Should you Verify Unsubscribe Emails?

Matthew Wittkin - February 17, 2010

I recently began to dig deeper with the unsubscribe emails that get generated from our monthly newsletter. To my surprise, almost 30% of the unsubscribed emails were not in our database. “How can this be?” Doing some further investigating I found that many, if not all, of the missing emails were in our database under an email alias. In my next blog I will talk more about email alias names, email addresses and how they differ.

My next step was to reply directly to the emails asking if it could be possible that they were in our database under a different email or email alias. In some cases it took multiple email communications to find the correct email alias we had for them in our database. That being said, however, most of the correspondence I received was nice; the majority of people were appreciative that I was taking the time to verify and remove their email address.

So in closing, it’s my opinion that verifying unsubscribed emails should be added to your company’s Best Practices when removing unsubscribed emails from your database. Doing this will help you with the CAN-SPAM Act, as well as help you build your brand’s credibility.