Even if we recommend six-monthly email list cleaning, this will depend on your ratio and the number of emails you send. You may need to clean your list again after or before launching a campaign.
Signs to look for to know an Unclean List
- Bounces are larger than usual or increasing rapidly.
- Open-rates are unusually low or declining rapidly.
- Spam complaints are higher than usual or increasing.
You can find out when your data started to degrade by looking at the delivery analytics for specific campaigns. If you have multiple lists, start with the one with the worst deliverability data.
Hire or do email list cleaning?
List-cleaning, also known as “email scrubbing,” is required every six months or two to ensure that your emails are only going to engaged subscribers and potential leads. You can clean your email list manually or use a service like Verify550 to do it for you. While each method has its own benefits, we recommend combining them for the best email list hygiene.
Best Email List Cleaning Services
- Terms: Check the company’s terms and privacy policy to ensure they are not selling or publishing your email addresses to third parties.
- Transparency: Are they publicly listed online with contact information for domain ownership, business area, etc.? Is there a dedicated office space?
- Support: the service provider responded to the inquiry via email, contact form, or telephone.
- Integrations: Managing email addresses in bulk is another. But, if you can combine all of your systems and entry points where you collect email addresses, that’s even better.
- API: Do they have a well-documented API that you can use to integrate your systems with them?
- Conformity: regardless of whether the service provider is subject to privacy laws like GDPR or anti-spam legislation.
In Conclusion
Using a list hygiene and email validation service can increase the number of emails delivered to your inbox, reduce the risk of being blacklisted by ISPs, and eliminate the risk of being expelled by your email service provider. Remember that without list hygiene and validation, you will not achieve 100% accuracy and reliability on your mailing list. Former employees frequently abandon their old email addresses.