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How to Revive a Stale Email List

Late last year, Comcast blocked the IPs of one of Pivotal Veracity’s clients, preventing them from being able to deliver any email. We contacted Comcast on behalf of the client to inquire why they were being blocked and learned that Comcast’s filter (Brightmail) reported a significant portion of this client’s mail as spam. We got Comcast to remove the block, but when the client mailed their entire house file again, they triggered Comcast’s filters again. Pivotal Veracity again had the block lifted but, as you can imagine, something had to be done.

The mailer’s first tactic was to only email subscribers with any post-signup activity such as clicks or purchases regardless of how long ago. Unfortunately, this also resulted in Comcast blocking the mail. The implication: Just because someone was engaged at one time, does not mean they are still engaged and, as many folks do, they used the “report spam” button to get off the list.

After having their last three campaigns blocked, the mailer, rather desperate now, decided to test emailing only to Comcast addresses that had made a purchase—a dramatic measure but one with dramatic results. This strategy has consistently yielded 100% inbox delivery. In the case of this mailer, their older, inactive users were complaining which caused all emails to be blocked by Comcast. Emailing “less” was the difference between $0 and generating a return on investment from their Comcast subscribers, which are a significant portion of their file.

This real-world example is further proof that marketers need to actively manage their email lists to prevent them from going stale. To help you, the eec Deliverability & Rendering Roundtable has written “How to Revive a Stale Email List,” a reportlet that lays out step-by-step how to salvage stale lists and actively prune lists before too many inactives build up. The reportlet, which is available in the eec’s Whitepaper Room, also discusses why you should avoid “soft touch” services. Does anyone else have any stale list horror stories?

—eec Deliverability & Rendering Roundtable chair Michelle Eichner of Pivotal Veracity

Posted on August 28, 2008 8:52 AM | Permalink

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Comments (3)

Nick Stamoulis:

Great article! Awesome topic - I've found that oftentimes what people may have been interested in years ago, may not be of interest these days so naturally they'd report it as spam! They may not even remember being ever subscribed.

Posted by Nick Stamoulis | August 30, 2008 12:30 AM

Posted on August 30, 2008 00:30

Adam:

Fantastic article there. I've got to admit our own campaign only work by regularly checking our e-mail opt in database, and it's something we advise all of our customers. But as Nick has pointed out Spam Folders are stopping alot of mail getting through so potential customers are missing out.

Posted by Adam | September 5, 2008 7:02 PM

Posted on September 5, 2008 19:02

Lindsay:

Great Article! You can't count on people that opted in to your emails a while ago to unsubscribe themselves...they just hit the Spam button.

Posted by Lindsay | September 9, 2008 2:39 PM

Posted on September 9, 2008 14:39

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the voices of email

The Email Experience Council's membership includes many of the brightest and most committed email marketing experts. We're pleased to have some of them share their insights here on these pages. Our blog contributors include:

Jordan Ayan is the chairman of Create-It!, a technology consulting organization, as well as the CEO of SubscriberMail, one of the leading email marketing companies. A two-time book author, a patent holder and a frequent speaker, Jordan has more than 20 years of experience in direct and database marketing. Read more.

Nicholas Einstein is director of strategic and analytic services at Datran Media. Specializing in email and CRM strategy, he helps some of America’s top brands leverage online channels to communicate more effectively with their customers and prospects.

Lisa Harmon is a principal at Smith-Harmon, a creative services consultancy dedicated to email marketing strategy and production. She works with marketers to increase clickthrough, maximize revenue, and infuse delight into their email creative. Lisa is also the blogger behind edm.smith-harmon.com, an ongoing commentary on the best (and worst!) in email marketing creative. Read more.

Chip House is ExactTarget's VP of marketing services, leading the teams responsible for client success. He was named to BtoB Magazine’s 2005 “Who’s Who in B-To-B,” for being a vocal proponent of legitimate commercial email and an active lobbyist regarding spam and privacy issues. Read more.

Marco Marini is the CEO of ClickMail Marketing (CMM) and an acknowledged expert in e-marketing with over a decade and half's-worth of experience in the field. Before taking over as CEO, he was CMM's VP of Marketing & Operations. Marini has also held key marketing positions with CyberSource, eHealthInsurance, DoveBid and IBM Canada.

Stephanie Miller is VP of strategic services for Return Path, the leading email performance company. She works with marketers to earn a higher ROI and response from their acquisition and retention email programs—developing content, contact and segmentation strategies, along with testing, measurement and production programs. Read more.

Erick Mott is communications director at email service provider Lyris. He has 20 years of experience from enterprise, SMB, agency and start-up marketing, communications and innovation roles at companies including Habeas, Nokia, MarkMonitor, GlobalFluency, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Philips Electronics and two of his own start-ups. Read more.

Jeanniey Mullen is the Email Experience Council's founder and the global EVP and CMO of global online publishing company Zinio. She is a thought leader and visionary in the email and digital marketing field. A columnist for ClickZ, she has published numerous papers and is a frequent speaker. Read more.

Kevin Senne is the Strategic Deliverability Director for Premiere Global Services. Kevin has been heavily involved in all facets of email marketing for more than a decade and he previously managed Email Operations for Travelocity.com. Kevin specializes in deliverability, strategy, and social media integratio and he focuses on helping marketers become permission-based one-to-one marketers. Read more.

Charles Stiles is the VP of worldwide business development at Goodmail Systems. In his role, Charles is focused on helping generate a better understanding of the email environment and potential solutions for a better consumer experience. He currently serves as the chairman for the Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group. Read more.

Jeremy Swift is director of client relations for email service provider BlueHornet. He helped form BlueHornet’s founding team in 2000 and has been responsible for client services and marketing strategy since the company’s inception. Jeremy is known for his ability to articulate technical information in ways that clearly resonate with today’s online marketer.

Kara Trivunovic currently serves as the senior director of strategic services for StrongMail Systems, where she is responsible for helping marketers optimize their email marketing programs for greater returns. Most recently Kara was founder and principal of The Email Advisor, a respected email marketing consultancy. Prior to launching The Email Advisor, Kara led strategic services for the email division of Premiere Global Services. Kara brings a unique perspective to the space having worked on the client, agency and provider side for 10 years.

Chris Wheeleris the director of deliverability at Bronto Software. He is leading the charge for ensuring both Bronto's customers and staff are well informed about email marketing practices and technology as well as being the face of Bronto deliverability externally. Previously, Chris created the internal deliverability program at Amazon.com alongside program managing the operations of the email team and was at an ESP leading a team of deliverability consultants. Besides being a frequent contributor on Deliverability.com, Chris is a part of many email industry forums, both business and technical. Read more.

Chad White is the research director at Smith-Harmon, an email marketing strategy and creative services agency. He is the founder of the Retail Email Blog, a blog dedicated to tracking the email marketing practices of the largest online retailers. Chad regularly writes major research reports on email marketing and is an Email Insider columnist for MediaPost. Read more.