84.3% of people say they check their emails once a day, so this is a fantastic way to reach both customers and prospects. In fact, email marketing revenue is expected to reach about $11 billion by the end of 2023, so this means it’s one of the most effective ways to market a business.
However, it’s common to amass such large email lists that they’re difficult to sift through. As a result, it’s challenging to maintain an engaged and healthy subscriber base.
Here are 13 tips you should use for effective email list cleaning to ensure everything goes smoothly.
Table of Contents
1. Segment Your Lists
Segmenting your lists is always a good way to build a strong email outreach campaign. It helps you make more sense of your data and breaks down a large list into smaller and more manageable ones.
Divide your email list into segments based on factors like engagement, demographics, and purchase behavior. This will allow you to target specific groups with relevant content. Personalization will reel in more interested parties, and it’ll be more likely that consumers
More importantly, it’ll help you identify inactive subscribers more easily. Breaking your lists down into chunks will give you a quicker overview of those who aren’t engaging with your campaign.
2. Remove Inactive Subscribers
On that note, you should regularly audit your email lists. Identify subscribers who haven’t engaged with your emails for a prolonged period, which can be anywhere between six months to a year.
You might hope to get them involved again (more on this later), but you should also consider removing them from your list (this is called email scrubbing). Inactive subscribers can negatively impact your deliverability and open rates.
Not only does this hurt your metrics, but it can give your email account a bad reputation too. This means that your email address is more likely to be flagged for spam, and your emails can be left undiscovered since they’ll be automatically filtered into spam folders.
3. Check for Duplicates
Something that can sneak by you is duplicate email addresses. This can happen if someone inadvertently signs up twice for your newsletters, or if you collect their email address during two separate situations.
You’ll want to eliminate duplicates ASAP by merging them, as you may be sending multiple emails to the same recipients. This can irritate consumers and cause them to report your account. And with higher spam complaints, the lower your account reputation will be.
4. Remove Spam Email Addresses
While you’re searching for inactive addresses and duplicates, keep an eye out for spam email addresses too. Usually, you can spot them from a mile away, but that won’t always be the case.
In general, look for nonsense addresses, such as those with long strings of letters and/or numbers. The tougher ones to find are the ones that look legit, but aren’t upon closer inspection. For instance, instead of “netflix.com”, they may use “netfl1x.com” as their domain name.
5. Check for Typos
It’s inevitable that you’ll have invalid email addresses on your list. But in some cases, it’s due to human error on your part.
It’s easy to make typos when inputting data, especially if you’re working with a large number of email addresses. Look through your list to check for typos, such as “gmial” or “yahooo”. Upon fixing these, you might find an instant improvement in deliverability.
6. Use Re-Engagement Campaigns
It’s a great idea to remove inactive subscribers to ensure you’re reaching people effectively. However, before you say goodbye to them, try sending re-engagement campaigns first.
These emails should encourage inactive users to interact with your brand again. Depending on where they are in the customer journey, it may be only one email (beginning stages) or several to pique their interest.
If these people still don’t respond, then you can consider removing them from your lists. You don’t want to keep irritating them, and if they’re deleting your emails upon receiving them, then they’re not worth the effort anyway.
7. Deal With Hard Bounces
You may already know what email bounces are; this is when your emails get rejected.
Hard bounces are when messages can’t be delivered permanently. For example, if you enter an invalid email address, you’ll get a hard bounce. If the recipient automatically blocks emails, then you’ll get a hard bounce as well.
Have a regular schedule to clean your email list to eliminate hard bounces, as they can harm your sender reputation. The more hard bounces you have, the more likely that spam filters will pick up on it and put you on the spam list.
8. Handle Soft Bounces
Soft bounces can also happen to your campaigns. These are when your emails have temporary delivery failures, which are often due to issues like a full inbox or server problem.
The best course of action is to monitor soft bounces and resend emails to those addresses. However, if they continue bouncing, remove the addresses from your list. If you keep trying these recipients, the soft bounces will count against you, and again, your delivery rates will suffer.
9. Use Confirmation and Double Opt-Ins
Implement confirmation or double opt-in processes for new subscribers. These actions may seem excessive, but they ensure that only genuinely interested people are added to your list.
At first, it may seem like you’re getting fewer signups, which can be a cause for panic. However, remember that you want to go for quality, not quantity.
With time, you’ll see that you’ll have a higher-quality email list with engaged recipients. This will reduce the chances of spam complaints, and you’ll maintain your account reputation.
10. Provide an Easy Unsubscribe Option
Many email marketers think that hiding the “unsubscribe” button is a genius idea. After all, if recipients can’t opt out, they have to stay on your list and read your emails, right?
However, holding people captive is never good. You’ll annoy people, plus you’ll do damage to your email deliverability. Not to mention, the CAN-SPAM Act requires you to include unsubscribe links in your communications, so if you don’t do that, you’ll have to pay hefty fines if you’re caught.
In addition to providing a clear and visible unsubscribe link in your emails, you should honor unsubscribe requests promptly too. This will help maintain a positive sender reputation and prevent your brand name from being tarnished.
11. Monitor Spam Complaints
No matter how well you run your email campaigns, you’re bound to get some spam complaints. This doesn’t mean you should ignore them though.
Keep track of the number of spam complaints you get. You probably already know where we’re going with this: high complaint rates can damage both your deliverability and sender reputation.
Address any complaints in a timely fashion. Plus, investigate the reasons behind them. This can help you tweak your current campaigns and shape future ones to increase recipient satisfaction.
12. Look at Engagement Metrics
Engagement metrics won’t lie to you, as they’ll present data in a transparent way. The key things you should look at include open and click-through rates.
Don’t be afraid to explore other engagement metrics though. They’ll help you identify patterns of disinterest or low engagement.
With this information, you can adjust your email campaigns accordingly. Not making any change will be a death knell, as you’re ignoring what recipients are trying to tell you.
13. Use Email Verification Tools
It’s easier said than done to implement all the above tips on managing email lists. While you can manually perform these actions, why would you want to spend that time and effort?
Instead, opt for an email verification tool like MailVerifier.io. We’ll improve the delivery rate of your email campaigns by cleaning your lists! As a result, you’ll decrease your bounce rate and maintain your email account’s reputation.
Our tool will validate and clean your list automatically. This means it’ll help identify invalid, fake, or risky email addresses without you having to lift a finger.
Manage Your Email Lists More Easily
Email lists are excellent for keeping track of leads and nurturing them through the customer journey. However, it’s possible to amass too much data, and without managing your email lists, they can become unruly and unwieldy.
It’s not easy to maintain on your own though. But it’s worth the effort, as clean lists lead to better deliverability and more successful email campaigns. And by utilizing email verification tools, you can keep your lists high-quality and enhance your marketing effortlessly.
If you want to make managing your email list easier, then sign up for a free trial with MailVerifier.io now. Our tool will boost your email marketing success!
Also Read: How To Increase Email Deliverability
Dewang Goyal is a seasoned expert in the expansive field of email marketing, boasting a track record that spans over a decade of transformative digital communication strategies. As a regular contributor to the MailVerifier.io blog, he offers deep insights and practical advice, helping businesses navigate the challenges and opportunities of digital communication. His articles range from the art of creating compelling email campaigns to the strategies needed for maximum audience engagement.
With a solid foundation in Computer Science, Dewang merges the worlds of technology and marketing seamlessly. This unique perspective allows him to approach email marketing from both a technical and a strategic angle, ensuring that his readers and clients benefit from comprehensive guidance.