Build a Braze Sunset Canvas for Unengaged Users

Why unengaged users hurt your email list health

You send to hundreds of inactive users—no opens, no clicks, no engagement—for months. They’re not just passive; they’re actively harming your deliverability. Each bounce, each ignored message, and every unopened email chips away at your sender reputation.

Think of your email list like a garden. If you keep watering weeds, you’ll see fewer blooms. The same applies here: inactive subscribers rot the foundation of your sender trust. They increase bounce rates, waste send credits, and can even trigger spam filters. They don’t convert. They don’t churn—because they never existed in the first place.

Key takeaways

Unengaged users over 90 days with no opens or clicks degrade sender reputation and increase bounce risks.
Continuing to send to inactive addresses inflates churn metrics and wastes send credits without measurable ROI.
Using Braze’s sunset canvas to segment and deactivate dormant users protects deliverability and improves inbox placement over time.

What is a Braze sunset canvas for unengaged users?

You use a Braze sunset canvas to automatically identify and suppress users who haven’t engaged with your emails for a set period—typically 90 to 180 days—without unsubscribing them. It’s a controlled way to stop sending to inactive users, reducing bounces, improving deliverability, and protecting your sender reputation. Unlike a hard unsubscribe, it’s not a user action; it’s a system-driven suppression based on behavioral data.

How It Works: Triggers, Logic, and Suppression

When a user misses a series of key interactions—opens, clicks, or replies—over time, Braze triggers a sunset canvas. You define the inactivity window (e.g., 90 days), and the workflow begins to monitor that segment. Once the threshold is met, instead of sending more messages, the canvas suppresses that user across all future campaigns.

This suppression reduces unnecessary sends, especially to invalid or inactive addresses. Over time, it minimizes hard bounces and complaints, both of which hurt sender reputation. According to Return Path’s deliverability benchmarks, sending to inactive lists can degrade inbox placement by up to 30%—a risk you mitigate by running sunsets.

Why It’s Not an Unsubscribe

A sunset canvas is not a user-initiated unsubscribe. It doesn’t require a click, an opt-out form, or a double opt-out. It’s a backend decision made on engagement patterns, not user intent. This distinction matters: unengaged users don’t leave with a choice—they’re quietly archived based on behavior.

This doesn’t mean you ignore them completely. Some campaigns use sunset canvases to trigger a final re-engagement message before suppression—say, a “We miss you” email with an incentive. After that, if they still don’t respond, they’re removed from active lists.

For long-term health, you can use tools to validate your list before launching a sunset. If you’re unsure about email accuracy, bulk email validation can help remove invalid or disposable addresses so your inactivity logic works on real, engaged users.

Protecting deliverability isn’t about sending less—it’s about sending smarter. A sunset canvas is a core part of that strategy. It keeps your list clean, your metrics healthy, and your inbox placement stable. When done right, it’s invisible to most users but essential behind the scenes.

How to build a sunset canvas in Braze using engagement data

You can build a sunset canvas in Braze by triggering a flow when a user hasn’t opened an email in 90 days. After a 30-day grace period, confirm inactivity with a final check, then opt them out and send a deactivation notice — all using Braze’s automation tools and engagement data. This reduces wasted sends and protects sender reputation.

Set up the automation flow

Go to Campaigns > Automations > Create New Flow in Braze. Let's start with a clean, structured path.
Select 'Trigger-based Flow' and choose 'Custom Event or Attribute' as the trigger. This ensures you only act on users who meet your inactivity criteria.
Define a custom attribute or segment that tracks users with no email opens in 90 days. Use Braze’s event tracking or data integration to populate this condition accurately. This step is critical — inaccurate data leads to false opt-outs.

Build the suppression sequence

Add a ‘Wait’ step for 30 days after the first inactivity trigger. This buffer allows for recovery, reduces risk of premature deactivation, and aligns with industry standards for handling dormant engagement.
Add a follow-up engagement check using another 'Segment' step. Confirm the user still hasn’t opened an email during the wait period. This avoids misclassifying users who might have opened one message after the initial trigger.
Add an 'Opt-out' action to suppress the user from future campaigns. This removes them from active sends and helps maintain deliverability by reducing low-engagement traffic.
Use a final 'Segment' step to isolate users just before suppression. This gives you a chance to audit or log the action, especially if you're doing compliance or audit reporting.
Add a 'Send Message' step to notify the user they’ve been deactivated. This is optional but recommended for transparency and compliance with privacy standards like GDPR or CAN-SPAM.

