What Is List Hygiene?

Definition

List hygiene means keeping your email list accurate and current. It involves regularly removing inactive, invalid, or duplicate email addresses. Emails will be sent just to people who truly want them, resulting in better deliverability and reduced bounce rates. This translates to better engagement from recipients and a more effective email campaign. In other words, proper list hygiene keeps your emails focused on the right people without clutter from outdated contacts.

Why List Hygiene Is Essential for Email Campaigns

List hygiene in email campaigns is important for a simple reason: clean lists mean better results. Sending emails to bad addresses or people who no longer want them lowers your deliverability. Bounce rates rise, and email service providers (ESPs) see that your list is not well-managed. As a result, they might start blocking your emails or sending them straight to spam. Even worse, outdated addresses could be spam traps, damaging your sender reputation.

In short, good list hygiene keeps your email performance high, but also keeps your reputation intact with ESPs, making it more likely that you‘ll end up in the recipient’s inbox.

Key Components of List Hygiene

Here are some steps that you can take to keep your email lists in top shape.

• Removing invalid emails. Bouncebacks from invalid addresses hurt your deliverability. Regularly check and remove these addresses to prevent future problems.
• Eliminating duplicate entries. Sending the same email multiple times to one person wastes resources and annoys subscribers. Keep your list free of duplicates.
• Handling spam complaints. If someone marks your email as spam, you should remove them immediately. Too many complaints can hurt your reputation with ESPs.
• Managing inactive subscribers. Don’t waste time on inactive subscribers. They’re probably no longer interested if they have not opened your email in months.

How to Maintain List Hygiene

Maintaining list hygiene is an ongoing task, but it is not difficult. Here is a quick breakdown:

• Conduct regular audits. Schedule routine audits to filter out invalid addresses and remove bounced emails.
• Monitor engagement. Keep track of open and click rates. If subscribers stop interacting, consider taking them off the list to keep it fresh.
• Use double opt-in. Double opt-in ensures subscribers are genuinely interested. It adds an extra step that filters out fake or mistyped addresses.
• Re-engage or remove inactive subscribers. Send a re-engagement message if someone has been inactive. Take them off the list if they still seem unresponsive.

Related terms

• Spam Trap
• Email Deliverability Rate

Related articles

• How to Reduce Bounce Rate
• How To Improve Email Deliverability
• How to Verify an Email Address Without Sending an Email