Can sending to a bad email list affect the open rates of a previously sent good list?
Summary
What email marketers say11Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Litmus explains that sending emails to unengaged or bad email addresses can damage your sender reputation which will make it harder to deliver future emails to your users
Email marketer from Neil Patel Digital explains that sending to a bad list hurts your sender reputation, which impacts deliverability rates of future campaigns to even good lists, as ISPs will view your IP address as a source of spam.
Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that poor list hygiene, including sending to outdated or purchased lists, can negatively impact your sender reputation, leading ISPs to filter your emails to spam, affecting even emails sent to engaged subscribers.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that they've seen Gmail pull delivered email as well.
Email marketer from Reddit explains that sending to a dirty list will eventually damage your sender reputation, and it can take weeks/months to improve and warm back up your IP.
Email marketer from Constant Contact explains that sending to disengaged subscribers significantly hurts your sender reputation and impacts overall deliverability.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign explains that the use of purchased lists will harm your sender reputation because the contacts didn't opt-in to receive your emails. This leads to low engagement rates and high bounce rates.
Email marketer from Email Geeks says that it's better to send to the better list first. They've seen that boost later sends' open rates. Sending lower quality first can lower open rates for higher quality lists by a similar amount
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum shares that sending to a known bad list will tank your sender reputation, hurting future deliverability. It's best to segment and only mail to engaged users.
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that sending emails to unengaged subscribers can hurt your sender reputation. Therefore, it is important to segment and target emails appropriately.
Email marketer from Gmass explains that a high bounce rate from emailing invalid email addresses will negatively impact your ability to reach the inbox for your future emails.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that poor list hygiene practices, such as sending to unengaged or purchased lists, negatively impact sender reputation, resulting in deliverability issues for future campaigns.
Expert from Email Geeks shares some ISPs will occasionally pull delivered mail out of the inbox if they change their mind about the mail stream. Others will defer delivery until they’ve seen enough mail to make a decision.
Expert from Spamresource explains that one of the most important ways to improve your email deliverability is by improving and protecting your sending reputation. If you send emails to known spam traps this will damage your sender reputation and you will lose the ability to send emails to your existing and new valid users.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that sending to a bad list after sending to a good list can retroactively hurt inbox placement, though it might not be noticeable unless something very dodgy is occurring or traffic is spiking.
Expert from Email Geeks states that Microsoft allegedly pulls delivered mail.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Sparkpost explains that sending to purchased email addresses will damage your sender reputation which will make it harder to deliver future emails to your users
Documentation from Amazon Web Services explains that sending to non-existent email addresses will damage your sender reputation which will make it harder to deliver future emails to your users
Documentation from Spamhaus explains that if you have been listed on a blocklist, it is probably because of spam-like emails or botnet infections on your network. Getting removed from the blocklist requires you to contact your ISP, and if sending emails is the reason you're on the blocklist, you'll want to clean up your lists and sending habits.
Documentation from Gmail Help explains that sending unwanted emails or emails to invalid addresses can trigger spam filters, lowering your sender reputation and affecting the delivery of future emails to all recipients, including those who opted in.
Documentation from Microsoft Support explains that sending to a large number of invalid email addresses will put your email server IP address on block lists. This could damage your reputation even if you correct the issue and then deliver email only to valid recipients.