Top 10 E-mail Appending Mistakes to Avoid

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Mistake #5:

Not Insisting on List Cleaning and Suppressions as Part of Your Append Process

Your vendor should automatically perform robust hygiene services on your list—scrubbing for typos, errors, and other problematic addresses—to ensure your results are clean and deliverable.

In addition, your vendor should adhere to all CAN-SPAM regulations and run all required suppressions, including FCC Wireless Domains, the DMA’s Do Not E-mail list, and your own unsubscribe list. They should also discuss other optional suppressions that may be legally required for your industry, such as the Utah and Michigan Child Protection Acts.

Bottom line, your vendor should be as vigilant with your data as it is with its own.

Mistake #4:

Not Insisting on 100% Guaranteed Deliverable Results

Any e-mails you pay for should be deliverable. Period. They should also be the preferred e-mail addresses of your customers. If they bounce (within a reasonable post-append grace period)—and 1%-3% of results typically do—your vendor should credit your account immediately. Don’t settle for a credit towards a future project that you might never want to do with this vendor.

Mistake #3:

Overlooking the Importance of Your Opted-Out E-mail Results

As previously mentioned, part of your e-mail append process should include permission messaging, where your newly-appended customers are presented the opportunity to opt-out of an e-mail relationship with your company.

Protect these customers’ privacy rights as well as your company’s reputation by ensuring your deliverable e-mail results file is accompanied by a list of any customers who opted-out. And honor those unsubscribes!

Mistake #2:

Sending Personalized E-mail Messages to Household Append Results 

A marketer’s nightmare is a personalized e-mail flub—e.g. sending bill_kippers@hotmail.com an e-mail with the salutation “Dear Beth.” Not only might it give poor Bill an identity crisis, but it probably completely alienates you from any future e-mail relationship with that household.

Be careful. If your e-mail appends are the result of a household match, skip the personalization.

On the other hand, if your e-mails are a result of an individual append, go for it.

Mistake #1:

Dumping Appended Results Right into Your House List

Just because you now have the e-mail addresses of your customers doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ready to buy. Yes, they may be customers, but they didn’t ask you directly to solicit them via e-mail. So, how do you handle these newly-appended e-mail addresses?

Send an unobtrusive “welcome message” to your appended e-mail addresses that introduces them to this new mode of communication with you and explains its value—e.g. what kinds of information, offers, and/or ideas you’ll be sending them, and how often.

Once again—and it can’t be stressed enough!—don’t forget to offer them the opportunity to opt out. And, as always, honor those unsubscribes!

Don’t expect your appended e-mails to immediately start performing as well as those in your house file. Have realistic expectations. Marketing studies have shown that it takes anywhere from 7-10 impressions to get someone to notice. E-mail is no different than any other marketing medium. Eventually, these e-mails will perform as well as those on your house list.

Also, when you first start messaging your appended e-mail addresses, you should expect a few bounces (1-3%) due to unpaid accounts, full mailboxes, and everyday Internet issues. A handful of complaints are also not unusual, as you are messaging recipients at an e-mail address they didn't directly provide to you. You can prepare for this in advance by alerting your customer service department and putting extra effort into crafting your welcome message.

If you decide to pursue an e-mail append, play by the rules. Be sure to pay serious attention to planning, pricing, and process. E-mail appending, when performed in an ethical, conservative, and conscientious manner by an experienced and reputable vendor, can provide you with guaranteed deliverable e-mail addresses for up to 20% or more of your customer/donor base on your first project. The potential gains in revenue growth, market penetration, and deeper relationships with your customers are yours for the taking… and yours for the losing. You just can’t afford to make mistakes!

Jodi Baier is the marketing and communications manager at Newton, MA-based FreshAddress Inc.