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In email marketing, the best results are generated when you send emails exclusively to an audience that interacts with your content. Follow these best practices to build and maintain a healthy, engaged contact list.

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Grow an organic contacts list

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 bad email addresses. If someone does not opt-in directly to you, then they are not opted-in to receive email from you.
Warning: 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.

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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.

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Set up a double opt-in subscription

  1. From the Dashboard, click Marketing.
  2. Select Forms.
  3. Open your desired Form or create one.
  4. Select Double Opt-In (Recommended) to enable it.
  5. Select any Additional Options you wish to apply and customize.
  6. Click Save to apply your changes.
Forms Double Opt In

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Build sender reputation

  • 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.

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Find recipient engagement

  1. From the Dashboard, click Marketing.
  2. Select Email Campaigns.
  3. Select the desired Email Campaign and then click Report.
Note: Key engagement metrics to monitor include open rate, click rate, and unsubscribe rate. A healthy open rate is generally considered to be above 20%. If engagement is consistently low, consider running a re-engagement campaign before unsubscribing inactive contacts.

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Use free, quality content as a lead magnet

A great way to organically grow your contact list is to offer value in exchange for opting in, also known as a lead magnet.
  • Live webinar
  • Quiz (such as Assessments)
  • Video
  • Image
  • Discounted offer
  • Guide
  • Checklists

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Maintain mailing list health

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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.
Note: The Inactive segment includes non-customer contacts who are subscribed, at least 30 days old, have been delivered an email in the past 90 days, but have not opened or clicked an email in the past 90 days. Contacts new to your list within the past 30 days are not included in this segment even if they have not yet opened an email.

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Manage inactive contacts

  1. From the Dashboard, click Contacts.
  2. Click the Segments dropdown menu.
  3. Select Inactive.
Segmentinactive
  1. Click the Select All checkbox or manually select the contacts you want to unsubscribe.
  2. Click the Bulk Actions dropdown menu.
  3. Select Unsubscribe from email marketing.
  4. Complete the prompt and confirm your intention to unsubscribe.
Learn how to perform bulk actions to manage your inactive contacts.
Contacts Unsubscribe

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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 how important it is for your content to reach your subscribers’ inboxes, 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 how auto-unsubscribe helps you maintain a healthy mailing list.

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Identify unsubscribed contacts

  1. From the Dashboard, click Contacts.
  2. Create a Filter.
  3. Select Marketing Status as the Category.
  4. Select Subscribed as the Conditional.
  5. Select No as the Value.
  6. Click Apply Filters.