Does anybody go to this level of list-scrubbing?

Apathy

I suppose I always hold out hope that they will one day open my message and a solution to their problem will only be a click away. I know I have some dead weight on my list, but I don't think I'm paying that much more for it in terms of increased auto-responder fees. It would just take one sale to more than compensate for that. Maybe if I had a huge list I'd feel differently.

Steve

Hi,
I also read that article but didn't agree with it. Sometimes it takes many touches to complete a sale. And if these are prospects who have raised their hand, then they're interested - perhaps not just right now. So instead of throwing them away, keep communicating until they're ready. I've had many sales from people who first contacted me three or more years earlier.

It's kind of how agencies like to win awards rather than track sales. This guy just wanted a higher response to brag about. C'mon, email is cheap. If he's after better response rates, why not just email to the top 10 customers - probably even get higher response.

Interesting subject.

I scrub my lists of non-clickers every 30 days.

The reason is that most opt-ins use yahoo.com, hotmail.com, aol.com and gmail.com email addresses. All of those providers actively try to catch spam so their users don't see it. Have you ever wonders how they do that?

Some have "this is spam" buttons. It is pretty easy to apply that to their other users for emails with the same subject line coming from the same email address. But that isn't very reliable. Some people click "this is spam" instead of finding the unsubscribe button. Most people just delete spam without opening it.

So the better algorithms keep track of what their users do with incoming email from certain sources. If you see 50% of your users deleting all email from a particular source without opening it, then you can probably assume that the other 50% will also appreciate it if you move those items to their spam folder.

A lot of users will use throw-away email addresses on those services to opt-in. After a couple of months, they abandon those boxes and move to another email address. Those users are even more valuable for spam detection by those services. Someone sending to an abandoned email box for months is probably not a friend, family or desired business associate. Those services can use that data to score senders for how likely they are to be sending wanted email.

We have a very particular definition for spam as Internet marketers. Spam is unsolicited email. If someone opts in, then it is not spam. That is our definition and while it may be accurate, it completely misses the boat.

Our readers often have a very different perception of what is or isn't spam. They don't care about definitions. In their view, email is either wanted or not wanted. That is why so many people click the "this is spam" button when they actually opted in to the list. They are just saying "I don't want this" and don't care about the actual definition of spam.

Email service providers recognize this perception. Their customers are more satisfied with their service when they perceive that the spam filters work very well. I can't count the number of times that I have heard people say that they love gmail because they NEVER see any spam.

But spam means "unwanted email" to those people, not "unsolicited email" as it does to us. Those email providers recognize that their customer's definition of spam is what counts toward their success. So they use metrics that indicate how pleased a customer is with receiving emails from a particular source or with a particular subject line or on a particular day.

So let's look at the numbers with and without scrubbing and see why you might want to scrub your list monthly of non-clickers:

Scenario A: You don't scrub. You have been building a list of what is now 12,000 for a year.

You send 12,000 out.

6,000 go to dead email boxes and are never read.

3,000 go to live email boxes, but the readers always just delete your email without opeing it.

1,500 open your emails, but are never interested it what you have to offer so they never click.

1,500 are interested and click at least once a month.

Your score with that email provider shows that there is an 88% chance of something you send being considered as unwanted email by the average user of that email service.

That is the probability you will end up in the spam folder. So the real numbers for those last two are only 12% of what is stated above. You didn't actually get 1,500 clicks, because only 12% even saw your email. The other 88% of your emails ended up in spam folders because you don't scrub your list of non-clickers!

You received 180 readers and maybe 50% clicked resulting in 90 clicks to your offer.

Now let's look at scrubbing your list monthly.

Scenario B: You scrub all non-clickers from your list monthly. You have been building a list of what would otherwise be 12,000 for the year, but since you aggressively scrub your list, it really only has 1,500 active subscribers on it currently.

You send 1,500 out.

Almost zero go to dead email boxes because you scrub monthly.

Almost zero go to live email boxes where the readers just delete your email without opening it because you scrubbed them off monthly.

Almost zero open your emails, but are never interested it what you have to offer and therefore never click. This is because you scrubbed them off your list monthly.

1,500 are interested and click at least once a month.

Now the email service providers see that almost all emails from you go to active email boxes and the owners of those email boxes almost always open your emails and often click on a link in those emails.

Your stats all look like you are a good friend, a close family member or a valued business contact. Your chances of having your emails sent to the spam folder are almost 0%.

All 1,500 receive your email to their real inbox and not a spam folder. All 1,500 open and click on a link in at least one email you send every month.

In scenario b, you had 1,500 readers and if 50% clicked, you received 750 clicks to your offer.

Scenario a received only 90 clicks. Scrubbing monthly received 750 clicks.

It's all about the bottom line. Scrubbing monthly improves deliverability by a huge margin.

Speaking purely for myself (and I'm on a lot of lists), there are sometimes I'll get messages and even though they look appealing, I'll just click delete. Then the next day (or week) I'll get another, and yet another. At this point I have two choices, either remove myself from the list, or take a look at one of the emails. Depending on the sender, I've done both.

So in my case one list owner may have deleted me based on being non-responsive, but had they kept for an extra week or so, I might have opened, click and bought.