Mailing List Management

Maintaining a bloated subscriber list filled with unengaged contacts can severely hinder your email marketing performance. Engagement trumps numbers any day. But why purge unengaged subscribers? 1. Enhanced deliverability:  → Email service providers monitor engagement metrics. → A high volume of unopened emails can flag your content as spam, reducing inbox placement. 2. Cost efficiency:  → Many email platforms charge based on subscriber count. → Removing inactive subscribers can lower costs, allowing you to allocate resources more effectively. 3. Accurate analytics:  → A refined list ensures that your open & click-through rates reflect genuine interest, providing clearer insights into campaign performance. Here are a few actionable steps: a. Identify inactivity:  → Define what constitutes an inactive subscriber for your business— e.g., no opens or clicks in the past 90 days. b. Re-engagement campaigns:  → Before removal, attempt to rekindle interest with targeted emails offering value or asking for feedback. c. Regular maintenance:  → Schedule periodic list clean-ups to ensure ongoing engagement & list health. By proactively managing your subscriber list, you: → Protect sender reputation → Enhance engagement → Ensure your messages reach those who truly value them How often do you audit your email list for engagement? Drop your strategies in the comments below.

Cold email outreach is often misunderstood as a numbers game - send more, get more. But the truth is, quality always beats quantity. Your success largely depends on the quality of your email list. A well-curated list means you’re reaching the right people with the right message, while a poorly managed list can lead to low engagement, high bounce rates, and damage to your sender reputation. Here’s a few key steps to refine your cold email lists for better results: 1️⃣ Segment your audience: start by dividing your list into segments based on criteria such as industry, job title, company size, or previous interactions with your brand. 2️⃣ Regularly clean your list: over time, email lists can become cluttered with inactive or invalid addresses. Regularly clean your list to remove bounced emails, unsubscribes, and unengaged contacts. This not only improves your deliverability rates but also ensures you’re focusing on prospects who are more likely to engage. 3️⃣ Use data enrichment tools: tools like Clearbit, ZoomInfo, or Hunter.io can help you enrich your email list by adding valuable data points such as the prospect’s role, company details, and social profiles. This extra information enables you to personalize your outreach even further. 4️⃣ Monitor engagement metrics: pay close attention to open rates, click-through rates, and responses. If certain segments of your list are underperforming, it may be time to re-evaluate those contacts. Use these insights to continuously refine your list and improve your targeting. 5️⃣ Leverage intent data: incorporate intent data into your list-building process. This data shows which companies are actively researching solutions like yours, allowing you to target prospects when they’re most interested. Tools like Bombora or 6sense can provide these insights. If you do something extra special to your email lists, share below 🤓 #Sales #ColdEmail #EmailMarketing #Outreach #SalesStrategy

Last week, I received a weird email from someone I've followed on Substack for over a year. Her newsletters are fun and quirky, and I always look forward to seeing them in my inbox. So, imagine my surprise when I received an email declaring that I haven't opened one of her newsletters in a while. My punishment? I was being automatically unsubscribed from her email list. Uh, OK. But I do read the emails. Every time one lands in my inbox. Sometimes I stop what I'm doing to read them because they're that entertaining. I was confused. I reached out to the person and told her so. Crickets. And now I no longer receive her newsletter because she automatically purged a regular reader based on heaven knows what criteria. Did whatever tool she's using to track engagement give her incorrect data? I'll never know. And she apparently didn't value me enough as a loyal follower to respond to my question about why she thought I was no longer opening and reading her stuff. I'm kinda salty about being purged from a list I was actively using. If you're a creator managing an email list, here's how to handle list hygiene without losing loyal readers: - Send a re-engagement email first. Before removing anyone, give them a chance to opt back in. If they don't respond to that, then removal is fair game. - Don't trust open rates blindly. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection and certain email clients can prevent opens from being recorded even when someone reads every word. Low open rates don't always mean disengagement. - Respond when someone reaches out. A confused subscriber contacting you directly is a sign of investment. Ignoring them doesn't just lose you a reader. It loses you someone who genuinely cared about your work. List hygiene is a legitimate practice, but a little humanity goes a long way.

