One of the simplest ways to improve your email deliverability is to make sure you have a clean email file. With upward of 40 percent of your list degrading each year with email changes and data entry errors, your list can be one of the more detrimental elements of your campaign when viewed with ISP eyes. When you have high unknown user rates -- meaning, a high percentage of your file that comes back as non-deliverable because the accounts are non-existent at the ISP -- you look like a spammer.

To make sure your files are clean, do the following:

• Use consistent bounce algorithms to make sure that you remove bad emails from your file regularly.
• Run your file through an email-change-of-address service to ensure that you have the most current email addresses for your customers.
• Process your file through a list hygiene service to make sure that your list is free from common data entry errors that make email addresses incorrect.
• Require double entry of addresses for accuracy.
• Check addresses for RFC compliance and ISP standards.
• Send a welcome message and pull bounces off immediately.

By taking these simple steps to clean up your list, you remove one of the biggest hurdles to your email delivery rates.

Next: Authentication