As the holiday season approaches, email marketers gear up for one of the most crucial times of the year. With inboxes overflowing with promotions, it’s more important than ever to ensure that your emails reach your audience. This means that email deliverability should be top of mind.
And ten to one, it is, as far as you are concerned.
You’re noticing a drop in engagement rates. You’re receiving bounce notifications from your ESP. Maybe you’re seeing ISP blocks?
We’ve solved a host of such issues recently for our clients. (You may want to check out our Evtrove case study in this regard). So we know what’s at stake. And that’s why email deliverability is baked into our six-tier email marketing process.
Now deliverability is a measure of whether emails reach the inbox or get sent to the spam or junk folders. So, a key factor in achieving good deliverability is list hygiene—the process of maintaining a clean, engaged, and accurate email list.
That’s what this guide is all about. So, let’s begin!
Why is list hygiene important for holiday email marketing?
10 list hygiene tips for the holidays
1. Segment & prioritize engaged contacts
2. Removed invalid or hard-bounced emails
5. Collect consent & use double opt-ins
6. Check for role-based & generic emails
7. Monitor & optimize your sending practices
8. Run a re-engagement campaign before the holidays
9. Regularly update subscriber preferences
10. Analyze metrics, act on feedback
Tools to help you maintain email list hygiene
Why is list hygiene important for holiday email marketing?
The holiday season presents some unique challenges for email marketers that make list hygiene even more important:
- Increased Sending Volume: Everyone ramps up their email marketing during the holidays. This flood of emails makes ISPs (Internet Service Providers) more vigilant. Poor sender practices can lead to blacklisting or filtering into spam.
- Maximizing ROI: A clean list leads to better engagement, which directly impacts revenue. Cleaning up your list may feel like it’s shrinking your audience, but you’ll actually get better results from sending to a smaller group of engaged users than a large list that includes unengaged users.
- Protecting Sender Reputation: Bounces, spam complaints, and unengaged recipients damage your sender reputation, impacting your chances of reaching the inbox.
Let’s now look at how you can clean up your email list.
10 list hygiene tips for the holidays
Here’s a comprehensive guide to boosting email deliverability this holiday season.
1. Segment & prioritize engaged contacts
Engaged users are more likely to open, click, and convert. Segment your list based on engagement level. For example, create a segment of users who have opened or clicked on an email in the past 90 days.
Prioritize these high-engagement segments for your holiday campaigns.
2. Remove invalid or hard-bounced emails
No, thank you!
Sending to invalid addresses increases bounce rates and harms your sender reputation. A hard bounce means that an email can’t be delivered because the email address is invalid. Use an email verification tool to identify invalid or risky addresses and remove them from your list. Some email service providers offer automatic suppression of hard bounces.
3. Suppress unengaged users
Unengaged subscribers lower open rates and increase the risk of spam complaints. Engagement is a more complicated concept than it appears. While open rates are a positive indicator of engagement, ISPs consider both positive and negative engagement metrics. Negative actions include:
- Deleting without opening
- Bouncing
- Inactivity over a period of time
To combat this, identify users who haven’t interacted with your emails in 6–12 months. Move them to a “dormant” segment and try to re-engage them with a dedicated campaign before the holiday season begins. You can also implement a sunset policy that automatically unsubscribes inactive users. If users remain inactive after your re-engagement efforts, suppress them from your main list.
4. Watch out for spam traps
Snap!—does it
Spam traps are email addresses used by ISPs to identify spammers. Hitting a spam trap can severely damage deliverability. Spam traps fall into two categories:
- Recycled spam traps are email addresses that were once valid but have been abandoned.
- Typo spam traps are created when someone makes a typo entering their email address.
One way to avoid spam traps is to never purchase email lists and always grow your list organically. Make sure that your signup forms include a double opt-in, which requires users to confirm their email address. This helps to filter out typos and fake emails. You can also use email hygiene services to identify and remove potential spam traps.
5. Collect consent & use double opt-ins
Subscribers who explicitly opt into your emails are more likely to engage with them. Use double opt-in methods when users subscribe and clearly communicate the type and frequency of emails subscribers can expect.
This helps to manage expectations and avoid spam complaints.
6. Check for role-based & generic emails
Role-based addresses (e.g., info@company.com, support@company.com) are often associated with low engagement and an increased risk of spam complaints. Use email validation tools to identify and suppress role-based addresses.
7. Monitor & optimize your sending practices
Consistent sending practices build trust with ISPs. This is especially important during the holidays when ISPs are on high alert. Avoid sudden increases in your sending volume. Instead, gradually increase your volume in the weeks leading up to your holiday campaigns. A good rule of thumb is to increase your volume by no more than 25% from one day to the next.
You should also authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to build credibility with ISPs. SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) help to prevent spammers from sending messages that appear to be from your domain. If you’re sending more than 100,000 emails a month, you should also consider using a dedicated IP address.
8. Run a re-engagement campaign before the holidays
Bored of the rings?
Reactivating dormant subscribers can clean up your list and rekindle interest in your brand. Send a series of re-engagement emails with strong subject lines and offers. Be sure to include an option to update preferences or unsubscribe. If subscribers don’t re-engage after your campaign, you should remove them from your list.
9. Regularly update subscriber preferences
Giving subscribers control over their preferences reduces the risk of complaints and unsubscribes. Include a “manage preferences” link in all of your emails so that users can control the type and frequency of emails they receive.
10. Analyze metrics, act on feedback
Continuously monitor key deliverability metrics, including open rates, click-through rates, and spam complaints. Immediately suppress or unsubscribe users who mark your emails as spam.
If you’re seeing low open rates at some mailbox providers, reduce your sending volume to those providers by only sending to your most engaged subscribers.
Tools to help you maintain email list hygiene
You don’t have to go it alone when it comes to email list hygiene. There are a lot of tools available to help:
- Email Verification: NeverBounce, ZeroBounce, BriteVerify, Mailjet Bulk Validations, Mailgun Optimize Email Validations
- Re-Engagement Tools: Marketo, Salesforce, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Braze
- Deliverability Monitoring: Litmus, GlockApps, Email on Acid
Final thoughts
List hygiene is not a one-time task. By implementing these practices and taking advantage of the tools available, you can ensure your emails reach the inbox this holiday season. Clean email lists, combined with targeted campaigns and engaging content, are the keys to maximizing conversions.
For more things email marketing, head over to our dedicated blog.
Dhrupalsinh Barad - Sr Project Manager
As a seasoned project manager at Mavlers, I bring over nine years of expertise in Project Management, Email Marketing and automation, and Client Servicing. My enthusiasm lies in exploring emerging technologies, which I believe hold immense potential to transform our world positively. When I'm not busy solving problems for our clients, managing teams, or managing projects, you can find me lost in a good book or grooving to dance tracks. Helping others thrive and adding value wherever I can is what keeps me going.
Susmit Panda
A realist at heart and an idealist at head, Susmit is a content writer at Mavlers. He has been in the digital marketing industry for half a decade. When not writing, he can be seen squinting at his Kindle, awestruck.
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