At a glance
Customers in the database with Customer.emailMarketingConsent.state IN ('NOT_SUBSCRIBED','UNKNOWN') or whose email has bounced. The marketing-deliverability canary; uncovers customers who’ve opted out, never opted in, or have unreachable emails.
| What it counts | COUNT(customers WHERE emailMarketingConsent.state != 'SUBSCRIBED' OR email IS BOUNCED). The denominator is total customer base; ratio surfaced as percentage. |
| VAT / tax treatment | Not applicable, count metric. |
| Shipping | Not applicable. |
| Discounts | Not applicable. |
| Refunds | Not applicable. |
| Cancelled / voided orders | Not applicable. |
| Currency | Not applicable. |
| Channels / sources | Customer-level state regardless of order channel. POS-walk-in customers without email don’t appear (no email = no customer record); customers who once opted in but later opted out do appear. |
| Time window | RT (real-time, computed from latest customer-state snapshot). |
| Alert trigger | >10% of base triggers unverified_email sentiment key. |
| Roles | owner, marketing |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Shopify data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A UK lifestyle brand on Shopify, ~24,000 customer base. Snapshot 12 May 26.| Cohort | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Subscribed (opted in, deliverable) | 18,200 | 75.8% |
| Not subscribed (never opted in) | 4,200 | 17.5% |
| Opted out (formerly subscribed) | 980 | 4.1% |
| Bounced / undeliverable | 620 | 2.6% |
| Total customers | 24,000 | 100% |
| Unverified (alert population) | 5,800 | 24.2% |
24.2%, 14.2 ppt above the 10% threshold. Six things to notice:
- The alert is firing. 24% unverified is well above healthy norms. For a UK lifestyle brand, target 5-15% unverified. Above 20% means the brand is sending emails to ~5k customers who aren’t receiving.
- The “not subscribed” cohort is the biggest piece. 4,200 customers (17.5%) never opted in. Likely guest checkouts who didn’t tick the marketing consent box. Recover via post-purchase opt-in flow.
- Opted-out is small but signal. 980 customers actively unsubscribed. Trend: if this is rising, your email content or cadence may have issues.
- Bounced rate of 2.6% is unhealthy. Industry benchmark: <1%. Investigate list-hygiene practices; a 2-3% bounce rate over time gets your brand flagged by Gmail / Outlook spam filters.
- Marketing-spend efficiency. If you pay Klaviyo per active profile, 5,800 unverified customers are dead weight on the bill. Either re-engagement or list-pruning saves cost.
- GDPR compliance signal. Customers without
SUBSCRIBEDstatus receiving marketing email is a GDPR risk in EU/UK. Pair with deliverability tools to confirm sends respect consent.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Unverified Emails is the deliverability canary. Companions:| Card | Why pair it with Unverified Emails |
|---|---|
| Customer Count | Denominator. |
| Customers with Zero Spend | Subset overlap; customers without spend often haven’t opted in. |
| Email Health | Aggregate email-marketing health; this card is one component. |
| Repeat Customer Rate | Subscribers convert to repeats far more than unverified. |
| New Customers | New customers should be opted-in by default; if not, post-purchase consent flow is broken. |
| Klaviyo unsubscribe rate (when connected) | Email-platform companion; tracks the opted out sub-cohort. |
| Klaviyo bounce rate (when connected) | Tracks the bounced sub-cohort. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Shopify Admin:Shopify Admin → Customers filtered by Email subscription status: Not subscribed OR Email subscription status: UnsubscribedThe most direct equivalent. Sum the matching counts and divide by total customer count. Other Shopify Admin views:
- Customer segments: build segments based on consent status.
- Apps like Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Hubspot: their dashboards expose deliverability health in detail.
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Bounce-state inclusion | Either | We include bounced; Shopify’s filter doesn’t always. |
| Sync lag | Either, transient | Customer-state updates lag 5-30 min during heavy edits. |
| Identity-resolution | Either | Shopify identifies customers by email + phone; edge cases (typo’d email) sometimes resolve in Admin and not in our index. |
| Email-engine variation | Either | If using Klaviyo as primary, Klaviyo’s view of subscription state may differ from Shopify’s during cutover. |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
klaviyo.kl_subscriber_count (when connected) | Should match SUBSCRIBED count | Klaviyo’s profile state should mirror Shopify’s; cutover gaps and import lag can desync. |
klaviyo.kl_bounce_rate | Should match BOUNCED subset | Klaviyo’s bounce tracking is the source of truth; Shopify mirrors. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Why is my unverified rate so high? Three usual causes:- Guest checkout dominant: customers complete checkout without ticking marketing consent. Common; consent uptake at checkout is typically 30-60% even with prominent prompts.
- Imported customers from previous platform: bulk imports often arrive without consent state. Default state for ambiguous imports is “not subscribed”.
- Cleansing not run recently: opted-out and bounced customers accumulate over time. Quarterly hygiene reviews keep the rate manageable.
- Pure DTC subscription brands: <5%. Email is the channel; opt-in is mandatory.
- Standard DTC: 10-20%. Welcome flow recovers most.
- Marketplace-heavy brands: 30-50%. Many customers never opt in.
- Hybrid retail: 25-40%. POS captures don’t always include email consent.
- Re-engagement campaign: confirmation-of-interest emails to opted-out customers (request fresh consent).
- Post-purchase consent flow: email customers who’ve recently bought asking for consent (must be carefully crafted to avoid being unsolicited).
- List pruning: just remove bounced and long-stale unverified records to keep your sender reputation healthy.
Customer.emailMarketingConsent.state field directly. The model has four states (SUBSCRIBED, NOT_SUBSCRIBED, PENDING, UNSUBSCRIBED); this card flags everything except SUBSCRIBED plus bounced.
Action playbook for managing unverified emails:
- Quarterly list pruning: remove customers bounced >3 times and customers with no engagement >18 months.
- Consent flow audit: confirm post-purchase opt-in is firing for guest checkouts; A/B test wording.
- Re-engagement campaign: target opted-out customers with a confirmation request.
- Deliverability monitoring: pair with Klaviyo / mailing-tool deliverability dashboards.
- GDPR compliance: confirm only
SUBSCRIBEDcustomers receive marketing; this card identifies the population that shouldn’t be receiving. - POS opt-in capture: train staff to capture email consent at till; the gap between in-store and online consent rates is often large.