Email Campaigns

Best Practices for Growing and Maintaining Your Contact Lists

In email marketing, the best results are generated when you send emails exclusively to an audience that interacts with your content. So, this brings up the question: "How do I guarantee that my current contact list wants my emails?" In this guide, learn how to enhance your email marketing by growing and maintaining an organic list of engaged contacts.

Growing an organic contacts list

There is no question; you will attain the best email marketing results by sending emails to contacts who want to receive them. In other words, don't purchase email lists.

Purchased lists are typically full of invalid and other lousy email addresses. If someone does not opt-in directly to you, then they are not opted-in to receive email from you.

The use of purchased email lists is prohibited by Kajabi's Anti-Spam Policy.

Be sure to grow your contact list naturally through Double-Opt-In forms on pages that fit your target audience.

Offer a double opt-in subscription:

The Number One rule of growing an Organic Contact List is using a Double-Opt-In form. Acquiring contacts through your own opt-in is vital to holding a good sender reputation.

A double Opt-In means the sender is validating the email entered on its website twice, first by having the user enter the address on the site and then asking recipients to confirm their subscription through a confirmation email.

To offer a double Opt-In subscription:

Open the Marketing tab from your Dashboard.
Then, select Forms.
Open your desired Form or create a new one.
Then, select Double Opt-In (Recommended) to enable your Double Opt-In.
Select any Additional Options you wish to apply and customize.
Click Save to keep and apply your changes:

It is also in good practice to:

Offer an Opt-Out: Due to U.S. and International Anti-Spam Laws, Kajabi has added an Opt-Out to your Email Sequences, so we've already got you covered.

Verify Recipient Engagement: ESPs measure your reputation through the engagement of your recipients. If recipients are opening, forwarding, and replying to your emails, it will improve your status.

To find your recipient Engagement: - Open the Marketing tab from your Dashboard and select Email Campaigns. - Select the desired Email Campaign and then click Report.

Use free, quality content as a lead magnet

A great way to organically grow your contact list is to offer some type of value in exchange for opting in, a.k.a., a lead magnet! Here is a list of some tried and true lead agents you can use to organically grow your list!

Live webinar
Quiz (i.e., Assessments)
Video
Image
Discounted offer
Guide
Checklists

Maintaining your mailing list's health

Unsubscribe inactive contacts

To improve your Sender Reputation, we recommend unsubscribing contacts who aren't responding or interacting with their emails after 180 days.

ISPs measure engagement, such as opens or clicks, as a positive sign, which improves the sender's reputation.

Kajabi defines "Inactive" as a non-customer, subscribed, at least 30 days old, has been delivered an email in the past 90 days, but has not opened an email in the past 90 days, and has not clicked a link within an email.

To manage your inactive contacts:

Open the Contacts tab from your Dashboard.
Filter your list:
- Category: Email Engagement
- Conditional: Inactive Contacts
- Value: Include email opens
Click the Select all checkbox or manually select the inactive contacts of your choosing.
Open the Bulk Actions dropdown menu.
Select Unsubscribe.
Complete the prompt and confirm your intention to unsubscribe:

Learn to perform bulk actions to manage your inactive contacts

Manage hard bounced contacts

A Hard bounce is an email that has failed to deliver for permanent reasons, such as the recipient's address is invalid, either because the domain name is incorrect, isn't real, or the recipient is unknown.

We know just how important it is for your content to reach your subscriber's inbox, so Kajabi has taken action to help you manage your bounced contacts and improve your email deliverability by automating the process of unsubscribing your Bounced Emails.

Note:

You may encounter contacts in your hard bounced segment that remain subscribed. Your contacts will remain subscribed unless they are determined to be permanently undeliverable. As such, contacts may not be unsubscribed immediately upon a hard bounce.

Learn more about How Auto Unsubscribe Helps you Maintain a Healthy Mailing List.

To manage unsubscribed contacts:

Click the Contacts tab from your Dashboard.
Create a Filter.
Select Marketing Status as the Category.
Select Subscribed as the Conditional.
Select No as the Value.
Click Apply Filters:

Still have questions? Let us know your question below to have it added to the list or reach out to Support if you need additional assistance. Thanks for being the best part of Kajabi!