Never buy or copy email lists: It may be tempting to quickly increase your reach by buying a “targeted” email list or copying contacts from the web, but this is extremely risky and usually counterproductive. Purchased lists often contain people who never agreed to hear from you, so your emails to them are unwanted (ripe for spam complaints). They may also contain spam trap addresses or a high volume of invalid addresses, which will sink your sender reputation. Most email service providers prohibit the use of purchased lists, and for good reason. Stick to organic list growth methods and send emails to people who have actually given you permission. Sending to people who haven’t opted in is one of the quickest ways to get blacklisted or filtered out.
Clean your list regularly : Over time, even a legitimately created list will accumulate some bad addresses or unengaged users. It’s important to periodically remove or attempt to re-engage inactive subscribers. If someone hasn’t opened or clicked any of your emails in, say, 6-12 months, it might be worth sending them a re-engagement email (“Still want to hear from us?”) and if they still don’t respond, consider stopping emailing them. Why? Because continuing to send to a large group of unengaged recipients can hurt your deliverability: it lowers your open rates (a bad sign) and those addresses could turn into spam traps. Likewise, always remove hard bounces (bad emails) immediately and monitor repeated soft bounces. Keeping bounces low is key; ISPs use bounce rates to gauge the quality of your list.
Make sure you have a clear unsubscribe link in every email (required by law in many cases), and if someone opts automotive mailing list out, remove them from your list promptly. Never try to hide the unsubscribe link or make it hard to find – this will only cause frustrated users to mark your message as spam, which is much worse. Additionally, many inbox providers offer “feedback loops” where if a user marks your email as spam, you can be notified. If you have access to these (often through your ESP), use them to ensure you don’t continue to email those who have filed complaints. Being proactive in this regard helps keep your complaint rate low and shows ISPs that you are a responsible sender.
Segment and target your emails: This is more of a marketing practice, but it has implications for deliverability. If you segment your list (e.g., by interest, purchase history, etc.), you can send more relevant content to each group. This typically leads to higher engagement (people get content they care about), which in turn increases deliverability. It can also prevent you from sending too many emails to certain subscribers. For example, you might send daily emails to your most active customers, but only weekly to others. By adjusting the frequency and content, you keep engagement high and complaints low. Better engagement = better reputation = better deliverability, as we’ve noted.