Your email list is dirty (almost every list is). How to clean it before it costs you

Why a dirty list costs you

Every bounced email is a signal to Gmail, Outlook and the rest: this sender doesn’t know its recipients well. As bounces and complaints rise, providers start putting even the emails for your best customers in spam.

Then there’s the bill: almost every platform charges by contact. Every month you pay for addresses that will never read a line.

And there are the numbers: with hundreds of dead contacts, your opens and clicks tell you a false story.

What to remove, and what to fix

• Addresses that don’t exist: the domain is gone or doesn’t receive email. They bounce every time.
• Typos: mark@gmial.com, anna@hotmail.con, ben@yaho.co.uk. Don’t delete them: fix them, and that customer becomes reachable again.
• Throwaway inboxes: temporary mailboxes that vanish after a few hours, used to grab a discount and disappear.
• Fake or test addresses: asdfgh@, test@, a@a.com. Nobody reads them.
• Mailboxes nobody reads: noreply@, postmaster@ and the like.
• Duplicates: the same person signed up twice, perhaps with dots or a + in Gmail. They get everything twice and get annoyed.
• Badly written names: “JOHN SMITH” or “john” spoil the “Hi John” in your emails.

What about people who stopped opening?

Inactive subscribers are a decision, not an error. Before removing them, try to win them back: one email with one question (“Do you still want to hear from us?”) and a button. Anyone who doesn’t answer, stop sending to.

Be careful measuring inactivity by opens alone: since Apple Mail started hiding from senders when an email is opened, open counts aren’t precise. Look at clicks and purchases too; we explain how in which numbers to watch.

How often to clean your list

• Always after an import: from a file, from another tool, from old records.
• Before an important send: Black Friday, sales, a launch.
• Every six months for a list that grows through forms.
• Straight away if bounces climb or opens suddenly collapse.

Good platforms remove hard-bounced addresses by themselves: in Spedito it happens on every send. Cleaning is for everything else, before it bounces.

How to clean your list with Spedito

In Spedito, under Contacts, there’s Clean the list. First it gives you a free look at your list, with numbers: how many possible typos, throwaway inboxes, duplicates and names to fix. Then the full check, with AI:

• corrects typos in the domain and brings back people who bounced because of one;
• checks that every domain exists and receives email, and blocks addresses that would never arrive;
• finds throwaway inboxes and, with AI, fake or test addresses;
• spots the same person written two ways and keeps the one who reads;
• tidies names without inventing any;
• shows you who hasn’t opened in 6 months, and you decide.

Nothing changes until you confirm, and people taken off sending stay in your contacts, under “Not receiving”. You buy it once, from €9 plus VAT, with two checks in 30 days; if the first finds nothing to fix, we refund you.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and laws cited

• Google, Email sender guidelines
• Apple, Mail Privacy Protection (2021)