I just tested an outreach campaign that hit a 34% bounce rate. Same offer. Same copy. Same targeting strategy that worked the month before. But deliverability tanked because half the list was outdated. The best cold email in the world doesn't matter if it never reaches the inbox. Poor data quality doesn't just hurt one campaign—it burns sender reputation and tanks future performance too. One agency learned this after three campaigns in a row hit spam folders. Their domain was flagged. Prospects weren't seeing anything. The problem wasn't the messaging—it was the data. Here's what fixed it: They started verifying every single email before hitting send. Used Skrapp.io to pull fresh B2B contacts from LinkedIn and auto-verify deliverability. No more guessing. No more hoping emails would land. The result? Bounce rate dropped to under 2%. Reply rates doubled. And sender score recovered in two weeks. Great outreach starts way before writing the first line. It starts with clean, verified data. If the list is broken, the campaign is already dead. How are teams keeping their contact lists clean right now?

Case Study. Must read. Fixing Gmail deliverability isn’t as simple as changing your IP or switching platforms. In one real case: A brand moved to a dedicated IP on their ESP’s advice, hoping it would fix domain reputation issues. Warm-up was done correctly. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC were all passing. But Gmail Postmaster reputation dropped to "bad" and stayed there Gmail inbox placement went to 0%. CTRs were around 0.2%, and nothing improved. The core issue wasn't technical. It was behavioral. Their student emails were opt-in. But corporate emails came from purchased ZoomInfo lists. Gmail picked up on this and punished the entire domain. Changing IPs just exposed the issue faster. Their suppression logic also made things worse: 1. Users were suppressed only after 10 sends with no clicks 2. That means 10 chances to hurt domain reputation 3. Engagement-based filtering is strict 4. If people don’t interact, Gmail assumes your content is unwanted Technical setup wasn't perfect either: 1. Their signup API lacked rate limits 2. Bots were likely abusing the form 3. This led to emails being sent to fake or unverified addresses More bad signals sent to Gmail A "0% spam complaint rate" looked good on paper, but it was misleading. If no one sees your email in the inbox, they can’t complain. That’s a sign your emails are already deep in spam. Should you ever change IPs? Yes, if recommended by an experienced deliverability expert because the IPs are burnt and beyond recovery anytime soon. But only after identifying and fixing the root cause. Changing IPs without fixing your behavior is just a temporary patch What can actually help? Along with all other best practices, 1. Stop mailing Gmail users for a while. 2. Start fresh with small, high-quality segments. 3. Promote your email content on your website or social media to drive awareness. Good deliverability doesn’t come from tools or IPs. It comes from permission, relevance, and engagement. I have seen a lot of marketers with no optin lists but with content relevance and positive engagement they are doing great. If Gmail doesn’t see real interest in your emails, nothing else will matter. Happy to chat if you're navigating a similar situation. #email #emailmarketing

Your email list isn’t a trophy. It’s a tool. Bigger isn’t always better. If no one’s opening your emails, what’s the point? A bloated list drags your entire campaign down. More spam complaints. Lower open rates. Emails getting buried before they’re even seen. Yet brands hold on. They fear cutting subscribers will hurt them. But the real damage comes from keeping dead weight. One client purged their list. Removed inactive subscribers. Cleaned out the ghosts. Their open rates jumped 15%. Deliverability improved. More real customers saw their emails. This isn’t about shrinking your audience. It’s about making sure the right people stay. Here’s what works. → Remove inactive subscribers regularly. → Segment by engagement levels. → Run re-engagement campaigns before saying goodbye. A smaller, healthier list drives more conversions. And that’s what actually matters. Stop hoarding. Start optimizing. ♻️ Repost if engagement > vanity metrics. ✚ Follow Oliver Allen for expert advice on authentic and transparent marketing strategies. I’m on a mission to set a new standard of honesty in marketing and help brands achieve clarity and results.

Your email marketing list has three types of people on it: Readers who never buy Buyers who never read And the 8% who do both Most brands optimize for the readers. They craft perfect subject lines, test send times, obsess over open rates. Meanwhile, the buyers are ignoring every email and just coming back when they need to reorder. Here's what nobody talks about: Your buyers don't need more emails. They need fewer, better timed ones. I pulled data from brand's ESP. Here's what we found: People who bought 3+ times had an average email open rate of 11%. People who bought once had an average email open rate of 34%. The best customers were ignoring most emails! So we split the list: Segment 1: High engagement, low purchase These people open everything but never buy. They're tire kickers. Entertainment seekers. Freebie hunters. Action: Moved them to a weekly digest instead of daily sends. One email, all the content. Stop burning domain reputation on people who aren't converting. Segment 2: Low engagement, high purchase These people buy every 40-60 days like clockwork. They ignore promotional emails. They don't care about your content. Action: Sent them exactly three emails between purchases: - Day 30: Refill reminder (just inventory check, no pitch) - Day 45: "You're probably running low" - Day 55: Reorder link, one-click Open rates stayed low (12%). Conversion rate on those three emails: 43%. Segment 3: High engagement, high purchase The golden 8%. They read AND buy. Action: These people got everything. New products first. Behind-the-scenes content. Early access. VIP treatment. The result after 90 days: Total email volume: Down 62% Revenue from email: Up 31% Unsubscribe rate: Down 55% The lesson: Stop treating your email list as ONE Your best customers don't want to hear from you more. They want to hear from you smarter. Figure out who's buying despite your emails, and get out of their way.

