Top 10 E-mail Appending Mistakes to Avoid

E-mail appending—where a vendor attempts to match e-mail addresses in its database to postal addresses in a client company’s house file—is a quick and effective way to build an e-mail database. It can be a brilliant marketing tactic or a customer relations debacle. This article is a frank look at ten common mistakes made by marketers trying to grow their lists: 

Mistake #10:

Ignoring Direct List-Building Options

Before you even consider an e-mail append, are you already asking everywhere for e-mail addresses? On your website or landing pages? At all points of sale? Through your call centers? Via social networks?

Organically grown e-mail addresses are the least costly to obtain and will provide you with the low-hanging fruit. But even doing everything right will probably only yield e-mail addresses for approximately 25% of your customer or donor base and your growth rate, while steady, might not meet your marketing goals.

Mistake #9:

Not Doing Your Homework When Evaluating Vendors

There are a lot of shady vendors out there. Before you decide on a service partner, take time for a little sleuthing. Find out who they are, what their industry reputation is, who their clients are, and where they’re located. Be wary of vendors with incomplete contact information, match rates that seem too good to be true, or unverified clients, employees, or testimonials on their Web site.

Knowledge, expertise, and hands-on experience are crucial but reputation and integrity must be your initial screens. Ask the vendor how long they’ve been in business, which professional associations they belong to, what kind of industry presence they have, who their partners and clients are, and what other services they offer. Don’t risk being a guinea pig for some fly-by-night company.

Mistake #8:

Selecting a Vendor Mainly on Price  

Ever heard the expression “a penny wise and pound foolish?” The least expensive solution is not always the best solution. If you do opt for a low-cost provider, be sure you know exactly how that vendor is providing you quality service and results for that bargain-basement price. A poorly-performed e-mail append can bring down your entire e-mail program and the few pennies you saved per address will pale in comparison to the revenues lost and damaged reputation you’ll incur by picking up invalid e-mail addresses and spam traps.

Mistake #7:

Appending E-mails to a Prospect List 

Yikes! Watch out! Appending e-mails to a third-party or prospect list is not recommended unless you want a high spam-complaint rate. When you do an e-append, be sure you only use customer, donor, or member lists — i.e. individuals with whom you have a relationship that never got around to giving you their e-mail addresses for one reason or another.

Mistake #6:

Not Insisting on 100% Opted-In Data

A high-quality, trustworthy vendor should be able to promise you 100% opted-in e-mail addresses (with detailed opt-in info, including source information and date & time stamp). Your vendor should be able to tell you exactly where their data came from.

On a related note, insist that your vendor send a permission message to their e-mail address matches to confirm deliverability and provide your customers with an opportunity to opt-out before results are returned to you. Most vendors’ opt-in databases have bounce rates of 30% to 50% or more. We’ve seen some as high as 80%. Without the added screen of a permission message, you or your ESP risk experiencing these same high bounce rates when messaging raw results.  Doing so could result in your being blocked or blacklisted by the ISPs: not pretty...

Next Page:Mistake #5: Not Insisting on List Cleaning and Suppressions as Part of Your Append Process