For best results, pair your Braze flow with clean, accurate data. Invalid or outdated email addresses undermine even the best automation. Use reliable email verification tools to maintain quality — especially before launching campaigns or segmenting users by engagement. With tools like bulk email list cleaning, you can validate large datasets in minutes, reducing bounces and protecting your sender reputation.

The 3 steps described in “Set up the automation flow”, in order.

Consider how deliverability is impacted by inactive users. An inactive subscriber can hurt your sender score and increase inbox placement risk. For more on how verification and engagement data correlate, refer to Spamhaus’s research on email hygiene and sender reputation signals.

Why real-time email verification improves sunset canvas accuracy

Every sunset canvas you run should act only on addresses that are truly dead or unresponsive. If you suppress emails that are technically valid—like role accounts, disposable domains, or catch-all inboxes—you'll lose real users and hurt long-term engagement. Real-time email verification filters these false positives before they ever get flagged, ensuring your sunset canvas targets only non-deliverable or dormant addresses.

Why false positives sabotage sunset canvases

Role accounts like info@ or admin@ often pass basic syntax checks but rarely receive or engage with emails. They’re not valid targets for suppression, yet many systems treat them as invalid due to lack of delivery feedback. Disposable domains (like mailinator.com) may be technically correct but are never used for real communication. Catch-all setups accept any email address, even if it doesn’t exist, leading to misleadingly high delivery success rates. Without pre-verification, your sunset canvas may misclassify these as inactive users and suppress them, reducing your addressable audience.

Let’s be clear: sending to a role account or disposable domain isn’t just wasteful—it risks your sender reputation. Most email providers, including Google and Microsoft, track sender behavior across domains and IPs. Repeated messages to non-personal addresses can trigger scrutiny from tools like Spamhaus or Return Path. A good sunset canvas assumes accuracy; it doesn’t account for how many of the addresses it suppresses were actually valid.

Verification as the foundation of intelligent suppression

Pre-emptive email verification ensures your sunset canvas only operates on addresses that are truly undeliverable or inactive. By verifying 100% of your list—using a real-time API or bulk processor—you can eliminate role accounts, disposable domains, and catch-all setups before segmentation.

For example, Email List Validation’s 98.9% accuracy rate identifies these edge cases using live SMTP checks, domain analysis, and inbox testing. It flags addresses that are likely to bounce before you ever send. That means your sunset canvas starts with only non-deliverable or dormant users—no false positives. This keeps your list clean and your sender reputation intact.

Use the real-time API to verify addresses at the point of entry, or clean your existing list before launching campaigns. The result is a sunset canvas that works—not just on syntax, but on actual deliverability.

Remember: the goal isn’t just to reduce bounces. It’s to keep your brand trusted. A well-maintained list, backed by verification, keeps you in inboxes—not blocks.

How to verify your list before launching a sunset canvas

You must clean your unengaged user list before launching a sunset canvas. Export users with no engagement in 90+ days from Braze or your CRM, then run them through a bulk email verifier. Remove invalid, risky, role, and disposable addresses to prevent bounces, protect your sender reputation, and avoid deliverability issues. This step ensures your automation only targets real, active users.

Export your unengaged user list from Braze or your CRM. Filter for users with no opens, clicks, or any other engagement in the last 90 days. This ensures the automation targets only those genuinely inactive, not just low-engagement users.
Upload the list to Email List Validation for bulk verification. This tool checks each email against real-time DNS, SMTP, and domain rules, identifying invalid, catch-all, and risky addresses with 98.9% accuracy. It’s built to handle large datasets efficiently.
Review verification results by category: valid, invalid, catch-all, risky, role, or disposable. Invalid emails are outright undeliverable. Catch-alls accept all addresses and can harm deliverability if used in bulk. Role accounts (e.g. admin@, sales@) are unreliable and commonly flagged as spam. Disposable domains are temporary and often indicate bots or low-intent users.
Remove all non-valid addresses. Keep only confirmed, valid, inbox-eligible emails. Sending to invalid or risky emails increases hard bounce rates, which damage your sender reputation and can lead to blacklisting by major email providers.
Use the real-time verification API to validate new subscribers before they’re added to your list. Integrate it into your sign-up forms and CRM workflows. This prevents new invalid entries from creeping in and keeps your list clean long-term. Learn more about the API at real-time email verification API.

