Email Clean Up: How to Make the Most of Your Email Cleaning Service
Is the email part of your marketing strategy? Then you know how important the quality of your list is. Ensuring your newsletters and campaigns reach people is essential to your success, and pruning your database should be routine.
If you’ve just found the perfect email cleaning service, or you’re planning to use one soon, read on to learn how to make the most of it. These little tips will come in handy next time you need to use it!
Email cleaning: free or paid?
Here’s a legitimate question: should I pay for an email cleaning service since some of them are free? The answer depends on what you need and want. If getting less accurate results doesn’t bother you, you can always pick a free service online.
But then you have to ask yourself: what’s the point of cleaning your email list if you don’t clean it well?
The only situation when using a free service makes sense is if your list is small.
Then you can benefit from a free email verifier by validating one address at a time. You still get the great accuracy of a system people pay money to use, only the process will be more tedious.
How to tell if you picked the right email cleaning service
There are several factors you should pay attention to, so you can get the best possible results:
- features;
- accuracy;
- security;
- customer support;
- ease of use.
Features: what’s the system supposed to do?
Any email cleaner should validate your list, but what email addresses should it remove? Here’s a quick roundup so you can see if you’ve made the right choice.
- Misspelled and fake emails: they’re all invalid and will end up bouncing, so it’s best to eliminate them from your database as soon as you can.
- Abuse emails: they belong to known complainers, who often label messages as spam. A good email cleaning service will spot and isolate them from your list.
- Role-based emails: they’re set up by larger organizations and monitored by a group of people, not a single person. That’s why they’re almost valueless to your email marketing, so it’s not worth keeping them.
- Catch-all emails: they accept all emails sent to them and they’re often full, so they bounce. First, let an email cleaning system isolate them. Then, you can score them to get a better idea of which ones are valid.
- Temporary emails: they self-destruct within minutes or days, and bounce. Obviously, they’re useless and even risky to your email marketing, so weed them out as soon as you get a chance.
- Spam traps: Most email cleaning services can’t detect them, so if you find one that does, go for it! Sending to these accounts will tarnish your sender reputation, as their role is to block spammers.
What to do after you clean your list
Now you know the riskiest email addresses, so you can ensure you’ve picked the right service. But once your email list is clean, what can you do to prevent it from spoiling again? Of course, you can run it through an email cleaning system when you notice bounces and poor engagement. However, an even better – and easier – way to maintain email hygiene is to get an API.
Once you have it on your website, the email verification API will prevent bad email addresses from being added to your list. It works just like a bulk email cleaning system, only in real-time.
So, if you want to stop worrying about bad emails spoiling your list, this is your go-to solution. Your service should provide you with an API key, which is a piece of code you have to install on your signup forms. It takes just a few minutes to connect and will start working immediately.
Plus, you can connect the API to all your favorite applications. For example, if you use Facebook to collect email addresses, you can add the API to it, which will instantly verify all new email addresses.
Final thoughts: accuracy and other benefits of email clean up
Before you upload your list on the platform of your choice, here are a few other things to keep in mind:
- The system should be at least 97% accurate.
- Ask the company’s representatives what they do to keep your files safe during the email cleaning process.
- Customer support should be available to answer any questions. Some services offer 24/7 support, so why not benefit from it?
- Lastly, the system should be easy to use. Avoid downloading software – the ideal service operates on the web. You can upload your database, get it cleaned, and download it when it’s ready.
Email marketing has immense potential. Unlike social media, it gives you a chance to connect with your customers and subscribers in a more personal and meaningful way. Nonetheless, email list quality is paramount when it comes to getting results.
So, validate your contacts when your bounce rate exceeds 2%. The results will make a real difference: expect higher open and click-through rates, better engagement, and, most of all, more conversions.
