Building and maintaining a quality email list will maximize the success of your marketing efforts. A quality email list starts with ensuring permission has been obtained from all subscribers. Use these requirements below as a guide when importing your lists.

Import Requirements

Explicit Permission

Everyone on your marketing list opted-in to receive email communication from your business. The following lead sources are prohibited:

• purchased or rented lists
• joint venture/ affiliate lists
• lists from chamber of commerce
• membership/organization lists
• business partner's list

*When importing contacts, if you select 'No' to the question: "Do you have permission to send marketing emails to these contacts?" the list will be imported with the status: nonmarketable. This is useful, for example, if customers have purchased products and you still need to manage their account, but they will not be sent any email marketing.

Set and Meet Expectations

In addition to obtaining permission from your contacts, it's important to set and meet expectations about content and frequency. For example, if your lead magnet says "Sign up for a free e-book," they will not be expecting to receive a weekly newsletters which can put you at risk for complaints. Transparency is key!

Active and Engaged

When importing, make sure to remove old leads that haven't engaged with your marketing recently. Old/ unengaged lists can put you at risk for spam traps, spam complaints, and hitting blacklists. Going forward, keep your list actively engaged and perform regular list hygiene to remove inactive contacts.

Segmentation

As you create or migrate your list, it’s important to remember not all contacts on your list should be treated the same. Are there contacts on your list that are unengaged, previously unsubscribed or hard bounced? Make sure you can distinguish between these types of contacts by exporting not only their email address, but also their current email status. What about subscribers that are interested in a monthly newsletter vs. a customer who's only interested in quarterly product updates? Add relevant tags to specific groups to ensure you're targeting the right segment!

Preventing Risks

Once you import a clean list, keep it healthy by following all best email marketing practices, including performing list hygiene (instructions here and here!) on a regular basis depending on your sending frequency.  This will help to prevent spam complaints, hitting spam traps, and landing on a blacklist.  For more information, check out our other Help articles on Email Deliverability.