Space CRM / Blog
Email List Hygiene: Clean Your List and Protect Your Sender Reputation
Why list hygiene is the most underrated factor in deliverability — and a step-by-step process for cleaning your contact database.
The 4 types of harmful addresses
Hard bounces: remove immediately. Soft bounces: suppress after 3 consecutive. Spam traps: addresses maintained by blacklist operators to catch bulk senders. Complaints: suppress immediately.
Purchased lists contain all four in high concentrations. Never send without running through an email verification service first.
The list cleaning process
Run through an email verification tool before every major campaign. Remove invalid, disposable, and role-based addresses (info@, admin@).
Segment by last engagement date. Contacts with no opens in 90+ days should receive a re-engagement campaign before your next broadcast.
Running a re-engagement campaign
2-3 emails with a clear subject: 'Are we still a good fit?' or 'Last chance to stay on our list'. Make unsubscribing easy and obvious.
After the sequence, suppress all non-openers. Your list will be smaller but deliverability, open rates, and revenue per contact will all increase.
