Why do my email addresses need verifying, and how do I keep my list clean?

This is part of the Clinic Growth Hub subscription.

Sound familiar?

"I imported 1,200 contacts and only 1,050 came in. Where did the rest go?" "Why am I paying to check addresses before I've sent anything?" "My emails seem to be going to spam." "Should I just upload my whole patient database?" All of these come back to one thing: the health of your email list 🧹.

What's happening

Every new email address that comes into your account is checked once before it's saved. The check asks: does this address really exist, and will it accept email?

This happens however a contact arrives: a spreadsheet import, adding someone by hand, or another system sending them in by webhook. Checking one address uses a tiny fraction of a credit, but if you're out of credits you'll be asked to top up first.

Why it works this way

When you send to addresses that don't exist, the emails bounce. Email providers like Gmail and Outlook watch bounce rates closely. A sender with lots of bounces looks like a spammer, and their emails start landing in junk folders, including the ones going to perfectly good addresses.

All the clinics on the Growth Hub send through the same system, so a bad list doesn't just hurt the clinic that sent it. Checking every address once, up front, keeps your emails, and everyone else's, in the inbox where patients will see them. That's why it's built in rather than optional ✅.

What to do now

  1. Import only people you have a real relationship with: current and recent patients, people who've signed up on your forms. A smaller list of people who know you beats a big cold one every time.
  2. Check the skipped rows after each import. On the Import Complete screen, download the skipped rows file. It lists every address left out and why. If a patient's address was rejected, it's usually a typo: fix it in your own records and add them again.
  3. Let unsubscribes do their job. When someone unsubscribes, they can stop all your emails, or choose which kinds they still want (health tips, clinic news, offers). Either way, it's honoured automatically. You don't need to do anything.
  4. Watch your engagement. In the audience builder, the Email engagement filter lets you find people who opened, clicked, bounced or unsubscribed. Build your regular sends around people who open and click.
  5. Clear out long-dead contacts rather than paying to email people who never open anything.

If you want more detail

The question behind the question

"Am I losing patients by having addresses rejected?" No. An address that fails the check would never have reached that person anyway. All it would have done is cost you credits and damage your sender reputation. The check stops both, before you've spent anything on sending 📬.

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