The quality of your leads is, by far, the most crucial factor in getting your emails into inboxes. Purchased lists are a no-no. Firstly, they are usually low-quality leads – stale and outdated, not well validated and, by definition, not actively interested in your message. This is a recipe for high bounce rates, spam filter rejections and spam complaints. Bad news for your sending reputation and inbox placement. Which boils down to a severe reduction in deliverability. And, even if your email gets through, the effect? You have no relationship with these recipients and they have expressed no active interest in your business.
Oh, and then there’s spam traps.
These are innocent enough looking email addresses – they’re valid and they seem like legitimate contacts at legitimate businesses. And they might’ve been once. Whether purely fictitious or a previously-but-now-disused address – spam traps are honeypots deployed by ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to lure spammers into giving themselves away.
Purchased lists not only make for a poor investment, they fall foul of modern Data Protection legislation. With email marketing GDPR basically boils down to:
Don’t collect or send campaigns to anyone’s data without their permission.
When you collect data you must clearly ask for permission to send emails. When gathering leads online it’s best practice to use double opt-in. Here the visitor to your site enters their email address and this sends a confirmation email with a verification link. You know the type of thing. The benefits of this are threefold:
- Leads clearly express an interest in receiving your emails
- Leads have validated their email addresses for you
- Your process is GDPR compliant
Essentially, double opt-in provides the highest quality leads. And this is borne out by the data. A 2021 Mailchimp study showed deliverability improved by almost 25% and a 2019 study by Campaign Monitor showed unsubscribe rates fell by up to 50%.
The most effective strategy to support email marketing is to grow your audience organically through your day-to-day business. Website visitors, current and past customers, industry contacts, tradeshow visitors and conference delegates… Even then, the quality of any leads will naturally deteriorate over time – people move jobs, businesses merge, change name or fail.
It’s why sendee automatically takes care of regular scheduled scrubbing so you’re getting the highest levels of deliverability.
