Verifying my customers' email addresses -- how to?

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1

I want to verify all the email addresses in all my lists. How do I do that with aweber or AQW Pro Tools?

2

I generally do not recommend third party list verification services. They compromise the integrity of the security of your subscriber data and rarely have a real look at the transactional data that’s necessary to validate if a subscriber is valid or not.

I would encourage you to read thru this other thread on the same topic. Some of my Unsubscribes show this: "This subscriber has been unsubscribed manually via the control panel." - #12 by tomkulzer

If you’re interested in having the highest quality subscriber data, I would recommend using confirmed opt-in.

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3

Thanks for your response, but I’m not looking for a 3rd party program. I am buying AW Pro Tools mainly because it is supposed to have this ability built in but I cannot find it. Was I given false information?

4

AW Pro Tools is not run by AWeber, you’ll need to contact their support for information on how their product is expected to work.

5

Darn, I thought AW Pro Tools was an Aweber product. That’s why you mentioned 3rd party tools I assume. We are, and have been, for several years using the opt in strategy. I want verify emails from another list from before we started using Aweber. We have, perhaps, 10,000+ accounts that are not in Aweber and I do not want to email them until after I have checked all the email addresses.

6

I read the referred to thread. This brings to mind a few questions. Firstly, does Aweber validate or clean a list as it is imported? Some of my customers have not been active in years and others are regulars. I want to import a select set of older customers so that I can email them to bring them back into my online store. What is the best way to go about this?

7

During the import process, AWeber does not clean lists. Instead, our method for managing lists is specifically designed to identify potential issues within a list, ensuring efficiency for that particular purpose.

When your import is submitted, it goes through a process that helps us to automatically determine whether or not this was the case. We look at:

  • How permission was obtained for email
  • The age of a list and how recently it was emailed
  • Other items that indicate proper (or poor) list management

A clean list that can be used with AWeber will have been mailed regularly, with requests for unsubscribes promptly honored, and undeliverable addresses automatically removed. Before any email was sent to a list’s subscribers, explicit permission for those emails must have been given.

AWeber is a permission-based service, which means you must ensure that you have explicit consent from your subscribers before importing them to your mailing list. You can check here to determine whether a specific list is eligible for import.

Focus on emailing subscribers who are regular customers rather than those who have been inactive for years. Sending emails to inactive inboxes can result in undeliverable messages, leading to a high bounce rate and potential complaints, which can ultimately harm your sending reputation.

If you intend to reengage with inactive customers, consider reaching out to them outside of AWeber first. This allows you to gauge their interest in joining your mailing list and their willingness to engage with your services. Once you have confirmed their interest, you can then proceed to import these former inactive customers into your mailing list.

8

All helpful information and I will stick to these guidelines. the problem we just found is that our SunShop cart has been asking if customers want to sign up for our newsletter. So we have a list of customers that checked the box to get that newsletter and have neve received it. So a couple of questions:

  1. Is there an automated way to determine if some/all of those people also signed up in Aweber if I make a CSV export file from SunShop?

  2. All of the people in the list I want to import have purchased from us, so the list is not from an external source. Therefore, will Aweber allow me to import that list from SunShop?

  3. You mention doing an emailing outside of Aweber. What software would be good for this please?

Last note: I am very new to this job, but have about 30 years working in IT, but not ever on automated mailing lists.

9

You would not be able to automate the process of determining whether individuals from your SunShop have also signed up for your AWeber account. When you export the file from SunShop and subsequently import those contacts into your AWeber list, you can utilize the “Update on Import” option mentioned in this related community post as well as the use the Tag on Import feature. This allows you to tag those contacts, which you can then search for on the Subscribers page.

It’s important to note that even if customers have made purchases directly, they must be aware and provide explicit permission to be added to your mailing list before you can import them. As you mentioned, if they checked the box to receive a newsletter to subscribe to your mailing list, then you are clear to import those customers into your AWeber account.

When I referred to sending emails outside of AWeber to request permission from customers to be added to your mailing list, I was suggesting the use of your custom domain-based email. You could consider utilizing Gmail’s “Send Mail As” feature with your custom domain-based email. I hope this information is helpful!