How to clean your email list on autopilot

And why email list hygiene is super important for your email deliverability

NOTE: Some of the tools and resources mentioned in this article are affiliate links. That means when you click the link to create an account, start a free trial or make a purchase, it won’t cost you any more but I may receive a commission for introducing you. One thing I want to stress is that I would never recommend anything or anyone I haven’t successfully worked with myself or trust unconditionally.

If you’ve read my blog post all about the power of trigger links, then you’d already know that I use trigger links in my fully automated list clean workflow.

It means I don’t have to worry about manually scrubbing my list, and I am not paying for subscribers who don’t want to hear from me in the first place.

In this blog post, I’m exploring my fully automated list clean workflow so you can see how easy it easy to make email list cleaning best practices a part of your business processes.

But before we get into the nitty gritty, let’s start with the basics.

Why is cleaning your email list important?

Keeping a clean list not only minimises how much you pay each month to your email service provider (most charge per email subscriber), but you also increase your email deliverability rates.

Decent email open and click rates signal to the email gods that your emails are worth reading and should be delivered to the main tab of subscribers’ inboxes rather than the SPAM or promotions tab.

And with the recent DMARC changes, it’s even more important to remove ‘unsuitable’ subscribers from your list so they don’t end up marking you as SPAM, impacting your domain reputation in the long run.

Let’s unpack how I got started with automated list cleaning in my business:

In late 2023, I was a part of Lizzy Goddard‘s Christmas Party. And this AMAZING experience grew my list substantially.

(You can read all about my contribution strategy and the results right here.)

But with the exponential list growth of well-organised bundles comes a sizeable chunk of unengaged new subscribers who grab your resource, never to be seen again.

What I found after Lizzy’s Christmas Party was that while my unsubscribe rates were low, my open and click rates were deteriorating over time.

As a true strategist, I take a close look at my metrics every week. And that includes my email performance.

So a few weeks ago, I decided it was time to give my list an autumn clean 🍂 (I’m in the Southern Hemisphere).

Not someone to do things manually, I set up an automation in my Drip account (my preferred email marketing tool, but the likes of Kit and as of July 2024 even Flodesk can help with this automation too) that would manage a strategic list clean and re-engagement automation without having to lift a finger.

And that’s seen 818 subscribers wiped from my list since launching this automated list clean flow (as I publish this blog post).

Lets unpack this graph below:
On the left, you can see the substantial list growth during Lizzy’s Christmas Party, a gradual decline once the redemption period closed (which I was totally expecting) and the clear go-live date of my automated list clean process on the right with a sizeable dip in subscriber numbers.

If you wonder what impact this has had on my metrics and bottom line…

…let’s discuss:

👉 My open rates and click rates have gone up back to where they were in my pre-Christmas Party days
👉 My bottom line hasn’t been impacted because these people never opened my emails in the first place

What that makes me?
A very happy marketer.

Now for the actionable parts:

How often should you clean your email list?

How often you clean your list depends on how hands-on or hands-off you want to be.

If you go down the manual path, I suggest a list scrub every 3 months so it fits into your business processes without overwhelming you. Plus, you actually have to remember doing it!

My preferred method to keep my list clean is to automate the process.

My email service provider Drip enables me to set certain parameters that trigger an email workflow to clean my email list on autopilot.

And that means I always have the RIGHT people on my list… those who want to hear from me, those who open my emails, and those who buy from me!

How do you clean your list on autopilot?

Everything starts with the parameters you set to trigger an automated re-engagement workflow before automatically unsubscribing subscribers from your email list.

(In Drip, you use Saved Segments as a trigger for the automated List Clean workflow.)

These parameters can be set by you and can take into consideration:

✨ Whether they are paying customers, non-paying customers or non-customers

✨ How many of the last emails they’ve opened or clicked

✨ How long they’ve been on your email list

✨ How much they’ve spent with you

✨ Whether they are part of a certain segment or have certain tags

What’s a strategic List Clean Flow example?

That again depends on your preferences.

Personally, I rely on a 3-email List Clean Flow intended to re-engage subscribers and keep them on my list (if they’re up for it, of course!).

These emails are very strategic and designed to get subscribers to open and click.

Of course, the subscribers I am targeting with this List Clean Flow haven’t opened any of my emails for quite some time, so the chances that they’ll change their behaviour are slim.

But since launching this flow, I have seen some success via my re-engagement emails with a number of ‘cold’ subscribers consciously choosing to stay on my list.

And those who didn’t ‘bite’ were never the right people for my brand in the first place.

Let’s finish with my List Cleaning 101:

👉 Determine the factors that make someone ‘unfit’ to be on your list (because you have to be consistent)

👉 Be ruthless and leave your emotions aside (because it hurts when you wipe hundreds of subscribers from your list)

If you go down the manual list clean route (some email providers don’t have the capability to automate things, unfortunately), then I recommend:

👉 Setting yourself a reminder to clean your list at least every 3 months

👉 Setting up a strategic List Clean or Re-Engagement Email Flow so you can easily add subscribers to it whenever you’re ready

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If you want to automate your list clean processes (the way to go!), then I recommend:

👉 Setting up your List Clean trigger parameters right now

👉 Building your automated workflow that is triggered whenever someone matches the trigger parameters

👉 Being proud of yourself because you know that you’ve just given your email deliverability the best chance at success!

Want to swipe my super strategic & automated List Clean Flow?

Including a breakdown of my List Clean Flow and ready-to-swipe Email Templates.

Then you need this amazing resource 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