Everest List Hygiene Playbook: Advanced

• Setting up the Everest API requires internal developer resources.
• If you are a new Everest customer with no prior relationship with Validity, complete onboarding to ensure you are familiar with navigating and using Everest.   
• Ensure you have completed the Everest Basic Setup Guide. 

• To get the most visibility into performance metrics related to your list quality, complete the advanced setup guides. 

  • Everest Advanced Setup Guide 2: Sending Reputation (FBL Complaints) 
  • Everest Advanced Setup Guide 3: Engagement (Pixel and ESP/sending platform integration) 

Important! As you use Everest, keep track of the subscription allotments based on your service tier and plan according to your sending frequency and the size of your email database. You can find your subscription information by navigating to My Everest > Account Settings > Subscription. 

• Common list hygiene challenges 
• How List Validation fits into your process 
• Important list hygiene metrics and where to find them 
• Implementing single address validation via API at all points of collection
• Expanding the total addressable subscriber base by sending to risky email addresses
• List source tracking
• Optimizing your list quality
• What to do next 

Sending email to invalid email addresses has a negative impact on your email program. Common sender challenges with list hygiene issues are:  

• We need to expand our addressable subscriber base without harming deliverability.
• We have internal applications using subscriber data and need a way to keep that data accurate.
• We want to take a more proactive approach to prevent invalid addresses entering our database

By using Everest’s List Validation, senders see improved results with:  

• Fewer bounced emails  
• Improved delivered rates  
• Increased open rates  
• Increased click rates
• Lower acquisition costs 

A traditional email marketing process consists of three phases: Pre-Send, In-Flight, and Monitoring. Using List Validation to identify valid email addresses during the pre-send phase is an important part of your list hygiene strategy.  

Pre-send 

• Inform your email campaign strategy with Everest’s Competitive Intelligence 
• Plan campaign 
• Select target subscriber list  
• Design campaign 
• Validate subscriber list using Everest’s List Validation feature
• Test campaign design using Everest’s Design & Content 

In-Flight 

• Send campaign to subscribers and the Everest seed list 
• View your campaign’s inbox placement, spam, and missing results 

Monitoring 

• Monitor performance using Everest’s Engagement, your ESP, or internal sending platform. 
• Monitor sending reputation metrics using Everest’s Monitoring to understand the impact to your deliverability. 
• Monitor DMARC compliance to identify unauthorized use of your domain and brand using Everest’s Infrastructure feature. 

Once you decide on and implement a list validation strategy, you can find the metrics to help you measure the impact of your strategy in Everest. 

List Validation 

List Validation metrics are displayed after your list is validated in the Pre-send>List Validation section: 

• Valid %: It is safe to send email to these addresses. 
• Invalid %: It is not safe to send to these email addresses. Add them to your suppression list. 
• Address Invalid %: The email address format is incorrect, such as a missing @ sign. 
• Domain Invalid %: The domain either doesn’t exist or was spelled incorrectly. 
• Account Invalid %: The domain is valid, but the specific email address does not exist. 
• Risky %: Use caution when sending to these email addresses. Email addresses in this category often have poor results when compared to email sent to valid email addresses. 
  • Accept-all %: Receiving server accepts all email and invalid email addresses may be bounced back to you later. 
  • Role %: Email addresses serving a specific function such as sales@, marketing@. These addresses may be monitored by a team of people and give unpredictable results. 
  • Disposable %: Temporary addresses created to sign up for a promotion and expire quickly. 
• Unknown %: The email address appears to be valid, but the receiving server is not responding. This could be temporary or represent an abandoned domain 

Engagement  

List hygiene engagement data is visible in the Monitoring>Engagement and Monitoring>Reputation sections.

Monitoring>Engagement

• Opens
• Delivered
• Bounced

Reputation

• Complaints
• Blocklistings
• Spam traps

From your ESP or sending platform

• Clicks

If you have not started to use the Everest List Validation API, it is recommended to automate the list validation process to save time and for the flexibility to use and view the data according to your business needs. The Everest List Validation API allows for single or batch validation. Developer resources required.

• List Validation API Documentation

When implementing single address List Validation via API, be sure to check the number of available allotments on a regular basis. Prior to implementing the API, analyze your new subscriber volumes to determine if your allotments are sufficient and talk with your Validity sales representative if additional allotments are required.

Single address validation

Identifying valid addresses at the point of collection is ideal because you can set your form to proactively accept or block addresses from entering your database. Work with your internal development team to identify and scope the work for all points of collection, such as a mobile app, web form, or point-of-sale terminal.

Recommended practices for single address validation:

• Allow Valid, Accept-All and Unknown addresses. Although Accept All and Unknown addresses are categorized as Risky, you run the risk of blocking valid addresses. Track performance of these address categories over time to determine if you need to block them in the future.
• Block submissions of Invalid, Role Address (unless a role address makes sense for your business), and Disposable Addresses.
• *Limit the number of submissions your form accepts every second or minute to help deter list bombing. 
• *Limit the number of submissions based on specific IP addresses.

*A traffic flow analysis is recommended prior to setting limits so you don't block valid submissions.

Bulk address validation

Single address validation at the point of collection may not be feasible for all senders. You can also use the Everest List Validation API for bulk validations. With your internal development team, create an automated script to bulk validate email addresses at a frequency of your choice. 

