How to list hygiene with JangoMail

JangoMail offers lots of great tools to help you manage your lists. We automatically suppress all of your account’s unsubscribes and bounces every time you send through us. While you could easily rely on us to clean these email addresses out each time you hit send – you should periodically remove these addresses from your lists. There are lots of benefits to having clean lists; my favorite is more accurate reporting stats!  Read below for a highlight of all the features and tools we offer to help you with your list hygiene process.

JangoMail list hygiene features and tools

Automatic handling of unsubscribes and bounces

JangoMail automatically manages and processes bounces and unsubscribes on your behalf. For each email you send through our system that results in an unsubscribe or bounce, we record this in your account. The next time you attempt to send to an email address on your account’s Unsubscribed Addresses List, we will not send to it.

Bounces are managed a little differently than unsubscribes. Email addresses that hard bounce (also known as definitive bounce) are automatically added to your account’s Bounced Addresses List and JangoMail’s Global Suppression List. Hard bounces, in most all cases, are an invalid email address that should not be sent to again. The next time you attempt to send to a previously hard bounced email address, it will be suppressed because it’s on the Global Suppression List. The Global Suppression List is used for all JangoMail customers. Your account also gets the benefit of being checked against the Global Suppression List to save emails from being sent to known bad addresses.

Soft (non-definitive) bounces are added to your account’s Bounced Addresses List, but because these may be temporary delivery issues, we allow you to send to them again. By default, you can send an additional 3 times before they can’t be sent to any further.

Note: You can manually add email addresses, domains or lists to your account’s Unsubscribes Addresses List. This is an important step if you’re switching from another provider to JangoMail!

Download a list of your Unsubscribed or Bounced addresses at any time so you can have a copy of this data or use to sync with your lists outside of JangoMail.

Use suppression lists

Set up as many lists as you need in the Lists section of your account, and use it as your own personal suppression list. You can use personal suppression lists when sending broadcast emails with JangoMail, whether through our interface or mass emails through the JangoMail API.

Sign up for the Yahoo Feedback Loop

If you send to any Verizon domains, including Yahoo and AOL, you will want to set up the Yahoo Feedback Loop for each sending domain used.

The Yahoo Feedback Loop is the only feedback loop that JangoMail as an ESP cannot participate in on your behalf. If you don’t have the Yahoo Feedback Loop set up for your sending domain, this means that when a recipient at Yahoo or AOL marks your message as spam – JangoMail is not made aware of it. So you continue trying to send to a recipient that doesn’t want your messages. Feedback loops allow us to get reports from ISPs like Yahoo so that when a recipient does mark a message as spam, we are notified and can mark this as a Complaint in your account. Complaints are added to the Unsubscribed Addresses List in your account, and cannot be sent to again. Sending to recipients that have marked your messages as spam is hurtful to your sending reputation.

Quickly clean with our Scrub tool

When you host your lists with JangoMail, you can use our free Scrub a list tool to easily remove duplicates, unsubscribes, bounces and more. Use the Scrub tool any time you’d like, or schedule it to clean for you on a regular basis! Once you’ve scrubbed, we send you an email confirmation letting you know which email addresses were removed. If you’re hesitant to start using this process, we do offer the option to simulate the scrub so you can see what would be cleaned before you do it for real.

Email validation service

JangoMail works with top email validation companies to offer you list hygiene service. Email validation is a quick way to help stop bad emails at sign up, or to relieve worries on a stale list. While email validation is never 100%, it does deliver fast and highly accurate results to help you send good email.

We offer list hygiene service for your needs, whether occasionally or on a regular basis. Contact us today to learn more!

Advanced list hygiene management

We have several options for tech savvy users to keep their lists and databases current and updated.

• Use our extensive API to manage your lists. The JangoMail API has lots of options that include the ability to:
  • Add and remove lists and email addresses
  • Update and delete records
  • Pull reports, including your bounced and unsubscribed lists
• Set up Web hooks with our JangoMail Transactional Event API
  • If you send emails transactionally with JangoMail/JangoSMTP, set up web hooks with our Transactional Event API to receive updates when an email address bounces, unsubscribes or complains
• Email validation via FTP or API (NEW!)
  • Get the extra confidence you need by using email validation through our list hygiene service. Validate one email address via a simple API call, or upload a list via FTP for bulk hygiene. Contact us to learn more about how to use these services.

Why list hygiene is important

If you don’t keep a clean list, you can cause damage to your sending reputation by hitting spam traps or mole addresses. ISPs monitor regular sending that results in a high number of bounces and other bad email addresses.

As we mentioned in part 1 to this list hygiene series, here are some signs that it is time you clean up your lists:

A drop in your open and click rates. Increased unsubscribes or complaints. High bounce rates –ISPs see your bounces to their domain and a high amount can hurt your sending reputation. Too many lists to manage and stay organized. While JangoMail does automatically manage your unsubscribes and bounces, it’s a best practice and good idea to periodically clean up your list. You’ll make your sending more efficient and have more accurate results.