Email hygiene is like spring cleaning for your list of digital contacts. It’s not just about removing outdated contacts and ensuring that those who do still engage with you are doing so regularly; it’s also about keeping your deliverability in good standing with email service providers.

One of the most sanitized email address lists and significant reasons why your email campaigns might be failing to reach their intended audience is due to a dirty, invalid or unengaged list. Not only does this reflect badly on your business, but it can also cause subscribers to mark you as spam. The consequence is that your future emails will be sent to spam folders instead of inboxes, which will damage your sender reputation and lead to reduced delivery rates over time.

Verify If an Email Address Is Real: Techniques and Tools

This is why it’s essential to sanitize your email address list on a regular basis and make it a priority for your marketing team. There are many tools available to help you sanitize an email database. These tools can check for typos, nonexistent or abandoned email addresses, duplicates and more. Many of these tools also offer bulk management capabilities to reduce the amount of time you spend on manually managing your list.

It’s a good idea to sanitize your list as soon as you start collecting email addresses, especially if you use double opt-in practices to ensure that you have clear and valid consent from your subscribers. If you don’t, bounce rates can quickly mount up and you could find yourself on the wrong side of email provider rules that risk having your future emails sent straight to spam folders.