Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

As far as I know, the "non-existent emails" reported by Constant Contact refer to hard bounces where the email address no longer exists.

The "no longer" part is important. They may look like valid addresses with no typos and were probably valid at one time. But people abandon email accounts and change jobs, so email accounts get closed all the time and the associated email address becomes "non existent."

The problem is not that the email isn't getting delivered, so to speak, but that there is no email address to deliver to anymore. You need to get people to update their details.

I read recently that wineries, for example, often use a postcard follow-up to get back in touch with people whose emails bounce in this way.

Hi Amy,

What I do when I use Constant Contact (and this applies to all ESPs) is I wait until I have bounce reports on at least 2 campaigns at least 2 weeks apart, then I export all the bounces to Excel and compare them side by side.

If they are still bouncing after the 2/2 rule I remove them, but not permanently, just "Remove" because sometimes I will go back and add them back in a month or so later and inevitably some of them become existent again.

The reason I remove them temporarily is I don't want the ISPs to get upset - they don't like to see repeated bounces coming from the same originating source over a period of time.

For large lists there is a list compare function you can enter into Excel to make this easier. Google "comparing lists with Excel".

Understandable this can take some time, especially the first time, but once you know how to do it. it is not bad and when you compare it to how much time it takes to build a quality list and how valuable that list can be, it is well worth the time and effort.

This is because with Constant Contact, non-existent is often "temporary". I have seen many, many times where a previous "non-existent" becomes existent again in future emailings.

I have seen this across the board, hard and soft with Constant Contact with all their bounce reports - non-existent, undeliverable, mailbox full, vacation/auto reply, other and blocked - all of them.

Now, if they still remain non-existent after doing all this and if you have the time and resources to do it, I would definitely contact the subscribers as you will find many of them actually do want to be on your list but they changed email addresses and did not provide updated information.

I think you should pick up the phone and call. If you email or mail, they'll set it aside. Call, thank them for their biz, tell them what new things you are working on, and tell them some of the emails were bouncing. Ask if you can verify the address and change it yourself.

I dumped constant contact. I now use Elite. Same pricing but a whole bunch easier.

Carol
sell well and prosper tm

We take a different approach and manage the whole thing from the CRM system.

That way, you receive the actual responses and bounce-backs from which you can analyse the exact reason for failure.

By utilising KnowledgeSync (Workflow Automation) and Maximizer, we can capture all replies according to our own rules. The various headers from the “Non-deliverable” items can be analysed down to the level of detail you are able to set. I.e. if you identify a reason for an email being returned to you, you can both park it somewhere, set an action to be taken and produce your own metrics.

Actions taken can vary from trying again in 5-8 days, referring the customer record to a member of staff for cleaning by phone or automatically generating a printed postcard to the customer.

It all depends on the business rules you decide to set.

Of course, there is a setup cost associated with this, but the investment will repay itself quickly from better email performance, less manual messing around and having the whole shooting match on a functional CRM system which will deliver befits of its own.

Hope that this is of use


Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions