📩 Learn From My Worst Email Marketing Decision

You get a new subscriber. Great. Before you celebrate, make sure the address is real. That single habit keeps your messages out of spam and your reputation intact.

I learned the hard way.

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Years ago, long before I knew what I was doing with email service providers, a friend connected me with someone who had a freshly acquired list. I installed a sketchy open source tool, stayed up half the night, and loaded 50,000 addresses. Then I hit send.

Nothing. Then more nothing.

Twenty four hours later, the numbers were brutal.
Open rate: 9 percent.
About half the messages never landed anywhere useful.
Bounces were through the roof, because a huge chunk of the addresses did not exist.

The follow up call came next. Where were the replies? Nowhere, of course. You cannot get a reply from an inbox that is not real. Simple lesson, very expensive.

What went wrong

Sending to fake or mistyped addresses triggers hard bounces. Enough of those and inbox providers start to distrust you. Distrust leads to poor placement. Poor placement means wasted work, unhappy readers, and a quiet sales dashboard.

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How to fix it, every time

• Use real time validation at sign up. Catch typos and junk before they touch your list.

• Run new subscribers through a verification service. Automate it so you do not forget.

• Schedule list hygiene. Remove addresses that bounce, and review unengaged contacts on a cadence that fits your send volume.

• Handle bounces quickly. Let your system suppress bad addresses after the first hard bounce.

A small habit with a big payoff

Verification is not glamorous. It is guardrail work. But it is the difference between landing in the inbox and drifting into spam. Do the check before you press send. Your future campaigns, and your future self, will thank you.

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