Jeff Coveney
Keeping people out of your campaigns is just as important as putting people in. When we think of targeted lists, we tend to think about who the campaign is targeting. For example, a mailing might drop to:
Leads with C-level titles
Leads located in the US eastern region
Leads in the finance industry
Just as important as who is targeted, smart marketers should consider who shouldn’t receive the campaign.
Why Develop a Global Mailing Suppression List?
1. Reduce Risk of Marketing to the Wrong People
Yes, most marketing automation systems automatically pull out unsubscribes and undeliverables. But what about others that your organization wants to avoid? What do you do with customers? With disqualified? With competitors?
2. Get the Count
I frequently see marketers get asked from the executive team before the mailing drops: “How many people will receive the mailing?”
Some marketers run the target list, but neglect to take out all of the unsubscribes and undeliverables. (I’ve seen as much of a 50% difference.) The end result is the pre-campaign numbers are over-inflated, yet they are still discussed among the executive team. That process is obviously not a recipe for success.
3. Get Accurate Insights
By developing a precise target list and a global suppression list, that brings down the number of eligible people tracked through your system.
So when your organization runs its click-through rates and other metrics, the reports will provide better accuracy.
4. Don’t Rely on Memory
If you look at ten different campaigns, you’ll notice various suppression list versions. Marketers frequently ask themselves every time a mailing is created, “Should I suppress these people or not?” When an organization goes beyond the standard unsub suppressions, the process can get complex quickly and lead to inconsistencies.
Creating a global suppression list allows organizations to build the list once so the marketing team members do not have to continuously rebuild the logic within the individual campaigns.
Develop the Global Mailing Suppression List
A best practice is to develop a Global Mailing Suppression List and include it as part of every mailing campaign. In addition to obtaining more accurate numbers and metrics, this list reduces the risk of mailing people who shouldn’t receive emails.
If using Marketo, develop this list within the lead database as a Smartlist. You might want consider running a nightly campaign to edit membership in a static list to improve performance (Big complex Smartlists can slow down a mailing).
Here are a few filters to consider for your Global Mailing Suppression List.
Definitely Include in the Suppression List
Unsubcribes
Undeliverables
Blacklist
Marketing suspended
Leads where the email address is empty
For Discussion
Competitors
Customers
Problem accounts
Do not call list
Leads in certain stages (Disqualified, Opportunity)
Sales generated leads (Leads that reps add manually to the system without an opt-in)
Other Notes
Looking ahead, create the Global Mailing Suppression List separate from a Global Scoring Suppression List. In some cases, organizations may want to score leads as part of the lead lifecycle process but not mail to them. Creating a separate global list provides marketers with that flexibility.
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