Skip to main content
Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Ecommerce Platform
Share of customer rows with a valid + verified email, the addressable list size for lifecycle.

​
At a glance

The percentage of customer records that have a usable email address (non-null, valid format, and where verification is supported, marked verified). The addressable-list-size signal: can you actually reach your customers via the cheapest retention channel?

​
Calculation

​
Worked example

A US multi-channel home goods brand on Shopify Plus. 28,400 lifetime customers. Snapshot date: 12 May 26.
The card flags <80% and trips. Five things to notice:
  1. The 10% missing-email cohort is mostly POS. 2,840 customer records without an email; 2,200 of those are POS-only customers where staff didn’t capture email at the till. The 30-second prompt at checkout would have addressed most of them. POS staff training is the highest-ROI intervention here.
  2. 5% bounce rate is the silent-leak signal. 1,420 customers with hard-bounced emails. Each campaign send to those addresses damages sender reputation across the entire list. Most ESP (Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Shopify Email) auto-suppress bounces, but the customer record still sits at low quality. A re-engagement campaign with email re-capture is the typical fix.
  3. The unsubscribed cohort is not bad. 15% unsubscribed is industry-normal. They are still reachable for transactional and account messages, just not promotional. Treat unsubscribe as legitimate customer choice, not failure.
  4. The 2.6% invalid-format cohort is salvageable. 740 customers with typos or fake formats (“test@test.com”, “asdf@gmail”). Many resulted from coupon-grab signups; some are genuine typos. A targeted “fix your email” prompt next visit recovers 30 to 50%.
  5. At 76% with the alert at 80%, the brand should plan a list-quality sprint. Two-week priorities: turn on email re-engagement series, push POS to capture email, suppress bounces from active sends, audit and clean obvious junk records. Each lifts the headline 1 to 3 ppt.

​
Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Email health is a list-asset metric. Pair with these to drive acquisition and quality:

​
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in Shopify Admin: Customers → segment by Email subscription status. Shopify’s segment shows subscribed-and-not-subscribed counts. The card’s “valid email” count is broader (includes opted-out but reachable for transactional). For exact matching:
  • Filter Shopify to Email subscription status: Subscribed for the strict variant.
  • The card’s default uses email field is non-null and valid, which is closer to Email exists than Subscribed.
Other Shopify Admin views:
  • Customers → All customers: shows email column directly; manual visual scan reveals missing-email rows.
  • Apps like Klaviyo, Mailchimp: have richer email-quality dashboards including bounce, open-rate, engagement decay.
Why our number may legitimately differ from Shopify Admin: Cross-connector reconciliation:

​
Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why is my number lower than Klaviyo says? Different definitions. Klaviyo’s “deliverable” count is calculated based on send-engagement signals. This card uses the static record-level email validity. Both can be useful; expect roughly 5-15 ppt difference. Does the card count opted-out customers? By default yes (they have a valid email, just not marketing-subscribed). The strict variant uses marketingState = SUBSCRIBED only; on roadmap. My POS-heavy retail brand shows 50% email health, is that bad? Common but improvable. POS staff often don’t capture email at the till. The fix is process, not technology: train staff to ask, give incentive (small discount for email signup), use a POS app that prompts. Hard bounces, do they count as valid? Today, yes (the email field is non-null). Bounce-aware variant is on roadmap. For now, ESP-side suppression handles the send-deliverability concern; the customer record is unchanged. Multi-store, can I see combined health? No, per-store. A merchant with 3 stores will see 3 health figures. Each store’s customer base is independent. Multi-currency, any impact? None; email health is regional-customer-mix-blind. Shopify Plus vs basic? No definitional difference. Plus stores can use Shopify Audiences and richer custom-field metadata to enrich email-quality decisioning, but the underlying field check is identical. Refresh cadence? Real-time index updates (5 to 15 minutes). Customer record changes propagate quickly. B2B vs DTC? B2B contacts often have business emails (not personal). The validity check passes; deliverability tends to be high (less spam-filtering than gmail). Subscribed-rate is lower (B2B buyers don’t sign up for marketing the way DTC consumers do). The card alerted (<80%), what should I do?
  1. Identify the missing-email cohort. POS-only customers are usually the largest share; train staff.
  2. Identify the bounce cohort. Suppress in active campaigns; consider a re-engagement series with email re-capture prompt.
  3. Identify the invalid-format cohort. Send a one-time “fix your email” prompt with $5-10 incentive; recovery is usually 30 to 50%.
  4. Audit signup forms; some signup forms allow obviously-fake addresses (single-character handles). Add basic validation.
  5. Check Shopify Markets: customers who didn’t complete the email-capture step in regional checkout flows may have null email; tighten the checkout requirement.

​
Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Email Health is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Shopify 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.