Bonus: Cleaning your list
It’s important to clean your email list because:
- It increases your deliverability rates
- Reduces spam or unsubscribe rates and increases ORs and CRs
- Improves your IP reputation
- Retains engaged profiles
That's why it's important to regularly clean your email list and remove any inactive or invalid email addresses. This will not only help improve your email deliverability rates, but it will also ensure that you're only sending your valuable content to people who are actually interested in it.
Now, I know what you might be thinking: "Why should I clean my email list? I love having a ton of contacts, even if they're inactive!" But let me tell you, having a bunch of inactive or invalid email addresses on your list is like having a bunch of dead weight holding you back from email success.
Think about it this way: if you're sending emails to a bunch of people who never open or engage with your content, it will actually hurt your email deliverability rates. Email providers may see that your emails aren't resonating with your audience and start marking them as spam, which means even fewer people will see them.
Plus, having a bloated email list can also cost you more money - you're paying for email marketing services based on the number of subscribers you have or based on how many emails you send. Why waste your hard-earned cash on people who aren't even interested in what you have to say?
Segments to create:
To clean your email list first of all you need to create a segment that defines unengaged profiles:
The definition here is super simple to understand - a recipient received 10+ emails from you over all time but opened or clicked none.
The segments should vary depending on how often you send emails, for example, if you send emails 3x per week - a person who received at least 10 emails in the last 180 days and opened or clicked 0 of them is probably not gonna open your emails in the future also.
All you have to do is delete or suppress all the profiles that are in those “Unengaged” lists. I suggest suppressing/deleting your unengaged subscribers every 30 days.
Another segment to suppress is people who unsubscribed from you at least once and bounced more than 3 times.
When emails constantly bounce or go unopened, inboxes will start sending your emails to the Spam Folder. That’s why cleaning out bouncers will positively affect your deliverability and reputation.