Why clean your list if Mailchimp handles bounces?
Mailchimp stops sending to an address after it bounces, but the bounce has already happened by then and counts against that campaign. Checking your list first finds bad addresses before you send.
How to clean your Mailchimp list in 4 steps
- 1Export your audience. In Mailchimp, go to Audience, choose Export audience and confirm. Mailchimp emails you when it's ready. Open the ZIP file and use the CSV of subscribed contacts.
- 2Upload the CSV to BounceLayer. We find the email column and check every address. No email is sent.
- 3Download your results. Each address is marked valid, invalid, catch-all, disposable or unknown.
- 4Update Mailchimp. Make a CSV of the addresses you want to remove and import it into your audience with a tag like bad-email, choosing to update existing contacts. Then view that tag and archive those contacts.
Mailchimp sometimes changes its menus, so check its help pages if a step looks different. Try the update on a small test group first.
What to do with each result
| Result | What to do in Mailchimp |
|---|---|
| Valid | Keep the contact. |
| Invalid | Remove the contact. Emails to this address would bounce. |
| Disposable | Remove the contact. These addresses stop working quickly. |
| Catch-all | Tag these and send to them separately in smaller batches, or leave them out. |
| Unknown | Keep the contact and check it again later. You aren't charged for these. |