Clearing of retained addresses using profile enhancement

Clearing of retained addresses using profile enhancement

In this best practice article, I'll explain how to remove retained addresses from your active subscribers using profile enhancement in Mailingwork.

What are retained addresses?

Retained addresses are email contacts that have previously received three consecutive hard bounces, meaning emails to these addresses cannot be permanently delivered. This occurs, for example, when an email inbox has been deactivated.

Idea
You can find more information about retained addresses in this article.

How to delete retained addresses from your subscribers

First, create a target group under Subscribers > Target Groups that is defined to only display subscribers who are on the retained address list. To do this, create a new target group in the target group overview using the "Create" button and give it a meaningful name. Then, under the "Definition" tab, select the condition "Retained Addresses" and then the operator "Email address belongs to retained addresses". This setting will search all your subscriber lists for addresses that are already on the retained subscriber list.



In the next step, open the profile enhancement module under Subscribers > Profile Enhancement and create a new profile enhancement. 

1. Subscriber Selection: Select the desired subscriber list from which the retained subscribers should be unsubscribed. If needed, you can also select all your subscriber lists here. Once you've selected the desired lists, add the target group you just created under "Target Groups". This way, the target group acts as a kind of filter for the selected lists.



2. Filter (optional): You can set up additional filters if needed. However, this option is optional and can be skipped.

3. Enhancement: From the "Modify" dropdown menu, select the "Subscriber list assignment " option and then select the desired subscriber list using the "Select subscriber list" button. It's recommended to choose the same subscriber lists that you already selected in the first step. As the second operator, select "Unsubscribe subscribers" from the dropdown menu. This will unsubscribe found addresses (retained addresses) from their respective subscriber lists.

4. Start: Review your settings once more and start the profile enhancement using the "Start" button. Additionally, you can automate the process under "Settings for time-controlled profile enhancement" so that the cleanup is automatically repeated, for example, every 14 days, ensuring your subscribers are regularly cleaned up.

With this method, you keep your subscriber lists and email statistics clean and ensure that no retained addresses remain in your active lists. This not only improves the deliverability of your mailings but also helps you maintain a better overview of your actually reachable contacts.

By automating the profile enhancement, you only need to set up this process once and can then rely on your lists being regularly and automatically cleaned up.

Info
Do you need further support?
If you have questions about the setup or need additional help, our support team is happy to assist you.