Feed Unsubscribers - How to Gauge Their Impact

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There is no doubt that you refer to you feed subscriber statistics at least sporadically to relay stats to contacts or update your media kit. When you do chances are you will see that sometimes your numbers are less than they were last time you looked. Don't fret.

An overnight reduction in FeedBurner subscribers that results in the loss of half of your numbers should not surprise you. For whatever technical reason, this is a frequent feature of FeedBurner. You haven't actually lost subscribers, FeedBurner just isn't showing your full numbers right now. Why? I couldn't tell you. Just don't freak out.

If you really want to know when someone unsubscribes from your feed, you can. FeedBurner allows you to sign for email updates that provide you with data concerning each newsletter subscription cancellation. Click
the "Publicize" tab in FeedBurner followed by the "Email Subscriptions" button and then "Subscription Management." At the bottom of the window, click the button with the label "Send me an email whenever people unsubscribe." When a checkmark appears you know this feature is activated. Click "Save."

Next time you have someone unsubscribe from your feed, you will receive an email with that persons email address. If you want to understand why they unsubscribed, run a click Google search on their email address or the handle attached to the email provider. (For example, my handle would be miscmayzee followed by gmail.com or yahoo.com, etc.).

Nine times out of ten my unsubscribers are people who stopped here to enter a contest, signed up for my feed as an entry method and then become annoyed by book reviews and general content. I determine this by seeing that their handle and email address is frequently posted in comments on giveaways on other blogs. Because of this, I am relatively nonplussed when I receive one of these emails.

Now, if suddenly one day I were to receive five notices that had handles like christianbookreader, ilovehistoricalfiction, beverlylewisfan, booklover, and christiangrl - I would be concerned and have to look through my recent posts to make sure I had not shared anything even remotely offensive or controversial that would turn off my niche readers. This has never happened.

Don't obsess over every single person who unsubscribes from your feed, but do keep a watchful eye if a trend happens to pop up.