7 Tips for Cleaning your Email Lists
Email list cleaning is a critically important part of reaching your customers with targeted email marketing messages. Poorly-maintained email lists with lots of invalid email addresses look like spam to most filters, so you’ll be running the risk of missing many customers and losing your sending reputation, if you don’t regularly clean your email lists using an email list cleaner like ListWise. Here are 7 tips to help boost your email list hygiene.
• Verify email addresses
When new users sign up, have them input their email addresses twice, then use an email validation service such as ListWise to make sure the email address is valid and real. This will avoid both typos and fraud on the part of your users.
• Double opt-in
Once a user signs ups, have them verify that they want to continue receiving your service. This can be accomplished by email and will up your average engagement level significantly, you use our email sending product Maxmail for this.
• Decide on bounces
A bounce happens when you send to an “undeliverable” account. Oftentimes, this is because that account has closed or the user has blocked your address. Other times, the account may be experiencing technical difficulties or be set to “vacation” mode. Eventually, accounts that continue to bounce must be removed.
• Check on feedback loops
Using a quality tool (more on that in a moment), check to see if people are marking you as spam. If so, you should email them personally asking them to reconsider (as long as you aren’t actually spamming, of course).
• Track open rates
Some recipients have valid addresses but simply never open your emails. You should either try to engage these users with personalized emails or remove them completely.
• Get quality email scrubbing software
Good software will take a lot of the hard work out of email list cleaning. Plenty of programs are available, so choose one that fits your needs.
• Be vigilant
Email hygiene is one of those things that’s often swept under the rug. Don’t skip out on cleaning your email just because it seems like busywork.