5 Kinds of Email Addresses to be Removed from B2B Email Lists

What is the most scary thing about an email list to you? Perhaps you know it by now. The depreciation of the validity of email addresses in a b2b email list with passing time is a matter of concern to marketers than anything else. Business prospects and customers are who help to enhance your business possibilities and revenue you draw in from new business acquisitions is what matters at the end of every marketing program.

Kinds of Email Addresses to be Removed from B2B Email Lists

Emails being the best marketing platform allowing in-person b2b communication, need the help of up-to-date and opted-in business email addresses. So, have you been able to identify the types of email addresses that you should remove from your business email lists? If you have not yet, let us help you run through 5 most prominent types that you should get rid of as soon as possible:

  • Duplicate Entries

These are entries that will strike you in the very first step of the email data verification process. Having said that, please monitor whether your CRM deduplicates every subscriber list. De-duplicating an email list is useful since email addresses are the most unique contact data.

During this process, it is necessary that you check whether every email address is highly responsive and 100% permission-based. Even unsubscribes should be scrubbed off from your email list as per the Can-Spam Act. And, if you want to fresh buy b2b email lists from an b2b email data provider, make sure the provider has the right measures to prove that the lists can be put to immediate marketing use.

  • Non Opted-in email addresses

Possibilities of a few contacts not willing to opt-in to your email newsletters are always there. To keep such contacts in your business email marketing list is not something we encourage marketers to do.

The reason being purchased lists may have email addresses that are outdated or that the contacts may not want to use to receive marketing emails. In such cases, your emails to them may straight reach the spam folder or in the worst scenario your IP address may get blocked by your ISP and the server, resulting in zero deliverables.

So, in order to improve your sender reputation, email deliverability rate and CTORs, it is important that you remove email addresses that have not opted-in for emails from you.

  • Generic email addresses

You may have come across generic email addresses and you may also have used alisa email addresses to send emails to customers and buyers for feedback on a particular purchase, for tracking an order, and for introducing new discounted sale.

For instance, an email address such as donotreply@abcz.com or info@helpdesk.com can be considered as a generic one. If you have such email addresses, then be sure your marketing emails will not reach the right recipient and will definitely not yield the result as expected.

These are not opted-in email addresses, so better remove them before you end up spending your time and money on campaigns rolled out to such addresses. Your emails deserve to end up in the correct inbox of the target audience and not otherwise.

  • Email Addresses that bounce back mails

Your most reliable email marketing automation software may be the most dependable autoresponder tool for you, however, you need to be cautious of both hard bounces and soft bounces. Sometimes, hard bounces may be because the email addresses are invalid or it may be a blocked email address.

Whatever be the reason, make sure this kind of permanent bounce backs should not affect your email list. It is recommended that such email addresses be scrubbed off your b2b email address list as soon as possible. Temporary bounce backs or soft bounces may be because the server and e-mail boxes may be jammed with other emails coming in and vise-versa.

Nevertheless, keep a track on the number of soft bounces. If this is something that continues to happen, then delete such email addresses from your b2b email database.

  • Inactive or Disengaged Email Subscribers

According to A/B testing, you can keep a track on the email metrics such as the email open rate and click-through activity of an email recipient. If analytics say that some subscribers have stopped opening or clicking through your business emails, then do not scrub their email addresses from your email list immediately, instead check their past activity record and see when they clicked through your past emails and which particular emails they opened.

This will give you an idea on which subscriber list these email addresses should be sorted under. Then arrange for a re-engagement campaign and send them emails with opt-in settings, inquiring them for their feedback. While a few may opt-in for future emails, others may not. You can go ahead and delete the ones that do not opt-in for your tailored emails.

Your emails should be catered to your prospects’ interests and needs, without doubt, but remember email list cleansing is important as being marked as spam may harm your sender reputation. The best way to get rid of wrong email addresses is email appending. Play by the game to get your results right!

  • Older Email Addresses

Older the email address, more may be the propensity to abandon it. As there are chances that email test may result in email bounce back. There may be a possibility that the email recipient may have changed his or her email service provider or may have lost interest in your product or service, and may not just want to opt-in for receiving any further emails from you.

Once you are done validating your b2b email marketing lists, segment it on the basis of time of subscription. You also need to check the CTORs, unsubscribe rates or churn rates, and bounce rates of older lists and compare the data with that of your new lists. The old contacts who are as active as your new contacts should not be removed from your b2b email address lists.

Importance of cleaning B2B email lists

  • Email Deliverability Rates and Open rates

B2B email lists that are not updated and accurate affect the impact of your marketing campaigns. Cleaning the B2B email list is one of the crucial aspects to be taken care of before using the email lists for any campaigns.

When you keep sending emails to uninterested recipients, the deliverability rates and open rates will obviously decrease. When you remove email lists that are inactive and disengaged, the email reaches relevant recipients resulting in increased deliverability rates and email open rates.

  • Proved Engagement Metrics

If your email reaches the right recipient who is interested in your business/product/services, the potential customer is more likely to open the email, engage, and convert.

Engagement metrics cannot be accurate with old and outdated email lists. If the B2B email list is not cleaned, you cannot draw a fair conclusion about engagement and these inaccurate engagement metrics will mislead the other marketing strategies and decisions.

  • Accurate Insights for Making Data-driven Decisions

Optimizing marketing strategies largely depends on the impact and insights of previous marketing campaigns. The presence of outdated and inaccurate email addresses in the b2b email list adversely affects the results of the campaign and marketers cannot fetch accurate insights.

if your marketing decisions are highly data-driven and all the marketing decisions are taken by analyzing and comparing the insights of previous campaigns, then it is inevitable for businesses to regularly clean their B2B email lists.

  • Increased Brand Reputation

It is crucial for businesses to prevent negative customer experience. Sending emails to inactive or disinterested recipients can lead to a negative customer experience.

Also, present-day customers are aware of how their data I being used or misused. Recipients can blacklist or there are chances that your email service provider can block your domain and IP address.

Hence, it is crucial for businesses to update their B2B email list regularly, remove inactive and disinterested recipients, and provide open opt-out choices. This helps in building a positive brand experience and increases customer satisfaction.

Bid goodbye to any part of an email marketing strategy (Also read: 7 Proven Ways to Improve B2B Email Marketing Strategy) that blocks your leads and conversions. Email Data Group’s email database management services help to elevate the quality of your business email database. Get a Quote today!

Conclusion

Cleaning your b2b email list is essential to maintain a healthy, effective, and result-driven marketing strategy. A healthy, updated, and clean B2B email list reduces cost, increases engagement rates & open rates, ensures your marketing strategies comply with privacy regulations, builds brand trust, and improves overall business outcomes.

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Amy John is a marketing executive with over 12 years of experience in the execution of marketing and lead generation strategies.