StrongMail Systems' director of delivery services gives tips on how to manage email appends and list rentals so that they don't corrupt your email list.

Here we are with the third installment of my email deliverability "How To" series. Part one covered email deliverability and part two discussed email list "hygiene." At this point, your database of current subscribers should be as clean as you could possibly make it, thanks to your new data capture and list hygiene practices. This month, we are going to look at a couple of common programs for augmenting your internal house list: email appends and list rentals. 

When using these programs, the challenge comes down to how you can grow your list and generate a good ROI without getting customers or the ISPs upset with you. First and foremost, you must decide if these programs are right for your business and if you're willing to take the necessary steps to use them correctly.

As you're probably aware, there is considerable debate on the appropriateness of these practices. While I am not going to weigh in on either side, I will stress the importance of evaluating the risks and rewards. If you should decide that these programs make sense, then you should commit to using them responsibly. The last thing that you want to do is to negatively impact the deliverability of your house file by using one of these programs. The recommendations provided below will help you avoid that outcome.

At the Marketing Sherpa Email Summit earlier this month, a panel of industry leaders discussed what they have done to make these types of programs work. I was very happy to hear them repeatedly recommend the same thing that I always preach to a client who is thinking about using one of these programs: Do not integrate these lists into your house list without cleaning and testing them first.

When engaging in these programs, you should consider email appends as a channel migration strategy and list rental as a customer acquisition method. As a result, you will want to treat them differently. You need to reflect the prior relationship with an email append contact, while you will need to treat a list rental contact as a prospect with no previous relationship, and potentially no knowledge of your business.

Protecting your house list is the number one rule, but the following are several other factors that you will want to consider when choosing to engage in one of these programs:

Email appends
1. Scrutinize vendor practices: Take the time to carefully assess your prospective append vendor and its practices. Check out the company's references and general reputation in the marketplace. Be prepared to ask its principals:

• How do they get the names in their files (type and quality of sources, permission level, age or records)? Can individual records be traced to their original source?
• What is their matching process? At what level is the match performed (individual, household) and how exact (tight, loose)? Do you have a choice on how they perform their matching process?
• What are their list maintenance practices? How often are they applied?
• How do they handle bounces, unsubscribes and complaints? Is there a risk that those records may be inadvertently passed on to you?

2. Scrutinize append prospects: Before you send over a list to an append vendor, make sure it only contains contact information for active customers. The true test of an active customer is whether or not the person would acknowledge a prior relationship with your organization. If the answer is "no," than make sure you remove the name from your list.

List rentals
Scrutinize your provider. Make sure you know your list provider, its reputation and practices for obtaining email addresses. Be prepared to ask: 

• How long has it been around?
• Where did it get the names? What is type and quality of its sources?
• What are its list maintenance practices? How old are the names?
• Can the company track its sources with an opt-in date and site?

Leveraging the information
After getting your new contacts (either from an append or list rental vendor), you will need to have a plan for leveraging these new email addresses properly. Getting the addresses is the easy part; what you do next to engage them makes all the difference. The following are some tips for making the most of these new records without jeopardizing your sender relationship.

• Segregate them from your house list. Set up a unique instance of your sending environment and use a different set of IP addresses to send these messages. That way you'll avoid damaging the deliverability rates of your active house files.
• Engage them appropriately. Once you have your new email addresses, you need to engage each recipient with the right message. For email appends, that means acknowledging your prior relationship and promoting the benefits of communicating by email. For list rental addresses, you'll want to introduce your company and services in a way that's relevant to the list's demographic characteristics.    
• Remove inactive records. If customers and prospects don't engage with your emails, throw them out. Disengaged customers are more likely to complain, especially those obtained through a list rental or append process.
• Think before you add. Only after several mailings and removing all permanent bounces, complaints, unsubscribes and unengaged customers, should you add any names to your house file.

As every marketer knows, the best list you can have is your own. Now remember, when you are thinking about using a list from a third party or augmenting an existing list with email appends, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT add these new names directly to your house file. I have seen this done and within days, sometimes hours, clients are calling me asking what they should do because they are blocked at all the major ISPs.

Use these rules when looking at these types of programs, and remember: Keep your lists clean and your customers happy. Good luck sending, and check back next month when we will take a close look at email authentication.

Spencer Kollas is director of delivery services, StrongMail Systems. Read full bio.