To keep your email list clean and verified, you need to keep the data correct, up-to-date and error-free at all times. Look to adopt methods,
good practices and specialized tools such as collection validations, periodic
cleaning of the list and email verification tools.

In order to achieve maximum relationship and sales performance in an extremely competitive market, which is highly dependent on online communications, it is not acceptable to make mistakes at key stages, such as allowing incorrect data to be entered into the register.

The joint efforts of the IT, CRM and Marketing teams to maintain healthy email lists contribute to the success of email marketing campaigns and other actions by the marketing and sales teams. It is essential to prevent and eliminate invalid emails, spamtraps and disposable emails, with the aim of improving the deliverability and reputation of the company’s domain, as well as boosting commercial results.

In this article, we’ll go through the steps, best practices and implications of maintaining a verified, up-to-date and efficient mailing list.

What does it mean to keep a email list clean

Maintaining a clean mailing list means being able to prevent and remove records that have poor quality aspects. In other words, a clean mailing list has no invalid, duplicate, temporary, spamtraps or abandoned addresses.

Why is keeping a clean mailing list important?

Keeping email lists clean is important because email marketing campaigns depend on a high level of quality of the records present on these lists, not only for the ability to deliver messages to the correct recipients, but because other aspects depend on these positive attributes.

Main problems with unverified mailing lists

When mailing lists are neglected and do not go through a process of verification and removal of invalid or harmful records, this can lead to a series of problems that directly impact the results of email marketing campaigns and actions.

Some of the main problems generated by unverified mailing lists are: high bounce rates, reputation problems and blocks, and unnecessary operating costs

Problem 1: high bounce rates

Unverified mailing lists are subject to high rates of invalid emails, known as hard bounces.

Hard bounces happen when an e-mail address is unable to receive e-mail messages permanently because it is invalid, does not exist or no longer exists.

The implications of hard bounces go far beyond not being able to deliver messages to these recipients – which is bad enough. The existence of hard bounces can also lead to the impossibility of delivering messages to recipients with valid emails.

This is because email providers (ESP) monitor the quality of the email lists they use with each new email marketing campaign. When this volume exceeds a tolerance limit (usually less than just 3% of the total number of emails sent to a given provider), the campaign can be stopped, meaning that even messages sent to valid emails will be blocked.

Problem 2: reputation problems and blocks

Other common problems related to poor quality mailing lists are the worsening of the sender’s reputation and the consequent blocking of messages and campaigns.

When email providers identify reprehensible behavior or characteristics, they initiate sanctions against senders, starting with the provider itself, but also by reporting these senders to other providers through block lists.

In this way, for example, having mailing lists with a lot of hard bounces can lead to blockages, as we said earlier.

In addition, spamtraps of any kind (pristine, recycled or typographic) can lead to sender domains and IPs being placed on block lists.

Temporary email addresses can also represent a danger in terms of falling reputation and blocks, as these addresses soon become invalid emails, increasing hard bounce rates.

Problem 3: unnecessary operating costs

Lists with unverified emails increase existing operating costs and hamper the efficiency of campaigns.

This happens in several ways: when collecting emails, managing contacts and sending email campaigns.

• Collecting e-mails: companies need to invest part of their budget in generating new business opportunities (leads). The ratio between the amount invested and the number of valid leads generated is called the cost per lead (CPL). When there is no concern about the quality of the data generated and its correct verification, there is an incidence of more invalid emails, increasing the CPL.
• Contact management: once the problems have been identified (hard bounces, spamtraps, temporary emails, blocks, etc.), it will be necessary to adopt measures to resolve each of them on an emergency basis, removing these records and seeking to requalify the damaged leads and recover the damaged reputation.
• Sending campaigns: the fees charged for CRM and e-mail marketing tools today are, in most cases, based on the number of records stored. Email lists inflated with invalid records will only increase costs unnecessarily.

What’s more, email campaigns sent to lists with these problems will still be less effective, with lower conversion rates and therefore a lower return on investment.

How to keep your mailing list clean and up-to-date

To keep your email list clean and up-to-date, it’s important to follow a few simple but extremely useful guidelines:

• Adopt good practices when collecting e-mails
• Promote frequent cleaning of lists
• Use available technologies for this purpose

Good practices when collecting e-mails

The moment of email collection is perhaps the most important in the entire email validation and verification cycle. This is because the actions taken or neglected at this stage will echo throughout the rest of the lead generation chain. Therefore, make sure you implement the techniques and strategies considered to be the best at this stage.

During the collection of e-mails, we can recommend:

Implementation of registration forms with real-time verification

According to research by SafetyMails (2023), almost 24% of visitors to websites make minor typing errors that invalidate their email addresses, either because of a syntax error (such as forgetting the @ sign) or because a change of letters has invalidated the email address. In other words, around 1/4 of visitors make some kind of mistake when registering.

