Anchor Computer

Spring is here.  Whether you have email, telemarketing, or direct mail lists, having accurate, reliable information that’s updated regularly is the key to staying in touch with contacts year round.

Nearly every contact database accumulates inaccurate or out-of-date information and it is estimated about 25-30% of data goes bad each year.  People relocate, change jobs, change service providers, they even change names.  Plus, there may be duplicate contact records or data that was never good due to typos or bogus information.

Click here to save 25% off List Hygiene Services!

How does your data measure up?

• 1/3 of  emails are lost to list churn,  bounces, and SPAM complaints every year.
• 14% of all phone numbers go bad, as over 40 million people move annually.
•  8% of all Standard Mail^TM is undeliverable because of incorrect addresses.

You’re not alone!

Deliverability, and getting your messages in front of  target customers or prospects, remains a key challenge for marketers. In fact, a MarketingSherpa study found this as a very important challenge for over 55% of marketers last year.

So what can you do?

You can ensure your contact lists are current and accurate by enhancing, appending and/or verifying your database.  Here are 3 highly recommended services to get you started:

Email List Hygiene & ECOA - Verify and update email address lists – before you send your next campaign. Check and correct for typos, syntax errors, invalid domains, and other known bad email address. Plus, find an updated email address to reactivate customer relationships.

Postal SuperCleanse - Correct undeliverable addresses, remove deceased contacts, and update addresses of individuals who have moved. We are so confident this works we guarantee your savings will more than double the cost of this service.

Telephone Verify/Append – Increase your connect rates by making sure the numbers you have on file are up to date.  Plus, identify wireless, business, residential, and Do Not Call (Federal, State and DMA) phone numbers.

Spring cleaning your lists can help maximize your marketing opportunities, keep you in touch with contacts on your list, and increase your ROI. 

Click here to request a FREE Accuracy Test on Your File.
If you find your data needs a spring cleaning, we will give you  25% off any hygiene service above!*

Businesses that work with Anchor Computer return year after year as they recognize the ROI benefits of data cleansing and appending.  Stay in touch with more customers…improve engagement and increase sales…  It’s a win-win situation!

* First time customers only.

A MUST READ FOR EVERY EMAIL MARKETER:

In 2011, it was reported that only 4 out of 5 or 81% of permission-based emails reached the inbox. That means 20% of legitimate marketing emails never reached the intended recipient.

Is your email program performing as well as it should be? 

Email deliverability is VITAL to your email marketing success.  After all, an undelivered email cannot be viewed or clicked on. Keeping your list up-to-date by running regular list hygiene practices will help maintain good sender reputation scores, increase inbox deliverability and boost the performance of your marketing campaigns.

Maintaining deliverable addresses in your database and ensuring more of your organization’s emails reach the inbox is not an impossible task.

Let’s get started by identifying 5 email data issues that may cause your emails to bounce and how to fix them – before they happen.

1. General formatting, typos or syntax errors  

These invalid emails are mostly due to addresses being entered incorrectly.  They are often from people who are legitimately trying to receive your messages – and never actually receive them due to an error. (Ex: bob@@yahooo.cmo or bob2hotmale.com)

Running your file through Anchor’s list hygiene will help check for these errors types, flag them on your file and give you the option to recover the otherwise invalid emails with an updated email address replacement.

2. Dead, invalid or bogus domains

There are large quantities of free email sites that often stop offering email services to customers, leaving many emails dead or no longer working. (Ex: anglefire.com, athome.com, altavista.com)  If you send to an email using any of these domains, they are likely to deliver to a catchall mailbox, and will not notify you of a bounce back.

Our Email Validation service uses a “domain-knocking” process that determines both if a domain exists and if a mailbox on that domain is able to receive emails.  This validation process is performed with out having to send an actual test email.

3.   Email Address Changes

About 30% of email addresses are changed annually due to relocations, job changes, adding extra email addresses, or switching Internet Services Providers.

An email change of address doesn’t mean contacts do not want to hear from you.    

Running your file through our permission-based ECOA (Email Change of Address Update) service detects undeliverable emails and updates them with a new deliverable address for each contact.

4.  Email Bounce Management

A soft bounce is when an email address is temporarily unavailable.  For example, a recipient may have an “out of office” or “away on vacation” auto responder on, or their mailbox may be temporarily full. Most commonly, 3-5 soft bounce retries will be had, before an address is determined a hard bounce and removed for good. 

A hard bounce is when an email addresses is permanently non-deliverable.  Once an email is hard-bounced, it is important to not try and resend to that address.  Trying to do so can trigger email clients and or ISPs to define you as a spam sender, damage your sender reputation score, close your email account and/or blacklist your domain IP address from sending emails all together.

Sending emails and receiving a high number of bounces will tarnish your ISP reputation, almost immediately. Save time, money and avoid being blacklisted by scrubbing your file through our email validation process, first!   We’ll detect undeliverables and bounces – before you deploy your campaign. Plus, we can also process Email Change of Address updates and supply you with a new deliverable email in its place. 

5.  Spam Traps, Do No Email List, Cellular Domains and Maintenance Addresses

Mailing to any of these types of addresses can lead to being permanently blacklisted, breaking privacy laws or losing your ability to  send emails altogether.

Although removing and identifying “spam traps” from lists is very difficult, Anchor can help minimize the risks in mailing to these records by suppressing “known” spamtraps. Other risky email addresses such as fake emails (asdf@asdf), maintenance addresses (info@domain.com), known bounces, DMA do not email and cellular domain email suppression are more easily identified and very effective in keeping your email marketing compliant.

Catching undeliverable email addresses before your campaign deploys is one of the easiest and most effective ways to increase deliverability rates, maintain good relationships with ISPs and stay connected with customers.

Every company can benefit from running their email file through email list hygiene regularly.  Receive a FREE Email Validation Test Today!