Bounce rates and sender reputation: why verification matters

Even a 0.5% bounce rate can trigger red flags with ISPs like Gmail or Outlook. High bounce rates correlate with spam complaints and are a primary signal used by email providers to judge sender trustworthiness. According to a report from Return Path, senders with consistent bounce rates above 1% see significantly lower inbox placement. Email List Validation's 98.9% accuracy helps you stay well below that threshold.

Protecting sender reputation starts with sending only to valid, deliverable inboxes.

Next step: test deliverability before going live

Before activating your sunset canvas, use inbox-placement testing to confirm your emails reach inboxes, not spam folders. This simulates real-world delivery across major providers. The tool identifies issues like poor list hygiene, unauthenticated domains, or weak content signals that could block delivery. Test your campaign on a sample before full rollout. Find out more about inbox placement testing at inbox placement.

What each verification verdict means when building a sunset canvas

You need to know what each email verification result means before deciding how to treat it in a sunset canvas. Valid addresses are active and deliverable but may need re-engagement. Invalid emails are broken and should be removed immediately. Catch-all domains accept all inputs—often fake or non-usable. Risky emails show red flags like disposable patterns or high bounce history. Role-based addresses like admin@ or sales@ are not personal and distort engagement metrics. Treating each verdict correctly prevents wasted sends, protects sender reputation, and improves deliverability. Use real data to segment, not guess.

Verification verdicts: your blueprint for cleanup

Verdict	Meaning	Recommended action in a sunset canvas	Why it matters
Valid	Email is syntactically correct, domain exists, and the mailbox is accepting messages.	Include in re-engagement campaigns; set a threshold for inactivity (e.g. 90 days) before sunset.	These are your active users—your target for win-back efforts. Sending to valid addresses improves deliverability.
Invalid	Format error, missing domain, or syntax fault (e.g. [email protected]).	Remove immediately. Do not include in any campaign.	Invalid addresses cause hard bounces, degrade sender reputation, and can trigger blacklists.
Catch-all	Domain accepts all incoming mail, regardless of user existence.	Exclude from the sunset canvas. Never send to these.	Catch-all domains mask real users and inflate send volumes without engagement. They often belong to disposable or low-quality providers.
Risky	Disposable email, temporary alias, or known high-bounce history.	Flag for review; consider a lighter touch or exclusion from bulk campaigns.	These often come from temporary services or auto-generated addresses, which are poor indicators of engagement. Sending to them harms sender reputation.
Role	Emails like admin@, sales@, or info@—non-personal, shared by multiple actors.	Exclude from engagement tracking. Do not include in sunset workflows.	Role accounts rarely respond and skew metrics. Using them as personal users misleads segmentation and engagement analysis.

For context: the difference between a valid and a risky email often comes down to infrastructure-level signals. A catch-all domain might accept email just because it has no mailbox validation at the receiving end. You can test for this with MX records and SMTP-level checks, both core to robust email validation.

Bulk email list cleaning using accurate verdicts ensures your sunset canvas only includes addresses that are likely to respond—and that you’re not sending to dead ends. With real-time API verification, you can enforce these rules at scale.

Use verdicts as filters, not guesses. Your list hygiene is only as strong as your data’s accuracy.

How to integrate Email List Validation with Braze

You can integrate Email List Validation with Braze by verifying emails in real time at signup, syncing only valid addresses to your CRM or data warehouse, and using scheduled bulk verifications to purge invalid or risky emails before sending campaigns. This reduces bounces, improves sender reputation, and increases inbox placement—key factors in maintaining long-term deliverability with Braze.

Real-time verification at point of entry

Use the Email List Validation API to validate addresses as users enter them on your sign-up forms.
Only allow valid, delivery-capable addresses to be added to your Braze audience, reducing immediate hard bounces.
Implement this at the front end or within your backend workflow—anywhere data enters your system.

