Checklist Before Importing Subscribers
Are you about to import subscribers? Review our recommendations before doing so to prevent deliverability issues, such as hard bounces and spam complaints, which could result in your sending being paused.
1. How old is your list?
Lists that are over six months old often contain email addresses that are not valid anymore because people change email addresses and these addresses will bounce. It’s not uncommon that an old list can have up to 10% invalid addresses.
If Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or any other receiving server notices this, they'll probably send you to junk and might block emails coming from your domain. If you go over the 10% limit for hard bounces when sending with the MailPoet Sending Service, sending will be paused for your whole account.
Highly recommended:
- To prevent hard bounces:
Reduce the chances of generating too many hard bounces by using cleaning services to help you get rid of some bad addresses before sending with MailPoet for the first time.
- To prevent spam complaints:
If it’s been a while since these subscribers subscribed to your mailing list, and you haven’t sent too many emails to them it’s likely they forgot about it and are no longer expecting emails from you, or they lost interest in your content. Ask your subscribers to reconfirm their subscription to your newsletter.
2. Consent review
Do you have your subscribers' permission to send them emails? If you didn't clearly tell people they'd join your mailing list or if you're not sure you have their permission to send them emails, you'll get spam complaints.
Highly recommended:
- If you're unsure about your subscribers' consent, ask your subscribers to join your list instead of emailing them with MailPoet for the first time.
Do not import!
- Purchased lists;
- Collected business cards lists;
- Personal address book list;
- Public addresses;
- Another department's list
Why?
Having your subscribers' permission to send emails to them is not just a good sending practice but a requirement to use the MailPoet Sending Service, as the MailPoet plugin allows users to send bulk and marketing emails. You can read more about consent here.
According to our Anti-Spam Policy page, if you’re sending unsolicited emails to your mailing list or prohibited content through our servers, MailPoet reserves the right to:
- Pause the sending for your account;
- Decline a full refund.
In more severe cases, where we don’t have the collaboration of the user to solve any deliverability or consent issues, we can terminate our services to such users without any refund option.
Required:
- Express consent is obtained when you explicitly ask your potential contacts for permission to send them an email when asking them to join your list, and they agree to it. Ask your subscribers to join your list using a different sending method instead of emailing them with MailPoet for the first time.
3. Migrating from another emailing solution
Are you switching from another emailing solution? Simply ensure that you don't import invalid addresses that have bounced. Many solutions like Constant Contact for example, also export invalid addresses in your list. Beware!
Highly recommended:
- When exporting your subscribers from somewhere else, check if you can export only "Subscribed" and valid users
4. Importing email addresses collected offline
If uploading a list collected offline (e.g., paper forms), it’s important to run it through a list cleaning service first to remove incorrect email addresses (e.g., typos) to avoid hard bounces.