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Good practices for cleaning your email list

Successful businesses and businesses know that having good contact lists (or leads) to use in email marketing campaigns is an essential item. But not everyone understands the importance of keeping the lists clean and active to achieve the best metrics. And that's what I'm going to take care of in this article! At this moment you [...]

April 22, 2022 · Dudu Gentil · 10 min read

Good practices for cleaning your email list

At this point you may be increasingly concerned with your ability to deliver falling emails... opening fees and clicks so low that they discourage...

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Or maybe you have a huge email database that hasn't been played in years, you've been distracted by other tasks that you forgot to check out active and inactive contacts and ended up having to deal with a mess of invalid leads, fake or even outdated email addresses.

Now, you check the lists and the mess is so big it seems impossible to clean up. But you need to be aware, whether your action is proactive or reactive to deal with spam responses, damage to the sender's reputation and waste money on contacts that shouldn't even be on your lists.

If the dirty data is damaging the performance of your campaigns, it's time to clear your lists and it's never too late for that.

Cleaning the mailing list may seem a challenging task. It takes time and resources to work with your contacts to identify and remove incorrect typing errors, duplicates, and email addresses.

And what's the best way to do that? Put everything in a spreadsheet? Keep track of metrics like rejection rates? Or are there tools that can speed up the work?

Contents

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What's the cleaning of the mailing list?

Cleaning up the mailing list is the regular updating process of your contact lists, removing fake, duplicate or invalid email addresses, as well as unengaged or inactive leads and customers.

Cleaning the mailing list is part of the best management practices in inbound marketing and helps ensure that you are working with standardized, coherent, usable and reliable data.

Why a bad (dirty) list of contacts can be harmful

It affects the sender's reputation: If a high percentage of your emails goes to spam folders, for example, this will affect the sender's reputation and email delivery rate.

Costs money: Email marketing platforms charge for the number of leads (contacts) and only remove soft bounces after several attempts. So if you're sending e-mails to unengaged or invalid subscribers, you're paying unnecessarily.

Causes system errors: If your database is shared by multiple sales and marketing tools, all errors will be duplicated. This makes sales and marketing efforts difficult and causes problems throughout the customer journey, until the product is shipped.

Loss of opportunity: If you are not able to reach high potential leads due to typing errors in the email address, you are losing revenue generation opportunities. And if a hot lead signs up, but makes a mistake in your details that you can't easily identify, it can cool down the moment you detect it.

Less is more about lists

With email marketing campaigns, people usually assume that a large volume of contacts is important. The bigger your list and the more emails you send, the more likely you are prospects, right?

Wrong!

One of the reasons your email metrics may not be reaching benchmarks is that your list has many illegitimate or invalid emails, which:

They do damage to the rejection rate.
They do not reach the recipients' inboxes, so they do not generate clicks or openings

So it's more productive to have a smaller list full of engaged subscribers than a large one with low opening rates and clicks. Clearing your list is like creating a large segment of good email addresses.

How to clear your email list to keep it active and engaged:

Always analyze the results!

Every time you fire an email campaign, analyze the metrics and compare them with other campaigns or industry benchmarks to see if you have definitive bounce rates above average and/or low engagement.

If you are using some more robust email marketing tool you will also get detailed sales tracking and assignment and an overview of engagement, ROI and performance. These are data that you cannot despise to maintain a healthy contact base.

Do a reengagement campaign

Try creating reengagement campaigns to try to save that hasn't opened email in a while. But no threats, no tricks, just engaging or automated, with a subject of the kind “Do you still want to receive our emails?” Recovery emails (redirection) with follow-up a few days later to not open, using different subject are also another option.

You'll also be surprised how many people decide to stay. If they're not getting involved after that, it's time to let them go.

Clear your lists

Wipe your lists using the features of the tools themselves that usually list the hard bounce emails, which have requested to unsubscribe or marked your message as spam. You can map them and delete them with few clicks.

If this is not possible, since there are platforms for all pockets or types of business, consider creating a new list with invalid contacts only or that have not opened email for 6 months or 1 year and remove them out. Leave room only for those who are engaged or interested in your brand.

Check the integrity of your domain

Use tools like the Mx Toolbox to check that you're not on any blacklist. This is especially important if you are sending from a shared IP so that bad email marketing practices from others do not affect your reputation.

If you are sending through the domain shared by your email marketing tool it is easy to verify the sender's reputation.

Only use the best data sources and trusted lists

Very careful with a well-known marketing trap and which usually does not deliver what you promise: avoid buying lists; follow the recommended email marketing practices, such as creating lists based on organic permission through engaging content, well-positioned forms, pop-ups and target pages to attract the right type of subscriber.

Some companies that specialize in the market sell lists aimed at specific audiences, but always seek to search and know their reputation and especially if other competitors have achieved good results.

Facilitate deactivation

Remember: if the lead no longer wants to receive your e-mails, that is his right, even it is clear in LGPD. Allow contacts to manage your preferences or choose not to include visible links. Hide the unsubscribe link in the footer or, worse still, make it impossible to locate, will generate spam complaints.

Deliver the right content

Customize and offer relevant content to increase conversion rates and keep contacts engaged. Use tool features such as customizable models, rules, filters, and integrations with other tools to leverage detailed profiles, purchasing behavior, and engagement data.

Use dynamic targeting to customize content focused on different customer segments. Let's say you're selling training equipment: you should exchange images and messages to direct what your customers care about and your goals, which vary according to your age, sex, and motivations. A 30 - year - old first - trip mother will respond to different messages compared to a divorced man over 50 trying to get back into shape.

Never send emails without a reason or only with propaganda, without expressing any kind of value involved. Add to the content not only the qualities of your product or service, but also the benefits or advantages.

How often should you clear your mailing list?

Depending on who you ask, you will get different answers to this question and everything depends on the size of your database, the number of lists and contacts. We think once a quarter is a good rule. However, others recommend anything once a month every 6 months, but it is important to be alert as quickly as their lists grow.

Some recommend extracting new data for each campaign and assuming that anything over a few months is invalid. It also depends on your sector and metrics. But if you notice an increase in cancellations of email registrations, definitive returns or spam complaints and opening fees and clicks in drop, it's time for an emergency cleanup.

You should also clean when inheriting a list, changing CRM, ESP or email marketing platform and before a major campaign.

Conclusion

As you have seen, cleaning lists is not only the cutting of emails from those who have requested unregistered or unreturned, but the organization of those who may still be interested in their content. It is a work that requires proactive analysis and management of your contact base.

But if you have a clear and planned strategy methodology, keep your email lists clean and free from unwanted or invalid contacts, it will only bring benefits to your Email Marketing campaigns.

Dudu Gentil · Nacionalvox

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