What should I use for list hygiene before a send?

For list hygiene before a send, use a checklist that removes bad addresses, risky segments, and compliance issues. The exact process depends on whether this is for email, SMS, or another channel, but for email these are the main steps:

Pre-send list hygiene checklist

1. Remove hard bounces

   • Delete addresses that permanently failed before.
   • These will hurt deliverability if you keep sending to them.

2. Suppress recent complainers/unsubscribes

   • Exclude anyone who opted out, marked spam, or asked not to be contacted.

3. Filter inactive or unengaged contacts

   • Consider excluding people who haven’t opened/clicked in a long time, especially for a risky send.
   • You can segment them into a re-engagement list instead.

4. Deduplicate the list

   • Remove duplicate email addresses so someone doesn’t get multiple copies.

5. Validate syntax and domain

   • Catch malformed addresses and bad domains before sending.

6. Remove role accounts if appropriate

   • Examples: info@, support@, sales@.
   • These sometimes have lower engagement or higher complaint risk.

7. Check for suppression lists

   • Honor internal suppression lists from previous campaigns, complaints, and manual exclusions.

8. Confirm consent/compliance

   • Make sure everyone in the send has the right permission under your policy and applicable laws.

9. Segment by engagement/risk

   • If the list is mixed, split highly engaged users from cold users and send carefully.

10. Run a seed test

• Send to a small internal/test group first to catch rendering, link, and deliverability issues.

Tools / methods commonly used

• Email verification service for syntax/domain/mailbox checks
• CRM or ESP suppression lists
• Deliverability tools for hygiene scoring and risk analysis
• Engagement scoring to identify inactive subscribers

If you mean “what should I use” as in a specific tool

Common options include:

• Built-in hygiene/suppression features in your ESP like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Campaign Monitor, HubSpot, etc.
• Dedicated verification services like ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, BriteVerify, Kickbox
• For SMS, a phone validation and carrier lookup tool instead

If you want, I can also give you:

• a 1-minute pre-send hygiene checklist
• a deliverability-safe cold list policy
• or recommendations for a specific platform like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, HubSpot, Salesforce, or Twilio.