The more cobwebs you have in your email list, the harder it is for your campaigns to land in the inbox. Cleaning your lists before sending can help improve your email deliverability, engagement, and ROI by ensuring that your emails are only sent to subscribers who have agreed to receive them. It also helps you stay compliant with email marketing laws and regulations, including GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and HIPAA.

One of the best times to clean email lists before sending is when you notice a decline in key engagement metrics, such as open rates and click-through rates. This could be a sign that your audience is no longer interested in what you have to offer or that they’ve changed their email address, so it’s time to remove them from your list.

Keep Your Mailing List Clean with Smart Validation

Another way to identify disengaged recipients is by running a targeted re-engagement campaign, in which you send out a special offer or some engaging content, asking recipients to confirm their subscription or opt out if they don’t want to continue receiving your communications. This helps you identify cold leads, isolate them and run a more effective email scrub without removing subscribers who may still be valuable to your business (for example, an educator who loves product updates but never opens newsletters).

Making it easy for recipients to unsubscribe is another crucial step in email list cleaning. Make sure your unsubscribe links are visible and prominently placed in your emails, with a simple, one-click opt out, so that you can remove any disinterested subscribers from your list quickly and effectively.