There's a hidden setting in Klaviyo that 90% of brands never touch... And it's costing them thousands in lost revenue every month. It's buried in your account settings under "Billing." Most brands are paying for dead email addresses they don't even know exist. Here's what I see when I audit accounts: → 15-20% of email lists are completely inactive → Fake emails from bots and spam signups → Typos like "gmial.com" instead of "gmail.com" → Role-based emails that never convert → Chronic bounces killing your sender reputation But here's the kicker: You're paying Klaviyo for every single one of these dead contacts. Every month. The brands I work with who generate $12M+ per month do this differently. They clean their lists methodically using tools like MillionVerify. Not just removing people who haven't opened emails. Real list cleaning means: Verifying email addresses are actually deliverable. Removing syntax errors and typos. Identifying and purging spam traps. Flagging risky domains that hurt deliverability. Once you clean your list properly, here's the hidden setting: Go to Account > Settings > Billing. Remove those verified bad contacts from your active subscriber count. Your cost per send drops immediately. Your deliverability improves. Your engagement rates go up. And you stop paying for contacts that were never going to buy anyway. I've seen brands cut their Klaviyo bill by 30% just by doing this properly. While simultaneously improving their email performance. Most brands think a bigger list equals more revenue. The smartest brands know a clean list beats a big list every time. When's the last time you actually cleaned your email list?

Your email list is dying. You just haven't noticed yet. 𝟴 𝘀𝘆𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗼𝗺𝘀 (𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝘅 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵): 𝟭/ 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝟮-𝟯% 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵 Symptom: Slow bleed you barely notice. Cause: Subject lines getting stale. Same patterns, same words. Fix: Test completely different angles. Questions vs statements. Specific vs curious. 𝟮/ 𝗨𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗱 Symptom: People actively leaving, not just ignoring. Cause: Content drifted from what they signed up for. Fix: Revisit your original promise. Are you still delivering it? 𝟯/ 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 Symptom: They open but don't act. Cause: Your CTAs aren't compelling. Or there's no reason to click. Fix: Deliver more value in-email. Make clicks feel necessary, not optional. 𝟰/ 𝗡𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝟯𝟬+ 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 Symptom: One-way broadcast, zero conversation. Cause: You're not asking questions. Or your tone feels corporate. Fix: End emails with a genuine question. Respond to every reply personally. 𝟱/ 𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗳𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱 Symptom: Same subscriber count for months. Cause: No new traffic sources. Lead magnet went stale. Fix: Refresh your opt-in offer. Promote it somewhere new. 𝟲/ 𝗦𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝟱𝟬 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 Symptom: Tiny engaged core, massive silent majority. Cause: You're writing for your fans, not your full list. Fix: Segment and re-engage the silent subscribers. Or remove them. 𝟳/ 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗺 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 Symptom: People marking you as spam instead of unsubscribing. Cause: Unsubscribe link is hidden or broken. Or you're emailing too often. Fix: Make unsubscribing easy. Reduce frequency for cold segments. 𝟴/ 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁 Symptom: Newsletter feels like a chore. Cause: You lost connection to why you started. Fix: Write about what actually excites you. Readers feel your energy. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻: Dying lists don't crash overnight. They decay slowly while you're not watching. Check your metrics monthly. Catch the symptoms early. Fix them before they compound. ♻️ Repost if your list needs a health check. ➕ Follow me, Louis Shulman, for more tactics to stay top of mind and beat the competition. 📧 Join our weekly marketing newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gYGzEeTb

Your sales emails might be failing before they’re even sent and it’s all because of your email list. Think about the numbers: - Email databases degrade at an average rate of 25.74% per year. - Lower deliverability means fewer opportunities to connect with prospects. - Every invalid email increases your bounce rate and damages your reputation. The result? Missed deals, wasted effort, and a sales funnel that underperforms. The solution? Invest in your list hygiene. Use a tool like ZeroBounce as a part of your toolkit, making sure that: - Verified emails land in inboxes, not spam folders. - You target real prospects, not abandoned inboxes. - Valid addresses drive better open and response rates. Email hygiene isn’t just about avoiding errors. It drives your ROI. Are you proactively managing your email list?