The Ins and Outs of Email and Data Appends

If you are looking to obtain new email subscribers and improve the quality of existing ones, you should consider email append. And when used with your email marketing campaigns, data append can drastically improve your success rate. So, what is the difference between email and data append?

In the simplest terms, email append adds valid email addresses to contacts in your database. These contacts usually fall into one of the following categories:

  1. Contacts with no email address
  2. Contacts with old or outdated email addresses
  3. Contacts with an email address that you are not sure are valid
  4. Contacts that may have a more current email address

It also is important to keep in mind that it is best only to append email addresses under the following circumstances:

  • An individual has opted-in to receive emails from you
  • You have a prior relationship with this person
  • The individual has not opted out of your email programs

Email appends begin by establishing the segment of data to add email addresses. Running an email hygiene report is necessary to identify the segments. Verification is then conducted to find out if the email addresses on file are current and active. Those that are not should be flagged.

It is important to find a reputable company that offers email verification and append services. That provider will process the data and assign email addresses to the missing files. Most append projects will add new email addresses to approximately 25 percent of your file.

Once you have the new emails you will want to reach out to your contacts. Not only will this process give recipients the option of opting out of your emails, but you can also identify undeliverable emails.

So what about data append? Data append is basically an email append in reverse. You are adding data or information about an individual on your email list to better target that person. What follows are some examples of the information you might want to add through data append: address, age, birth month or income. Of course, these are just the beginning. The options are literally endless for the type of information you can add using data append.

Data append is used mostly for individuals, but households also are an option. If an email address is not available for the person you are looking for, you can check if there is anyone else living at the address, for example, a spouse. You can then decide if it makes sense to contact the spouse.