Back to Glossary
List Management

List Hygiene

The practice of regularly cleaning and maintaining your email list to remove invalid or inactive addresses.

Definition

List hygiene refers to the ongoing practices of maintaining a clean, healthy email list by removing invalid addresses, bounces, unsubscribes, and chronically inactive subscribers. Good list hygiene protects your sender reputation and improves overall email marketing performance.

Why It Matters

Poor list hygiene leads to high bounce rates, spam complaints, and deliverability problems. Email providers use engagement signals to determine where to place your emails. A clean list with engaged subscribers performs better than a large list full of dead weight.

How It Works

List hygiene involves several ongoing practices: automatically removing hard bounces, converting persistent soft bounces, processing unsubscribes immediately, identifying and re-engaging or removing inactive subscribers, and periodically verifying email addresses.

Best Practices

  • 1Remove hard bounces immediately, never attempt to re-send
  • 2Set up automatic suppression for repeated soft bounces
  • 3Define and enforce a sunset policy for inactive subscribers
  • 4Use email verification for new signups when possible
  • 5Review list health metrics monthly

Frequently Asked Questions

Perform basic hygiene (bounces, unsubscribes) automatically and continuously. Do deeper cleaning (inactive subscribers, re-verification) quarterly. Some businesses clean before major campaigns.

Consider removing subscribers who have not engaged (opened or clicked) in 6-12 months. First, run a re-engagement campaign. If they still do not engage, remove them or move them to a less frequent segment.

No, it increases value. A smaller, engaged list outperforms a large, unengaged one. Removing dead weight improves deliverability for your active subscribers and gives you more accurate metrics.