…and why mailer owners need to rethink this outdated rule
If you’ve been around mailers as long as I have (giggle), you’ve seen a lot of strange ideas come and go. But one thing I’ve never understood — not in 2008, not in 2015, not today — is why mailer owners insist on limiting how many emails a member can open at once.
I mean really… why?
On one mailer, I get this message:
“You can open a maximum of 3 credit links at a time.”
Cute. Except I only have 2 open. Not 3. Not even close.
And when that message pops up, you know what happens? I stop clicking. Period. Momentum gone. Interest gone. Bye‑bye engagement.
🌟 The logic just isn’t there
Why would an owner limit people from reading emails? It’s backwards. It’s upside‑down. It’s the opposite of what a mailer is supposed to do.
Owners don’t create the engagement — members do.
It’s the people writing the emails who make them interesting enough to click. It’s their responsibility to grab attention, spark curiosity, and stand out from the crowd.
If an email is boring, limiting clicks won’t magically make it better. If an email is great, limiting clicks just means fewer people get to see it.
🌟 Let them click away
If someone wants to open 5 emails at once, let them. If someone wants to open 10, let them. If someone wants to click through 50 in a row, LET THEM.
That’s literally the point of a mailer.
The owner’s job is to keep the system running smoothly. The member’s job is to write something worth clicking. The reader’s job is to click whatever catches their eye.
Limits don’t help any of those roles.
🌟 The real issue: outdated settings that never got updated
A lot of owners run multiple sites — sometimes dozens. And when you’re juggling that many, little things slip through the cracks:
- Old settings stay in place
- Outdated limits never get reviewed
- Nobody notices… except the people actually clicking
And trust me, when you click as fast as I do, you notice everything.
🌟 A simple fix that helps everyone
Raise the limit. Or remove it entirely.
Let people read the emails. Let them click freely. Let the system breathe a little.
Because when you stop me from reading emails, I stop clicking. And I’m not the only one.
🌟 Final sparkle
Mailer owners: If you want engagement, don’t block it. If you want clicks, don’t limit them. If you want members to stay active, make it easy for them to stay active.
Let us click. Let us read. Let us surf. Let us enjoy the mailer the way it was meant to be used.
Stop limiting me from reading emails — and watch your engagement go up.
Absolutely, great post. I also get frustrated when I can only open 3 at a time. I give up and move onto the next one. I do like the mailers with the automatic timers only and no images or numbers to click. Smooths the marketing process even more but I understand why it is all done and each mailer/platform owner each have their own theory.
Darren, thank you so much for taking the time to comment — that means a lot.
And yes, exactly! That “only open 3 at a time” thing stops the whole flow. Once the system blocks me, I do the same as you… I move on to the next one, and the mailer loses the click.
I’m with you on the smooth, automatic timers too. When a mailer just lets you click and go, everything feels easier, and the marketing works the way it’s supposed to. Every owner has their own theory, but those limits really do hurt engagement.
Appreciate you chiming in — nice to know I’m not the only one feeling it.
Hi Nancy, this limitation has been bugging me for years. If I know it’s like this, I simply won’t join, and you get to know the owners when you’re actively using mailers a lot. But you don’t always get this info before signing up and it’s very frustrating.
My first thought is that the owner wants to try and force upgrades by punishing free members especially when combined with a very small credit per click allocation. I always test sites as a free member, because these are the ones who will be clicking our ads the most and if the environment is bad for them, the site won’t be worth bothering with. If the owner is as tight with upgraded members, well, I have no words for this :-))
Another thing that annoys me is when credits per click are 1. I don’t even know how that happens. How anyone can lack experience to that degree and try and run a mailer is beyond me 🙂
Great post, thank you.
Thank you so much for sharing this — I felt every word. It really is frustrating when you join a mailer only to discover limits that completely break the flow.
And yes, testing as a free member is exactly what I do too, because that’s the group actually clicking our ads. If the environment isn’t good for them, the whole site suffers.
I also agree about the 1-credit-per-click sites. That’s not “tight”—it’s just counterproductive.
Your perspective is spot-on, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share it here.
I think most people limit the number as they want the advertisements to be really seen. When someone clicks and opens 20 mails at the same time, they are not really seeing the pages at all. The advertiser’s credits go to waste as their ad tab was lost in the 20 open tabs . This is what I think, though. May not be true.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts—I understand why many owners feel that way, and I used to think the same thing. One thing I’ve noticed from years of surfing is that many of us are seeing the same ads over and over again. The first few times we actually stop and look. After we’ve seen that same ad dozens of times, we already know what it is, so we naturally click through it much faster.
The problem isn’t really having several tabs open. The problem is when the system stops our momentum. Once I hit a limit, I often move on to another mailer instead, and then the remaining ads don’t get seen at all. In the end, advertisers may actually lose exposure because members leave before finishing.
Great post, Nancy! Thank you for speaking up about this. I couldn’t agree more that anything which interrupts a member’s momentum ultimately hurts engagement. As someone who uses a lot of mailers every day, I know how frustrating it is to be stopped in the middle of reading emails because of an arbitrary limit. Once that flow is interrupted, it’s easy to move on to another mailer. I also think you made an excellent point that many of these settings may simply be older defaults that owners haven’t revisited in years. Thanks for bringing attention to an issue that really does affect the member experience and deserves another look. 💜
Thank you so much for this — truly. You explained the momentum issue perfectly.
Once a member gets stopped mid-flow, the whole rhythm breaks, and it’s so easy to drift over to another mailer.
And yes, I think you’re right about those old default settings… a lot of owners probably haven’t looked at those settings in years..
I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience — it helps to show this isn’t just “my quirk,” it’s something real members feel every day.