List Healthcheck - How to tell how your lists are doing

Everyone sending email should be aware of the health of their lists. It's one of the most important things - something you should be aware of before you can dig into your open and click rates. Sometimes, though, those lists can age and you may not be aware of how active a list segment is. That's where the List Healthcheck comes into play.

If you don't care about the extra information, scroll down to find out exactly what the List Healthcheck does!

What is list hygiene?

List hygiene is ensuring that your lists are "clean" by making sure that your list is active and engaged, while removing subscribers that are no longer engaged with your messaging. This can come in the form of removing hardbounces (which Critical Impact does for you), only sending to subscribers who have opened or clicked recently (using our dynamic list feature), or removing subscribers who haven't interacted recently (using our Do Not Send Import tool). 

Why is list hygiene important?

Telling you to remove subscribers from your account to reach a wider audience may sound counter-intuitive, but I promise you, you will see results with this method! Think of every subscriber as an opportunity to get a review. Any subscriber who doesn't open or click your message results in a "negative review" in the eyes of ISPs. On the other hand, every subscriber you do get an open or click from is a "positive review". A spam complaint or unsubscribe from the subscriber is an even more powerful "negative review." So, it is in your best interest to remove subscribers who are not interacting with your content, even if it does mean sending to a smaller list. 

You don't have to completely remove those subscribers, though! You can put them on a "less engaged" list and send to them on a less frequent basis. Send to your active, engaged subscribers more frequently to boost your sender/domain reputation and then, over time, add in those additional subscribers (don't increase more than ~20% over your average daily sending volume or you may incur extra scrutiny from ISPs). This cautious, slow adding of subscribers will help increase your sending size as well as keep the majority of your list engaged.

What do I do if I'm not sure of my list quality?

Even worse: What do you do if you are seeing poor results from your list, such as high hard bounces or unsubscribes? First off, make sure you are sending to opted-in lists when possible. This will help show ISPs that your subscribers want to hear from you and follows best practices. If you haven't checked in on your list in a while, it's important to ensure that your list is "clean." That's where our partners at Email Industries come in. 

You can use our List Healthcheck tool to get a deliverability score. This will run a sample of your list - either 10k or 10%, whichever is larger, and provide a live scorecard to your list based on the subscribers likelihood to be deliverable and engaged with. 

Your list will then receive a threat assessment. You can look into this by following the provided links to upload your list(s) to Email Industries and receive specific information for individual subscribers. You can then decide what you would like to do with those susbcribers based on the information provided on a case-by-case basis or remove subscribers below a specific threat score (I suggest removing anything below a 7). If you need help exporting your lists, click here.