Email hygiene entails cleaning out inactive (cold) email subscribers from your future email marketing campaigns and keeping your remaining list warm with healthy email sending habits. Performing email hygiene regularly will ensure you are only emailing the people who truly want your messages-which also helps you avoid your email being marked as spam.

Email service providers (ESPs) have become smarter and more attuned to what recipients want to receive in their inbox. This means a clean list is a must when it comes to getting your emails delivered to your subscribers' inboxes. ESPs are digging in deep to the emails you're sending and the engagement recipients are having with those messages.

Beyond monitoring spam complaints, ESPs are calculating opens, clicks, unsubscribes, inactivity and more into the algorithms that decide inbox placement. Once a recipient opts into your content, it is extremely important for you to monitor and track behavior over time. Permission to send emails does not last forever, even the most engaged subscribers can lose interest as time passes, which can mean they become more of a liability than an asset.

This article will teach you healthy email hygiene habits that will keep your list squeaky clean, keep your small business off of the spam lists, and ensure your marketing emails are delivered and opened. And remember, software such as Keap can help you take your email to the next level.