LinkedIn is taking steps to reduce the number of emails users get

LinkedIn says it’s gotten the message: users are receiving too many emails from the professional social network. The company shared that it’s taking steps to reduce the number of emails sent and outlined two actions already being implemented.

In a blog post, LinkedIn’s senior director of product management for growth and life cycle, Aatif Awan, explained that his team is working to ensure emails users receive are “more relevant”. The company has already consolidated invitations to connect into a single weekly digest and has also aggregated all the updates from a user’s LinkedIn Groups into one email.

“The results have been very encouraging,” claimed Awan. “For every 10 emails we used to send, we’ve removed four of them. Already, members’ complaints have been cut in half. And this is just the beginning.”

Although LinkedIn says users can adjust the frequency of emails received within the social network, they may still feel inundated by the number of notifications. A quick look at the account settings shows that users can indeed adjust how often they receive emails from other members, including invitations, messages, and other communication. Let’s not forget summary emails about what’s happening in their network and topics being followed, as well as a group digest that shows activity in the myriad groups an may individual join. Then there are likes, comments, and other responses to a user’s own activity, and more.

It’s pretty overwhelming — but LinkedIn wants users to know that it has heard them and will be making more improvements.