Syncing and maintaining clean lists

Integrate Email List Validation with your CRM or data warehouse (via API or scheduled sync) to push only verified addresses into Braze.
Run regular bulk verifications—weekly or monthly—using the bulk verification tool to remove expired, misspelled, or catch-all emails.
Use the Email Finder to locate accurate email addresses for users with outdated or missing contact info, enabling re-engagement without adding invalid data.
When you see anomalies in verification results—unexpected "risky" or "catch-all" flags—use the in-app AI assistant to analyze patterns and troubleshoot false positives.

Industry data shows that maintaining a clean email list can reduce bounce rates by up to 30%, directly improving your sender reputation with platforms like Braze. This isn’t just about removing bad emails—it’s about ensuring every send counts (see SendGrid’s best practices on list hygiene).

Consistent cleanup before launching automations ensures your segments aren’t seeded with dead weight. The combination of real-time checks, bulk runs, and proactive address recovery keeps your Braze audience healthy and deliverable—no guesswork, just verified data.

You don’t need to wait for a campaign to fail to fix your list. Start by verifying every new address, and clean your existing data proactively.

When to avoid using a sunset canvas

Don’t apply a sunset canvas to users who’ve actively opted in, those with only one missed email, long-term customers, or high-value users without a prior re-engagement attempt. These decisions risk losing engaged users, violating consent, or missing recovery opportunities. Use caution—and measure impact with real data, not assumptions.

Never trigger a sunset canvas on users who have consented to receive communications under GDPR, CAN-SPAM, or similar frameworks. Withholding consent rights can result in compliance violations.
Users in a formal opt-in workflow—such as post-signup confirmation sequences—should not be subject to automatic deactivation. Their engagement path is still valid.
Consent isn’t just about legal risk; once you deprioritize a user after they've opted in, their trust is harder to rebuild. Privacyrights.org notes that users expect ongoing control over their data.

When re-engagement is still possible

A single missed email isn’t enough to assume disinterest. Without behavioral evidence—like multiple unread messages or failed deliveries—don’t act prematurely.
Avoid sunset canvases on long-term customers. Their lifecycle value often exceeds short-term inactivity. Even inactive users from past purchases may return with the right messaging.
Always attempt re-engagement before deactivation. Send targeted win-back campaigns first. Tools like bulk list validation can help clean your database, ensuring only truly inactive users are flagged.
High-value users—based on purchase history, CLV, or churn risk—deserve a dedicated re-engagement track. Deprioritize them only after multiple outreach attempts fail.

Re-engagement campaigns can recover up to 10–30% of dormant users, but only if done with targeted content and proper segmentation.

Let’s be clear: automated inactivity thresholds are not a substitute for strategy. Use your customer data with intent. Validate your lists regularly—because unverified email addresses inflate inactivity rates and skew your decisions. Consider real-time verification to ensure your audience is valid and engaged before triggering any auto-deactivation flow.

Measurable improvements after deploying a sunset canvas

After implementing a sunset canvas for unengaged users, teams typically see bounce rates drop 30–60% by filtering out invalid or dormant addresses before sending. This reduces undeliverable messages, improves inbox placement, strengthens sender reputation, and lowers the risk of spam complaints and blocklist entries over time.

Reduced bounce rates through pre-verification

When you verify email addresses before sending—even just a subset of your dormant list—you catch invalid or non-existent accounts early. This means fewer bounces during campaigns, especially when those addresses would otherwise be sent to with no chance of delivery. Tools like email list validation services, which check syntax, domain existence, and mailbox responsiveness, can reduce hard bounces by up to 60% when used before sending.

Stronger sender reputation and inbox placement

Frequent hard bounces degrade sender reputation, which affects how inbox providers treat your messages. By suppressing known bad addresses through a sunset canvas and validation, you reduce noise in your sending stream. This aligns with practices recommended by providers like Return Path, which emphasize consistent sending hygiene to maintain inbox placement. Less spam-like behavior over time also means fewer false positives flagging your domain as risky.

Even if your campaign doesn’t reach every user, you’re still sending signals to inbox providers: that you’re selective, responsible, and focused on engagement. This visibility builds trust. You’re not just sending emails—you’re sending fewer, more intentional ones.

Tools like Email List Validation help you clean your list at scale, identifying invalid, risky, and disposable emails before deployment. The real-time API integrates into signup flows or CRM systems, stopping bad data from ever entering your database. Using these layers of validation ensures your sunset canvas isn’t just reactive—it’s preventive.

