In order to have a successful email marketing campaign you’re going to have a long list of email addresses. These addresses serve as contacts for your campaign. However, there are some contacts that are considered bad ones. The success of your campaign depends on your ability to filter them and keep a clean list. We are going to discuss the types of email addresses to avoid and keep an eye out for in your next email marketing campaign.
From fake addresses to defunct ones, there are a lot of reasons to consider an address a bad one. To prevent bounces and wasted effort you can follow our brief guide on which email addresses to avoid and why. Remember, just because an email address isn’t fake or defunct doesn’t mean that is right for your email marketing campaign.
You can use an email list cleaning service to get rid of any address causing you problems. After you do that, you have to make sure that all the remaining addresses are proper ones. This might seem like the case at first glance, but let’s take a closer look.
The 5 types of email addresses to avoid in your email marketing list are:
Now that you know the 5 types, let’s take a closer look at each one individually.
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This type is also known as the “accept-all servers”, they are created to accept every and all email delivered to that server. This is regardless of the existence of the actual mailbox. This server accepts emails without asking if the mailbox exists or not.
The problem with an address like this, as you might have guessed, is that they’re usually not run by a real person. Of course, all the effort you put into a client will be wasted sending emails to an address such as this.
One way to protect yourself from these addresses is to use a double opt-in method. Sure, is more work, but the end result is better than having an email list filled with bad addresses. Make sure to send email to actual people and stay clear from any catch-all server address.
A role account is simply an address designed to be used for a single purpose. Usually this is keeping up the communication in a department, so they’re assigned to the whole department. They do have some generic layouts that usually give away their purpose and nature. Something like "[email protected]" or maybe even “[email protected]” .
In any case while they do have real people behind them, it is usually not a single person. If you’re running an email marketing campaign then it is not in your best interest to send email to an address like this one. Since while some people might like your content, other could hate it and label it as spam. This, as you know so far, is very bad for your reputation so make sure this is one of the types of email addresses to avoid.
Another downside is that most people that handle these addresses do not have real decision power in the company. You might be sending really good deals and offers to people that can’t do anything about them. It would be better to save your effort for real potential customers and clients. With this said role accounts have some of the lowest opening rates and really high bounce rates.
It’s not so easy to get rid of these addresses. Some might be the only way you have to contact a potential client. However, given the statistics for their opening rates and the fact that they do have a high bounce rate. You might have to keep an eye for the results yielded by having these addresses in your emailing list. If they do exhibit bad behavior, then get rid of them at once.
While most of use own a free email address from Yahoo, Outlook or Gmail. Some of them might not be so good for your email marketing campaign due to their very nature. This might come as a surprise to you; however, we will get further into this.
Free email addresses are not only popular but a good and secure option (depending on the service) to get your email. They offer great leads for your email marketing campaign and given they are a good way to contact potential clients. While ideally every single free address will belong to a single person, this is hardly the case.
A free address is an accessible one. This means they have the potential to be used for spam. Having too many free email addresses in your emailing list could potentially cause you to send email that will never be opened. If your email marketing campaign focuses on businesses or industries, then it’s a good idea to ask for a more reliable email address.
Take into consideration that while some do, most small companies don’t have their own email server. A good way to ensure a cleaner list is to use a double opt-in method to verify interested subscribers. Also, do keep an eye on your statistics and opening rates.
These addresses represent the highest risk for your email marketing campaign. Also known as “honeypots”, they are designed to lure spammers and take action about them. While these are real mailboxes with an active and valid server, most of them are designed for automatization and avoid detection.
Keep in mind that as their name says a “spam trap” will receive only spam. So, if you happen have one of these, or a few, in your mailing list you have a very good chance to damage your reputation. Since most of these don’t even return bounces, they are hard to filter out early on. You can use the double opt-in method to lessen the results of having them in your list. Alternatively you can use a service like VerifyBee.com to verify every address in your list.
Make sure to keep a clean list using VerifyBee.com and ensure good results from your email marketing campaign.
This is a basic one, don’t keep addresses that are not engaged with your content. Having to send email that are never opened, or that will never yield results, is a waste of effort. The spot taken by that address in the mailing list could be taken by an interested subscriber.
In the long run, sending emails that are never opened will hurt the deliverability of your email marketing campaign. Truth be told, sometimes people just lose interest in the content and forget to unsubscribe to your list. No matter the reason, you’d be better off keep a proactive stance and periodically clean your list or send emails asking these addresses if they want to unsubscribe.
If you don’t like to give up on your subscribers then you might go the extra mile. Get information about what they might be interested in and add content for them, this entices them to re-engage with your campaign and brand. If this just doesn’t work, then you might want to simply remove them from your list.
In the end directing your information and effort into subscribers that do yield results could save your email marketing campaign. Remember every campaign has a goal, but most won’t be achieved with unengaged recipients in your mailing list.
An email marketing campaign is the best option to engage with your potential clients, a proper one at least. With so many factors dictating the market today the end result is nearly never clear. All that you can do is to manage the best that you can, rely on the best service to clean your email list and follow the best advice available.
Good results follow good managing and part of this is to avoid known mistakes. Here, we have introduced to you reasons why most of these addresses are a potential problem to your campaign. Your email marketing campaign meets the best results when the managing takes the best decisions.
For any extra help that you might need there are services like VerifyBee.com that will ensure a clean mailing list. This service verifies every email in your list and filters out the known problem addresses mentioned here.
While a good deal of things can affect you email marketing campaign, the most critical one comes from the list. Ensuring to stay away from a list filled with addresses like the ones mentioned here, is a good way to have better end results. Stay on top of your campaign and reap the best results in email marketing.
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