Email Marketing Database Rationalisation

Rationalisation is the process of cleansing your email marketing list. However you acquire a list, whether you have collected the data yourself using your website's capture form, or you have bought or rented an email list there will naturally be some wastage over time and there will be some email marketing list members that never read your email regardless of how good it is. Not only should you manage your list carefully to avoid being blacklisted by major ISPs but you should rationalise the database regularly.

Managing a list not only requires the removal of those that wish to be removed from the list. If you buy or rent lists then you should ensure that you do not inadvertently add the same names when you acquire a new list. Some lists are populated from similar sources so names can appear on more than one list – if you add the same name a second time following instructions to remove that name then you still run the real risk of being labelled a spammer.

Rationalisation is more the cleaning of the list than the management of it. Emails that are regularly returned as undeliverable or those that bounce frequently can usually be assumed as being next to useless. Some ISPs and email providers may begin to flag your email address if you continue to send emails that are returned as undelivered. How often you rationalise your email marketing list will depend on how frequently you email the list but you should attempt to remove dead emails every two or three messages at the most for the best results.