Poor Data Quality Creating Challenges for Email Message Delivery

3. Manage bounce rates. Anytime a hard bounce occurs because the email address doesn't exist, the address should be removed from your email database. This will prevent the same bad email address from continually damaging your sender reputation.

4. Validate inactive emails prior to mailing. If you're not mailing to a segment of your database more than once a month, those addresses are also considered inactive and should be cleansed before mailing. Two percent of data goes bad each month, according to Return Path. Retailers should look to validate email addresses and remove any invalid addresses prior to mailing in order to ensure a lower bounce rate. Improving email deliverability starts with building a proper data quality strategy and validating email addresses. Retailers are continuing to make progress, but there's still more that can be done to improve email deliverability, and therefore customer service.