Best Practices for a Clean and Compliant Email List

1. Keep One Master List Instead of creating multiple email lists, use one main list and organize contacts with tags and segments (e.g., “Newsletter Subscribers” or “Family Law Clients”). This prevents duplicate emails and confusion.

2. Avoid Duplicates Mailchimp automatically prevents duplicate emails in one list. Keeping all contacts in a single list also prevents extra costs and spam complaints from people getting the same email multiple times.

3. Regularly Clean Your List

  • Remove inactive contacts (people who haven’t engaged in 6-12 months).
  • Run re-engagement campaigns to check if inactive users still want to receive emails.
  • Archive or delete bounced and invalid emails.

How to Avoid Email Overload and Duplicates

Having too many lists or duplicate contacts can cause compliance issues and affect email performance. Here’s how to avoid this:

  • Check for Duplicates Before Uploading: Remove duplicates and verify email formats.
  • Use Tags Instead of Multiple Lists: Organize contacts with labels like “Event Attendee” or “Past Client” instead of separate lists.
  • Delete or Suppress Old Contacts: Prevents sending emails to people who no longer engage.

How to Keep Your Email List Engaged

A great email list isn’t just big, it’s active and engaged. Here’s how to keep it that way:

1. Identify Inactive Contacts People who haven’t opened or clicked an email in 6-12 months are likely inactive.

  • If you have implied consent, inactivity for 24 months means they should be removed (unless they give express consent).

2. Send Re-Engagement Emails Give inactive subscribers a reason to stay. Example subject line:

“We Miss You! Want to Keep Getting Our Emails?”

Include a clear action: “Click here to stay subscribed.”

3. Archive or Remove Unresponsive Contacts

  • Archive: Keeps them in your records but removes them from active emails.
  • Delete: Permanently removes them.
  • Suppress: Blocks them from being added again.

Tracking Your Email Success

To improve your email strategy, track these key metrics:

  • Open Rate: How many people open your emails.
  • Click Rate: How many clicks on links.
  • Bounce Rate: How many emails didn’t go through.
  • Unsubscribe Rate: How many opt out.
  • Spam Complaints: Signals if your emails are unwanted.

Use Mailchimp’s segmenting tools to group contacts based on engagement (e.g., “Opened Last 3 Emails” or “Inactive for 12 Months”).

Quarterly Email Maintenance Checklist

Every 3 months, review your email strategy:

  • Check Campaign Reports: Look at open rates and click rates.
  • Identify Inactive Contacts: Remove or re-engage them.
  • Backup Engagement Data: Keep a record for compliance.
  • Clean Bounced Emails: Archive invalid emails.
  • Update Consent Records: Track new subscribers and opt-outs.

Need help optimizing your email marketing? SMARTLI offers expert guidance and training. Reach out today!