Recommended practices for bulk validation:

• Send to Valid, Accept-All and Unknown addresses.
• Do not send to Invalid, Role Address (unless a role address makes sense for your business), and Disposable Addresses.

The Everest UI

Using the API for either single or bulk address validation may not be an option for some senders. You can always validate your lists manually within Everest directly using the List Validation strategy you developed in the Everest List Hygiene Intermediate Playbook.

Just because an email address is categorized as Risky does not mean it is worthless. However, you need to be able to send to risky addresses in sustainable manner in order to expand your addressable database.

Basic strategy

• When sending to Risky addresses, start with a small volume for a campaign and spread the addresses throughout each send so you don't send to a large number of risky addresses all at once. If a large percentage of these addresses turn out to be unknown users, spam traps, or mark your email as spam, then you limit the risk of harming the overall campaign metrics and your deliverability.
• Track the performance of the risky addresses.
  • Use Everest to track delivery, inbox placement, sending reputation, and engagement.
  • Note if there are any particular domains, acquisition sources or list segments related to these addresses.
  • Be sure to suppress the address if it marks your email as spam.
• Identify if any of the risky addresses have a prior engagement history or engage with future campaigns.
  • Note that address as valid in your database when any engagement signals are detected.
• Based on performance of your campaigns and these addresses in particular, increase the volume of risky addresses in future campaigns slowly.
  
  • Over time, you may see patterns based on the type of risky addresses that can help you make better informed decisions.
    • For example, you may find that role addresses for your business are less risky and suitable to include as valid email addresses in future campaigns because the negative impact to your performance is negligible and sending to those addresses results in sales.
    • Be sure you analyze the results as they pertain to your specific business and audience.

If you get a lot of risky or poor performing addresses from specific list sources or domains, it may be worth suppressing addresses from those sources or domains from future campaigns.

It is important to track the performance metrics of all list sources to determine effectiveness and value to your email program and business. It is especially important to track performance if you use high-risk address collection methods such as list purchases, appends, and co-registration.

List source performance tracking can help you make better informed decisions on how you collect email addresses, where you collect them, and help identify potential problem areas. If you are a B2B organization, list source tracking is also beneficial for tracking lead quality.

Add a list source custom property to your tracking pixel

Custom properties are additional subscriber or campaign attributes added to your Everest tracking pixel. You can add a list source custom property as long as your ESP or sending platform has an associated list source database field. If you don't currently track list source in your database, you will need to add it to your database for the list source custom property to work.

Important! Prior to creating your pixel's list source custom property, contact your ESP to find out the correct formatting and merge field name. Each ESP is different, so errors in the formatting or field names will cause the pixel to not work properly. If you use your own sending platform, contact your email administrator to get the correct field names and formatting for your specific sending platform. 

1. Login to Everest 

2. Navigate to My Everest>Engagement 

3. Click Analytics Settings 

4. Click the Custom Properties tab 

5. Click New Property 

6. Enter the custom property name: List source

7.  (optional) Enter the description of what the custom property is tracking.

8. Enter the token or merge tag name of the list source custom property.

• Don't forget to get the correct formatting and field name from your ESP or email administrator.

For example: 

• {{ListSource}} or {{list_source}} 

9. Click Save 

10. On the Custom Properties grid, locate your custom property in the Parameter column

12. Toggle the Visible switch *on* for the list source custom property to ensure you can view metrics in Everest. 

Insert the list source custom property into your tracking pixel code 

1. Click Tracking Pixels 

2. Click Tracking Code for your existing pixel 

3. Select Include under Include Custom Properties 

• In the pixel code text field on the right, a highlighted "&" symbol appears with the list source custom property field name. 

For example:

<style> @media print{ #_two50 { background-image:url('https://dev.250analytics.com/ea/WyX7UM2PQ4/?t=p&e=*|EMAIL|*&account_id=ij;oij&age={{lead.age}}=&List Source={{list_source}}

4. When you are confident the list source custom property has the correct formatting and field name, click Save Preferences.

5. Click Copy Tracking Code and add the code to all applicable email templates. 

6. Repeat steps 2-5 for each tracking pixel you wish to implement with a list source custom property. 

Your list source will now appear as a filter option in the Everest Engagement feature. Data will start populating after you send your next campaign with the updated list source custom property in the tracking pixel.

Subscriber ID

In addition to using the Everest tracking pixel to track list source performance, you can also track list performance by implementing or enhancing the subscriber ID within your email headers. 

• What is a subscriber ID for complaint processing and how do I implement one?

Validating your email list is only part of the solution for improving list quality. As you execute on your list hygiene strategy, focus on the following four list quality pillars to ensure Everest allotments are used to their maximum value.

Acquisition

• Use zero and first-party data acquisition methods as much as possible.

Consent

• Use opt-in consent methods.

Tracking

• Track and analyze performance metrics in Everest to help increase lifetime subscriber value.

Strategy

• Review your list hygiene strategy periodically or whenever there is a material change to your business so you don't forfeit any list quality gains.

1. Proactively identify valid email addresses at each point of collection using the Everest List Validation API. 

2. Monitor results when sending to Risky addresses to determine effectiveness.

3. Implement or enhance your Everest tracking pixel to enable list source tracking.

4. Continue reading our other Everest playbooks to help take your email marketing program to the next level. 

• Everest Playbooks