Resolution: Keep Email Lists Lean and Clean! Presented by: Jennifer Balogh Senior Director, Account...

Resolution: Keep Email Lists Lean Resolution: Keep Email Lists Lean and Clean!and Clean!

Presented by: Jennifer BaloghSenior Director, Account Management and

Strategy416-944-3760 x224 | [email protected]

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Thank you for joining us!

Vigorate Digital | 1256 Yonge Street, Suite 202, Toronto ON M4T 1W5 | T. 416-944-3760 F. 416-944-3765 | www.vigoratedigital.com

Meet Jennifer Balogh Meet Jennifer Balogh Sr. Director, Account Management & Strategy

Jennifer is an experienced digital marketer providing expertise as it relates to online marketing and strategy across all industries. Jennifer invites you to please call, email, or connect with her via LinkedIn.

Contact Jennifer:416-944-3760 x224

[email protected]


What is List Hygiene?What is List Hygiene?• Process of cleaning email files to

ensure all addresses are accurate, current, legally opted-in, and deliverable.

• Don’t set it and forget it– should be an ongoing effort.

• Addresses ever-shifting ISP policies, blocking techniques, and filtering algorithms.

• A list cleanse is an initial “shoring up” of processes, to set the stage for deliverability success.


Who Should Consider a List Cleanse?Who Should Consider a List Cleanse?Email Marketers Who:•Acquire a bulk amount of opt-ins from a promotion or event, or have located a new database that they want to start communicating to.•Have re-activated an email program that was dormant, or who want to target a segment of subscribers who haven’t been contacted for a significant amount of time.•Have been using an ESP that wasn’t properly managing opt-outs or hard bounces; As a result, people who should have been suppressed from emails weren’t.


What are the Benefits of a List What are the Benefits of a List

Cleanse?Cleanse?• Maintain low bounce rates• Remove potential spam traps• Achieve high deliverability rates• Increase open and click-through rates• Allow marketers to understand the actual opted-in database

volume• Save money by sending email to fewer “subscribers”.


How Often to do a List Cleanse?How Often to do a List Cleanse?• Anytime email marketers

consider adding a significant number of email addresses to their ongoing email database.

• As long as opt-outs and hard bounces are being removed from your database as they occur, a mass list cleanse is likely not required on an ongoing basis.


What, What, SpecificallySpecifically, is a List Cleanse , is a List Cleanse “Cleansing”?“Cleansing”?• A list cleanse identifies and quarantines blatantly bad email

addresses due to a variety of reasons:• Duplicate email addresses• Syntax errors (malformed email addresses, missing necessary

components such as the @, the dot, the extension, and typographical errors)

• Bad domains (invalid, incorrect, or expired)• Bogus email addresses (i.e. [email protected] or others that may

have been intentionally added by known anti-spam activists)• Email addresses without an MX record (these are likely

illegitimate addresses, as DNS uses MX to allow mail delivery).


mailto:[email protected]

What Happens Once the What Happens Once the BadBad Addresses are Identified? Addresses are Identified?

• Once completed, a list cleanse process should produce three files:1. Clean addresses 2. Garbage addresses3. Suspect addresses and their suggested alternative

addresses (this is especially useful in correcting obvious typos so that you’re not disposing of potentially good addresses).


Other ConsiderationsOther Considerations


Practise Double/Confirmed Opt-inPractise Double/Confirmed Opt-in

• This ensures that all emails you send are going to be valid, qualified contacts right off the bat.


Consider Throttling DeploymentsConsider Throttling Deployments• Consider throttling

deployments; if there are questionable addresses on your list, you avoid having a large number of them hard bounce within a short period of time which could get you blocked by ISPs.


Address Inactive SubscribersAddress Inactive Subscribers

• A good list hygiene routine should also address inactive subscribers: • Spammers buy and steal email

addresses, so ISPs mark abandoned email addresses as spam traps to help identify spammers.

• Even if you acquired emails in a perfectly legal way, they may have since become a spam trap.


Complaint RatesComplaint Rates• ISPs base their complaint rates on your active subscribers, not

your total subscribers.


Maintain a Good ReputationMaintain a Good Reputation• Once you’ve damaged your IP’s sending reputation (due to

sending too many emails to invalid or inactive email addresses, for example), your email may land in the junk folder, or worse off, not get past the ISP gateway at all. • This impacts your active subscribers who actually want to be

receiving your emails.


Consider Time Since Opt-InConsider Time Since Opt-In• Remember that even if someone

did legitimately opt-in to receive your emails, but you haven’t contacted them for more than 6 months, we don’t recommend simply adding them into your email stream for a variety of reasons:• They may have forgotten they

opted in and report your email as spam.

• The email may have since become a spam trap.


Send a Welcome EmailSend a Welcome Email• Consider sending new subscribers a separate welcome email, and

deploy from a separate IP. • Until you’ve determined the address is valid and active, don’t

jeopardize the sending reputation of your IP address.


‘‘Demonstrate’ Webinar SeriesDemonstrate’ Webinar Series

• Don’t miss our next Webinar on February 27th, 11:00 am EST

• CASL: What the new industry regulations mean to you and your digital marketing strategy


Q & AQ & A

If you have any further inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us:T 416-944-3760 | F 416-944-3765 | [email protected]

Jennifer BaloghT 416-944-3760 x 224 | [email protected]

*Unanswered questions will be posted shortly on the Vigorate LinkedIn company page.

A copy of this webinar will be in your inbox shortly.

• Questions/comments?• Don’t forget to tweet with us!• Our twitter handle:

@vigoratedigital• Use the hashtag

#demonstratewebinar to join the conversation!


Thanks for your time!Thanks for your time!


Resolution: Keep Email Lists Lean and Clean! Presented by: Jennifer Balogh Senior Director, Account...

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