> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Email Health, Shopify > Share of customer rows with a valid + verified email, the addressable list size for lifecycle. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Supporting Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ecommerce Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) > 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? | | | | ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **What it counts** | `COUNT(customers WHERE email IS NOT NULL AND email_is_valid = true) ÷ COUNT(customers) × 100`. Verification status (`emailMarketingConsent.marketingState = SUBSCRIBED`) is checked when available. | | **API endpoint** | `Admin GraphQL. Customer.email, Customer.emailMarketingConsent`. | | **What "valid" means** | RFC 5322 syntax check + domain MX existence (best-effort). Does NOT mean the customer opted in to marketing; that is a separate field. | | **What "marketing-subscribed" means** | `emailMarketingConsent.marketingState = SUBSCRIBED`. The strict-marketing variant is on roadmap as a separate metric. | | **VAT / tax treatment** | Not applicable. | | **Shipping** | Not applicable. | | **Discounts** | Not applicable. | | **Refunds** | Not applicable. | | **Cancelled / voided orders** | Customer-level metric, order status irrelevant. | | **Currency** | Not applicable. | | **Channels / sources** | All customers in the database. POS-account customers contribute (with email if collected at the till); POS-guest do not exist. | | **Verification mechanics** | Shopify verifies email when a customer creates an account (clicks the verification link). Pre-checkout order-only customers may not be verified, but their email still counts as "valid" if syntactically correct. | | **Time window** | `RT` (real-time, computed from latest indexed snapshot) | | **Alert trigger** | `<80%`, sustained email-health below 80% indicates list-quality erosion | | **Roles** | owner, marketing | ## Calculation ``` COUNT(customer.email != NULL) / COUNT(_id) WHERE date BETWEEN [period_start, period_end] ``` ## Worked example A US multi-channel home goods brand on Shopify Plus. 28,400 lifetime customers. Snapshot date: 12 May 26. | Email status | Customer count | Share | Note | | ------------------------------------ | -------------- | ----- | ------------------------------------- | | Valid + marketing-subscribed | 19,140 | 67.4% | The reachable list, the asset | | Valid but unsubscribed | 4,260 | 15.0% | Reachable for transactional only | | Valid but bounced (hard bounce flag) | 1,420 | 5.0% | Cannot reach, suppress | | Missing email | 2,840 | 10.0% | POS-account no email + B2B contacts | | Invalid format / typo | 740 | 2.6% | Salvageable with re-engagement prompt | | **Email Health (this card)** | **76.0%** | | (valid customers ÷ total) | ```text theme={null} Email Health = (19,140 + 4,260 + 1,420 + 740) ÷ 28,400 = ~91% raw valid Strict (subscribed only) = 19,140 ÷ 28,400 = 67% Card default (valid, non-bounce) = ~76% ``` 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](mailto: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: | Card | Why pair it with Email Health | What the combination tells you | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Customer Count](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/unique-customers) | The denominator. | Email-health-% × customers = reachable list size. | | [Unverified Emails](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/unverified-email-customers) | The non-verified subset. | Identifies the customers who need a verification prompt. | | [Customer Segments](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/customer-spend-segments) | Tier overlay on email health. | If VIP segment has 95% email health but Low has 60%, the cleanup priority sits with the higher-tier rows. | | [Churn Risk](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/customer-churn-risk) | Win-back depends on email reach. | Lapsed customers without valid email are unrecoverable via cheap channels; SMS / direct mail is the fallback. | | [`klaviyo.klaviyo_subscribers`](/nerve-centre/klaviyo/klaviyo_subscribers) | The downstream subscriber count. | Klaviyo subscribers ≤ this card's reachable count. Gaps reveal sync issues. | | [`klaviyo.klaviyo_bounce_rate`](/nerve-centre/klaviyo/klaviyo_bounce_rate) | Send-time bounce. | High send-time bounces drive down this card over time. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in Shopify Admin:** [Customers](https://admin.shopify.com/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:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | --------------------------------- | ---------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Marketing-subscribed vs valid** | Big | Shopify's segment is subscribed-only; this card defaults to *email exists*. Subscribed is a stricter subset. | | **Bounce status** | Either | Shopify auto-removes hard-bounced from subscribed, but the customer record still has the email. The card may count it as valid; ESP-level dashboards exclude bounces. | | **Customer merging** | Transient | A merged customer's email syncs to the canonical record; pre-merge data may show split entries. | | **Multi-store** | Per store | Each store has independent customer records and email health. A customer with email in UK store and no email in US store appears differently per integration. | | **Sync lag** | Ours lower for "today" | 5 to 15 minute index lag. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`klaviyo.klaviyo_subscribers`](/nerve-centre/klaviyo/klaviyo_subscribers) | Klaviyo subscribers should ≤ Shopify reachable customers | Klaviyo can have non-Shopify subscribers (signup forms, lead-magnet captures); the count there can exceed the Shopify-only count, which is expected. | | [`mailchimp.mailchimp_audience`](/nerve-centre/mailchimp/mailchimp_audience) | Mailchimp audience should align with valid-email count | Same logic. | ***
Same-metric documentation cross-reference (for agencies running multiple platforms) The same definition lives on other commerce platforms. Cross-platform navigation only. * [`bigcommerce.email_health`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/email-health) * [`adobe_commerce.email_health`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/email-health)
## 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](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.