Contact Rating System

This page describes our contact rating system and how we value each star rating

Overview

Cymbal assigns a star rating (1 to 5 stars) to email and SMS subscriptions based on how often they engage with campaigns and purchase tickets. This rating helps organizations understand which contacts are most active.

• Higher-rated contacts (4–5 stars) frequently open emails, click links, and buy tickets.

• Lower-rated contacts (1–2 stars) rarely engage with campaigns or make purchases.

• Ratings change over time based on a contact’s activity

What Do the Ratings Mean?

Star Rating	What It Means
⭐ (1 star)	Rarely engages with campaigns and is often excluded from marketing.
⭐⭐ (2 stars)	Newly subscribed or re-engaging after inactivity.
⭐⭐⭐ (3 stars)	Occasionally interacts with emails or texts.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4 stars)	Regularly engages with campaigns and sometimes buys tickets.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5 stars)	Highly engaged—frequently interacts and purchases tickets.

New Subscription Ratings

• When someone subscribes for the first time, they start at 2 stars.

• If a subscription bounces or unsubscribes, it will not have a rating until it is subscribed again.

What Causes Ratings to Increase?

A contact’s rating improves when they engage with marketing campaigns, such as: ✅ Opening emails ✅ Clicking links in emails or texts ✅ Buying tickets after receiving a campaign

More engagement leads to a higher rating (up to 5 stars).

What Causes Ratings to Decrease?

A contact’s rating decreases if they ignore multiple campaigns in a row: 🔻 If an email contact does not open emails over time, their rating will drop. 🔻 If an SMS contact does not click links in texts, their rating will drop.

Once they engage again, their rating can increase and stop declining.

Refreshing Inactive Contacts

Since 1-star contacts are often excluded from campaigns, Cymbal periodically refreshes them. If a contact remains at 1 star for over 2 months, they may be given another chance and move back to 2 stars to re-engage.

Why is my Email going to Less Recipients?

That’s because a significant portion of your contacts were demoted to a 1-star rating, which you are currently excluding from that email campaign.

If your open rates are less than 20% a large portion of your contacts may get demoted to 1-star, but this is actually a positive step. By filtering out unengaged contacts, you improve your sending reputation with Gmail. Over time, this helps Gmail stop routing your emails to spam. As engagement improves, our system will gradually promote 1-star contacts back to 2-star status, giving them the opportunity to receive your emails again.

This process can take a few months, but in the long run you should expect open rates in the 40–60% range, which will have a materially positive impact on overall email performance.

What Happens to Suppressed or Bounced Contacts?

• Bounced or unsubscribed contacts do not have a rating.

• Suppressed contacts keep their rating but do not change while suppressed. If they are unsuppressed, they continue from where they left off.