Should I clean my email list when migrating to a new ESP?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from OptinMonster shares that regularly cleaning your email list removes inactive subscribers, reduces hard bounces, and minimizes spam complaints. This increases your sender reputation and improves deliverability rates.
Email marketer from G2 shares that using a list cleaning service can help identify and remove invalid or inactive email addresses. This improves your sender reputation and ensures that your emails reach engaged subscribers.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that they have used Kickbox's email verification tool in the past.
Email marketer from HubSpot recommends regularly cleaning your email list because of decaying email lists, changing demographics, and unsubscribes.
Email marketer from Sendinblue Blog explains that cleaning your email list helps maintain a good sender reputation, improves deliverability, and reduces bounce rates, leading to better engagement and ROI from email campaigns.
Email marketer from Neil Patel explains that if your email list is full of disengaged contacts, your marketing emails may end up in spam folders instead of the inboxes of users who want to see it. Keep your lists cleaned to improve your email marketing
Email marketer from DigitalMarketer explains that before cleaning your list, consider running a re-engagement campaign to win back inactive subscribers. This gives them a chance to stay on your list and improves overall engagement rates.
Email marketer from MailerLite Blog answers that maintaining email list hygiene before migrating to a new ESP ensures that you're only sending to engaged subscribers, which improves your overall email performance and reduces costs associated with sending to inactive contacts.
Email marketer from LinkedIn shares that list cleaning ensures that your email campaigns reach active subscribers, improving engagement and reducing bounce rates.
Email marketer from Reddit explains that cleaning your list removes invalid emails and reduces your bounce rate, which helps maintain a positive sender reputation and improves deliverability.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks shares that a legitimate list cleaning service might flag addresses as 'bad', potentially causing concern and reducing list quality. He suggests it's a tradeoff between a bad business decision and good vibes for the customer, noting that it's not harmful, but the customer should start with a small sample.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that you should regularly clean your email list, including removing hard bounces, unsubscribes, and inactive users, to maintain a good sender reputation and improve deliverability. You should also consider setting up a system that handles bounces, complaints and unsubscriptions automatically.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that since it's Confirmed Opt-In (COI) and bounce-managed regularly, the addresses are deliverable to real users who agreed to receive emails, without legitimate spam traps. He questions the perceived benefit of cleaning such a list.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that although there are costs associated with email validation, the cost of poor quality email addresses are higher in terms of deliverability, reputation damage and wasted effort.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from SparkPost explains that when migrating to a new ESP, it's crucial to warm up your IP address gradually. Start with your most engaged subscribers to build a positive sending reputation with mailbox providers.
Documentation from Microsoft responds to question about keeping marketing contact lists current and healthy, it is vital to maintain high data quality. Detecting and removing outdated, duplicated, or otherwise unusable contacts will improve deliverability, reporting, and sales and marketing alignment.
Documentation from AWS details that to protect your sender reputation and keep bounce and complaint rates low, you should only send email to recipients who have specifically requested to receive them. You should remove inactive recipients from your mailing lists.
Documentation from Google shares that following best practices for bulk email, including list cleaning, helps ensure that your messages reach the inbox. They advise removing inactive users and providing clear unsubscribe options.