Over time, this discipline leads to fewer complaints, less time spent on sender reputation recovery, and a more predictable delivery performance. It’s not about chasing perfection. It’s about reducing avoidable failures so your messages actually get seen.

What to do with users after sunset canvas suppression

You’ve suppressed dormant users via a sunset canvas—now don’t just leave them in limbo. Archive them in a separate segment to prevent accidental re-engagement. If your privacy policy allows, run a single re-engagement campaign after 90 days to win them back. Log the suppression date and reason for audit tracking. If they were once valid but went silent, apply a soft bounce flag to reflect their status.

Immediate post-suppression actions

Move suppressed users to a dedicated, isolated segment—keep them out of active lists to avoid future re-adds accidentally.
Apply a suppression tag with the exact date and reason (e.g., "No opens in 365 days, no clicks in 180") for compliance and audit readiness.
If the user was previously valid and recently stopped engaging, set a soft bounce flag so your systems know their email remains functional but inactive.
Document the entire process in your internal deliverability playbook. This ensures consistency and supports regulatory scrutiny if needed.

Re-engagement and long-term management

Only consider a re-engagement campaign if your privacy policy permits targeted outreach to inactive users—do not assume consent.
Send only one re-engagement message after a 90-day grace period. Use clear language: “We’ve missed you—can we earn your return?”
If they respond, treat them as a new engagement signal; update their status and consider reactivating in segmented flows.
If they don’t respond, treat the suppression as final. Avoid further messaging unless they explicitly opt back in.
Review suppression policies quarterly. Update criteria based on deliverability performance and compliance shifts.

“Inactive users degrade sender reputation. Suppressing them is not just a hygiene practice—it's a deliverability necessity.” — Return Path, 2023 Email Deliverability Report

Before you suppress, ensure your list quality is solid. Running a bulk verification first eliminates invalid, role-based, or spoofed addresses—many of which can look like dormant accounts but actually harm deliverability.

Bottom line: clean lists drive deliverability, not just automation

A sunset canvas only works if the list it targets is accurate to begin with. Sending to invalid, dormant, or high-risk addresses undermines the entire process and can hurt sender reputation.

Email verification removes false positives, prevents suppression of valid users, and ensures that automation acts on data you can trust. Without it, even the most well-designed campaign risks being flagged by inbox providers.

It’s not enough to remove inactive users. You must also eliminate hard bounces, catch-all domains, disposable emails, and role addresses that erode deliverability over time. Only verified lists deliver long-term inbox placement.

Keep reading

Ready to put this into practice? Email List Validation verifies emails with 98.9% accuracy — start with 100 free verifications.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best time window for a Braze sunset canvas?

Use 90 days as a minimum threshold. Shorter periods may misclassify occasional readers; longer periods delay list cleanup.

Can I use a sunset canvas on users who unsubscribed intentionally?

No. Intentional unsubs should be managed separately. A sunset canvas applies only to inactivity, not opt-outs.

How often should I verify my list before launching a sunrise or sunset flow?

Verify lists quarterly or before major campaign launches. Use the real-time API for new sign-ups.

Does Email List Validation cover disposable email addresses?

Yes. It flags disposable domains like Mailinator, TempMail, and other temporary email services.

Can email verification be automated with Braze?

Yes. Use the Email List Validation API to verify emails at signup or during data syncs with Braze.

What is the accuracy rate of Email List Validation?

It achieves 98.9% accuracy in distinguishing valid, invalid, catch-all, and risky email addresses.

Do I need to manually review every invalid email before suppression?

No. Use automatic suppression only for confirmed invalids, risky, and disposable emails after verification.

How does catch-all detection affect my sunset workflow?

Catch-all domains accept all emails—using them can lead to wasted sends. Flag or exclude them during list cleanup.

What happens if I suppress a valid email by mistake?

It reduces deliverability and harms sender reputation. Always verify before suppression.

Which tools integrate with Email List Validation for list hygiene?

It integrates with Mailchimp, HubSpot, Klaviyo, and SendGrid for seamless data cleanup.

Can I test inbox placement before sending to a sunset canvas list?

Yes. Email List Validation includes inbox-placement testing to simulate deliverability across major providers.

Are there limits to how many emails I can verify for free?

Yes. You get 100 free verifications to start. Purchased credits never expire.