You therefore need to ensure that each visitor generates a valid email lead. To do this, you can rely on:

• Double opt-in (good): a confirmation e-mail is sent to the recipient with an activation hyperlink. With this method, only valid e-mails in the contact lists are guaranteed. However, there are some problems with this method:
  • Problem 1: any emails typed with accidental errors will be ignored and will therefore be lost leads, wasting business opportunities.
  • Problem 2: temporary emails will be registered and validated using this method, but will become invalid ⎼ and a problem ⎼ in the future.
• Real-time email verification (excellent): this method has the benefits of double opt-in without the need to send an e-mail and also solves the other difficulties, being able to alert the visitor to mistakes made (making the most of leads) and preventing the registration of temporary e-mails and spamtraps.
• No more paper forms: for offline environments, give preference to registration totems, tablets or even QR codes to access landing pages optimized for smartphones. These forms, combined with verification methodologies, will work much more effectively.

Responsible capture and express consent

Another good practice you should adopt is compliance with data protection and privacy laws (such as LGPD, GDPR, and CCPA). And responsible data collection and obtaining express consent are two fundamental points that cannot be ignored or neglected today.

Some questions you need to be aware of:

• Transparency in the use of data: it must be clear to the visitor what will be done with the data collected.
• Express consent: the visitor must give their free, spontaneous and unambiguous consent to the collection of data.
• Need for data: the data collected should only be that which is necessary for the activity.
• Data quality: it is necessary to ensure that the data collected is accurate, clear and up-to-date and in accordance with the need and purpose for its processing.

So if you’re not yet compliant, it’s time to get your hands dirty, get in touch with your data protection and privacy officer and adopt all the necessary compliance measures (in addition to those we’ve already mentioned here).

Frequent cleaning of the mailing list

Another good practice for keeping your email lists clean and verified is to frequently clean these lists, in order to remove any email records that could cause some kind of problem or damage.

Set a cleaning schedule

It is important to define a recurrence in the practices of cleaning and checking emails and other data in your database.

Among the practices, you can:

• Trigger algorithms to analyze the syntax of database records, standardizing data
• Remove duplicate records
• Remove emails that have become invalid
• Remove inactive users

To define cleaning schedules, you can adopt strategies focused on fixed periods of time, list segments and also seasonality.

• Fixed periods of time: a general check of records and e-mails every 4 to 6 months.
• List segments: routine checks of corporate email segments (which have the highest turnover rates).
• Sazonalidades: verificações de segmentos de e-mails para atender a períodos específicos, como dia das mães, Black Friday, Natal, entre outros.

Detect inactive emails

While we’re on the subject of inactive emails, make sure that these records are removed from your lists.

Inactive emails lack engagement, don’t convert sales, increase your platform costs and could become hard bounces or spamtraps in the future.

These emails can be easily detected by your CRM and Email Marketing platform.

Tools to keep the email list clean

Obviously, you won’t be able to carry out so many activities, in so many different ways and on so many different work fronts. To do this, make use of technology and tools on the market with functionalities that allow you to analyze, check and clean the lists you have.

Email verification tools

Hiring the services of a specialized email verification tool is the first and most important step in keeping your email lists clean and verified.

The service of a verification platform will allow you to take care of the email list clean you already have, which we call legacy lists, and will also allow you to collect the highest quality emails possible through the real-time verification on registration forms.

Removing all invalid and harmful emails before carrying out email marketing campaigns is essential to protect the sender’s reputation and IPs.

Take the opportunity to discover the services of SafetyMails, which has an excellent email verification algorithm and all the features you need.

Analysis of emails after each campaign

At the end of each of your email marketing campaigns, your CRM and Email Marketing tool is able to provide reports on the status of the email addresses used in that action.

Remove or disable e-mail addresses that have been marked as hard bounces or inactive.

Benefits of keeping your mailing list clean

The actions suggested in this article are intended to bring your business various benefits in terms of quality, reputation and results.

Improved deliverability rates

Verified mailing lists have quality records, without hard bounces and other emails that are harmful to the sender’s reputation, such as spamtraps.

Sending campaigns that make use of verified and well-segmented lists improves reputation and is therefore better received by email providers.

This way, ISPs will block less and the sender will have higher inbox placement rates (messages that are delivered to the inbox) and lower spam folder delivery rates.

Improved conversion rates

Better email delivery, with more messages appearing in the inbox, increases the chances of recipient engagement. This engagement also increases the chances of more conversions.

Of course, as long as the lists are clean, well segmented and the offers are properly targeted.

Reduction of spam complaints

Removing duplicate emails and inactive users helps to reduce spam complaints and improves the sender’s reputation.

Higher ROI on email campaigns

The ROI of email marketing takes into account the investments needed to carry out the campaign and the profit obtained from the action.

With verified lists, the cost per lead will be reduced, as there will be no invalid emails. There will also be savings on the CRM and email marketing platform, as fewer invalid and duplicate records will be part of the database and with email campaigns with a better reputation, deliverability and conversion rate, there will be a higher profit.

Conclusion

Maintaining a clean and verified email list is essential to the success of email marketing campaigns, reducing operating costs, avoiding blockages and improving deliverability and conversion rates.

Adopting good email collection practices, such as periodic cleaning, and using specialized tools are key to achieving these results.

The quality of the contacts has a direct impact on the sender’s reputation, the engagement of the recipients and, ultimately, the ROI of the campaigns. Implementing these practices is an investment to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your marketing and sales actions.

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