Keeping a clean email subscriber list is one of the most important practices of online marketing. A clean list is valid (every address can receive mail) and engaged (the people on it show their interest in your emails with opens and clicks).

It’s one thing to compose and curate your content thoughtfully, but how do you ensure that you only send mail to people who still want to hear from you? Regular list maintenance is the answer.

Find and remove unengaged leads

Use engagement filters to find Kartra leads that have not opened an email from you in a long time. If certain people have stopped opening your emails or clicking the links inside, there’s a good chance they’re no longer interested.

You can export the unengaged segment to save it (if desired), then delete it completely to remove the leads from your account.

Advanced filtering shows engagement level

  1. In Kartra, go to your Contacts > All contacts
  2. Click the Advanced filters icon in the top right corner
  3. Select Level of Engagement > Has not opened any email > In at least __ days from the drop-downs
    • Enter a number of days to define the engagement period. 90 days is recommended to maintain a highly engaged list.
    • Pro tip: Add additional filters for even more refined results.
  4. Add the filter(s)

The results shown in the leads table will be updated to match the chosen filter(s). Next, you can export the leads to a CSV file (if you want to keep a backup) and delete them.

Export leads

  1. Select some or all of the filtered leads
  2. Click the download icon in the top right corner to Export
  3. Save the CSV file to your local computer

Delete leads

  1. Select some or all of the filtered leads
  2. Click the X icon in the top right corner to Delete contacts

Pro tip

Before deleting contacts, click the Email icon after selecting them to send them a final re-engagement message. Wait for a period after sending and then take the final action to delete only those who didn’t open the re-engagement broadcast. Using a phased approach to list cleaning is sometimes called "Sunsetting."

Learn more about implementing a Sunset Policy for your email list on the Kartra blog.

Clean a subscriber list before importing

If you are new to Kartra but have been operating online for a while, you probably have subscribers and customers collected from a variety of sources. You can import those contacts into your Kartra account, but list cleaning is recommended first.

  1. Submit your subscriber list to a verification service like Kickbox or BriteVerify
  2. Download the contacts that the verification service confirmed as valid and deliverable.
  3. In the file of deliverable contacts, add a column for Tags.
    • This is optional but will help you see which contacts were on the cleaned list once they’re in your Kartra account.
  4. Add a Tag Name to indicate the verified status to the Tags column for every row
    • Use any word or phrase you prefer. When the list is imported to Kartra, the tag will be created for you and added to each contact.
  5. Import the cleaned list to your Kartra account.

Pro tip

Delete or archive any contacts that were not marked deliverable by the verification service. If you do not want to delete them, name the file clearly so they are not accidentally included in future imports or mailing.