to use” content typically has mixed results, depending on the product (high for complex products like skincare or appliances; low for simple products like apparel). My post-purchase unsub rate spiked after Black Friday. Is this normal? Yes, post-tentpole unsub spikes are common because (a) discount-driven first-time buyers have lower brand affinity than full-price returners, and (b) BFCM cohorts often hit programme cadences designed for higher-affinity audiences. If your card jumped from 2.5% to 5% in early December, that’s a cohort effect, not a programme problem. It typically settles by mid-January if you don’t change anything; if it stays above 4% by February, treat it as evidence the programme cadence needs tightening for discount-led cohorts. Does this card include unsubs from SMS only? Yes, both email and SMS unsubscribes count. SMS unsubscribes (STOP messages) are typically less common in volume but more decisive because the customer had to manually text a reply, no accidental clicks. A high SMS-unsub share within this card is a stronger over-mailing signal than email-only unsubs. My customers unsubscribe via the email but stay on SMS, do they count? The card pools all unsubscribe events. A partial unsub (email-only or SMS-only) counts once. To split, use the Suppressions view in Dotdigital and filter by channel; full-channel unsub is a stronger signal but partial unsubs still indicate fatigue. Spam complaints, are those counted? Yes. A spam-complaint event in the 7-day post-purchase window is implicit unsubscribe and counts in the numerator. Spam complaints are far more damaging than explicit unsubs because they hurt sender reputation; a card reading driven by spam complaints (visible in the Dotdigital programme report’s per-step breakdown) is a 5-alarm fire, immediate programme pause is warranted. What should my post-purchase programme look like for a healthy reading? For a typical DTC store: Day 1 (transactional + brief thank-you), Day 3 (review request, separate send), Day 7 (loyalty / referral nudge). For complex products: add Day 2 or 3 “how-to-use” content. Avoid Day 4 to 6 promotional sends entirely, that window is when fatigue peaks. For high-AOV / considered-purchase categories, stretch Day 7 to Day 10 or 14.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Unsubs Within 7d of Purchase is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Dotdigital and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.