Dead Email Addresses

[CSJ]

Hi! I have a little over 10,000 contacts for my companies account. Most of those numbers are dead emails, people that receive our emails but never open/click on them. Is there any way to figure out which contacts do not check our emails so I can put them in a non-active list? Hope that makes sense. Thanks!

[CSJ]

Hello @CETTL 

A deceased contact isn't going to be a viable contact, even if they were previously very engaged. If the contact's email address ends up somehow being in use again, it wouldn't be the same person obviously, and wouldn't necessarily meet the permissions requirements or potentially your own criteria for wanting them to be a contact. 

You're of course welcome to keep the contact's address in your account, but since they won't be viable to send to, I'd advise at least unsubscribing them. That way you don't have to delete, or even if you do and they get re-uploaded / synced from elsewhere, they won't count as an active contact.

[William_A · Accepted solution]

Hello @CSJ ,

Firstly, I'd recommend deleting and unsubscribing your recommended-for-removal bounces. 

You can use segmentation to filter out contacts who've chronically not opened your emails. You can then further manage this segment by adding it to a list, determining which contacts may still be worth keeping (such as very recent additions based on Date Added), and then deleting all the remaining non-openers and the segment list. There's also our pre-built low engagement segmentation, which you can use to re-engage those specific contacts that rarely if ever open your emails, or follow the process just described to quickly remove them.

[CETTL]

Hi William,

How do you suggest handling contacts who are deceased? Should the contact just be "deleted" or is there another best method so that you can still keep the contact in the system, but perhaps in a "notes" section add information that the person is no longer living? My fear is that if we just delete the contact, you loose that record of previous engagement or that the "list" who a contact is listed under was correct when it was first created but has since updated with new information as deceased?

[William_A]

Hello @CETTL 

A deceased contact isn't going to be a viable contact, even if they were previously very engaged. If the contact's email address ends up somehow being in use again, it wouldn't be the same person obviously, and wouldn't necessarily meet the permissions requirements or potentially your own criteria for wanting them to be a contact. 

You're of course welcome to keep the contact's address in your account, but since they won't be viable to send to, I'd advise at least unsubscribing them. That way you don't have to delete, or even if you do and they get re-uploaded / synced from elsewhere, they won't count as an active contact.