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RE:markable is the weekly email about emails. Dropping the latest email marketing news, updates, insights, free resources, upcoming masterclasses, webinars, and of course, a little inbox mischief.
Let’s start with a fact: cleaning your email list is not what you think.
We’re setting the record straight!
Cleaning your list doesn’t mean logging into your platform once a year and binning whoever hasn’t opened an email like some kind of Spring clean, ‘delete the rubbish’ day.
(It’s also not mass unsubscribing and hoping for the best.)
Real list cleaning is a systematic, strategic, and continuous process. It should be tailored to your business, email sending habits, customer lifecycle, and data.
Why? Because the way I clean my list is not the way that you should clean yours!
List cleaning (aka, list hygiene) isn’t just about deliverability, even if that is a big reason why we do it. It’s also about keeping your audience relevant, engaged, and protected from irrelevance.
Let’s get into it!
What is a clean email list strategy, and why do you need one?
At its core, email list cleaning means identifying who shouldn’t be receiving your emails anymore — and acting accordingly.
Having a solid clean email list strategy means you can improve:
- Deliverability: fewer bounces = more inboxes reached
- Reputation: spam filters love clean lists
- Performance: more clicks means more conversions
- User experience: fewer annoyed subscribers = fewer complaints
It also helps you avoid sending to:
- Expired or invalid emails (hello, B2B churn)
- Spam traps (which can destroy your deliverability)
- Disengaged subscribers who no longer care
Put simply, the cleaner your list, the better your email performance. Period.
First: change your mindset
There’s a common mindset amongst marketers that holds them all back:
“The more emails we have, the more people we reach, the more we sell.”
Nope.
Big lists ≠ big results.
In fact, if your email list is more bloated than a family after a Christmas dinner and the Quality Street tin being passed around, it usually means that the list is full of disengaged, risky, or irrelevant contacts that actively damage your email performance.
Keep in mind that email addresses decay.
- In B2B: people change jobs, emails go dead
- In B2C: users abandon old inboxes or ignore your brand
- Across both: engagement expires, even if the address doesn’t
The only sustainable approach is quality over quantity (unless we’re talking about a high quantity of Quality Street).
Forget cookie-cutter frameworks
You might be tempted to Google “how to clean your list” and follow a generic rule like:
“Remove anyone who hasn’t opened in 30 days!”
That’s reckless and it’s also poor practice when you keep in mind that one size does not fit all when it comes to cleaning your email list.
You need to develop your own criteria based on:
- How often you send
- The lifecycle of your subscribers
- What engagement means in your funnel
How to define email engagement your way
One of the most powerful (and useful) pieces of work you can do is build your own engagement matrix, breaking down your audience as follows.
- Highly engaged
- Engaged
- Occasionally engaged
- At risk
- Disengaged
Then, define what those mean for each core segment of your list. For example:
Highly engaged:
- Clicked a marketing email in the last 30 days
- Visited your website or downloaded content
- Possibly made an enquiry or purchase
Disengaged:
- No email interaction in the last 12 months
- No site visits
- No purchases or downloads in the same period
Before you go rushing to use this example (we’re watching you!), keep in mind that these thresholds need to be backed with your own data.
If you only send one email a month, your disengagement window will be completely different from a brand sending 15.
Your engagement definitions should be based not just on opens and clicks, but also on real outcomes:
- Content downloads
- Conversion paths
- Purchase history
- Web activity
Who can you remove immediately?
Alexa, play Bye Bye Bye by NSYNC!
But in all seriousness, you should keep an eye out for these non-negotiables to know when to remove someone from your email list immediately.
1. Hard bounces
A hard bounce is a permanent failure to deliver, which means this email address is dead (not to sound too dramatic).
If they’re just a subscriber, it’s time to remove them.
If they’re a customer, route to service — they may need to update their email or add your domain to safe senders.
2. Spam traps
Spam traps are the catfishes of the email list world because they’re an email address that was never real, or is a recycled dormant inbox used to catch senders ignoring list hygiene.
If you’re emailing one, your sender reputation is at risk, so bin them immediately!
3. Email aliases
Think of inboxes like:
- info@yourcompany.com
- sales@
- admin@
They’re rarely monitored and never good for engagement, which means it’s safe to remove them from most email flows.
Remember, prevention is better than a cure
Instead of being stuck on cleaning duty, you can validate emails before they enter your list.
There are plenty of tools available to make this easier, like:
These tools can help you to:
- Identify typos or misspellings
- Flag risky addresses or bounces
- Help prevent spam traps and invalid leads from ever hitting your CRM
What to do with at-risk or disengaged subscribers
If someone is floating away in your email list, you don’t need to delete them (yet) — it might be time to send out a lifeboat.
That means building an exclusion and reactivation strategy.
- Exclude them from your main marketing campaigns (you can read more about this in our exclusion strategies blog)
- Drop them into a reactivation flow
Re-engagement tip:
Don’t send the same BAU (business as usual) emails.
You want to use pattern interrupt emails that stand out and offer value fast, or something unexpected to snap them out of their disengagement.
But, let’s be honest: many disengaged users are nearly unreachable. There’s a good chance that they are ignoring you, or you’re already going to spam.
You need to track:
- How long it takes for your subscribers to become disengaged
- What you can do to extend their “engagement window”
The goal isn’t always conversion, it’s warmth. Your subscribers aren’t robots and neither are you!
If they’re not buying yet, you still want them opening, clicking, and thinking about your brand.
What a clean list looks like
It looks like peace of mind, sunny days, and endless wealth…
Okay, not quite.
But a clean email list is full of:
- Real people
- Relevant subscribers
- Engaged users
- Good data
It’s not about having a huge audience - quality over quantity, remember - it’s about having an audience that’s active, engaged, and in your corner.
When you put the effort in to have a proactive approach to email list hygiene, your deliverability soars, inbox placement improves, and your campaigns actually perform.
Recap & final tips
Need help cleaning your email list?
If you need help auditing or cleaning your email list, we’re here to help!
We offer tailored deliverability audits, re-engagement planning, and segmentation workshops.
You can book a consultation with Beth here!
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RE:markable is the weekly email about emails. Dropping the latest email marketing news, updates, insights, free resources, upcoming masterclasses, webinars, and of course, a little inbox mischief.