A couple of weeks ago, we blogged about the importance of maintaining a clean email list and gave some pointers on devising a re-engagement campaign to fine tune your list. Just recently, some changes have taken place in Netherlands that shed light on the importance of removing obsolete email addresses from your email lists and your account in order to avoid hard bounces and to maintain good standing with your Email Service Provider.
Let’s look at the recent email changes to come out of the Netherlands as an example to understanding how sending campaigns to non-existent email addresses will create a problem by generating serious hard bounces. As a result of a merger between T-Mobile and Orange, France Telecom took over certain domains and all previous Netherland email addresses ending in wanadoo@ and @orange no longer exist as of this month.
Since all of the Netherland email addresses ending in wanadoo@ and @orange are now obsolete and cease to exist, any email communications sent to such addresses will necessarily hard bounce and fail to reach inboxes because the recipient is non-existent. Now while you may not personally have any Netherland email addresses on your email list, let this example serve as another reminder to keep an occasional eye on cleaning house. When you know an email no longer exists or has gone stale, it is important to clean up your email list to avoid damaging both your own and your ESP’s reputations.