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What is list hygiene in email marketing?

List hygiene is the routine of keeping an email list to addresses that work and people who still want to hear from you: confirming new sign-ups, removing bad addresses, and letting go of readers who stopped opening. It also helps keep spam complaints low.

What it means in practice

The routine is short, and Google’s sender guidelines ask for most of it:

  • Confirm each address before you subscribe it.
  • Don’t email people who didn’t sign up.
  • Make unsubscribing easy, so nobody has to report you as spam instead.
  • Now and then, ask quiet readers whether they want to stay, and remove those who don’t answer.

How Chapbook uses it

Most list hygiene happens in your email tool, which sends the mail and sees the bounces, opens and unsubscribes. Chapbook sees none of those.

What it does: the sign-up form has spam protection, a reader’s address is one row however many books they sign up for, and every address is marked unconfirmed, so nothing suggests it has been checked. Export the list as a CSV and import it into Kit, Mailchimp, Beehiiv, MailerLite or any other email tool, which can ask each reader to confirm. Deleting a reader in Chapbook does not remove them from your email tool, so remove them there too.

In the sample on this page, the chapter on emails 6 and 7 builds in the easy way out: the last email offers the unsubscribe link plainly.

In a real book

Cover of The Welcome Sequence by Dana Okafor: flat paper-cut envelopes stepping upward in teal, cream and yellow above white type, subtitle “Seven emails that turn a subscriber into a reader”.

The Welcome Sequence

Seven emails that turn a subscriber into a reader, by Dana Okafor

Lead magnet, 3,626 words, 17 pages

The outline the planner proposed from its brief, chapter by chapter:

  1. 01 Introduction 282 words
  2. 02 Email 1: The one they actually open 681 words
  3. 03 Emails 2 and 3: Who you are and what to expect 729 words
  4. 04 Emails 4 and 5: Your best two pieces, reframed 669 words
  5. 05 Emails 6 and 7: The ask, and the door left open 743 words
  6. 06 The schedule and the template 478 words
Start from this brief Read the book it became

Sources

Last reviewed 30 October 2026

  1. Google, “Email sender guidelines”
  1. What is double opt-in? Double opt-in means a new subscriber confirms their address from an email before joining a list. Why lists use it, and how it works with Chapbook's sign-ups.
  2. What is opt-in? Opt-in means a person actively agrees to receive your email before joining your list. What counts as agreeing, and how Chapbook's sign-up form records it.
  3. What is a welcome sequence? A welcome sequence is a short series of automatic emails a new subscriber gets after signing up. What each email does, and the one Chapbook writes from your book.
  1. Lead magnet generator: a typeset guide from one paragraph Turn one paragraph into a typeset lead magnet: an outline you approve, chapters in your voice, a cover, a PDF and an EPUB, and a page that collects readers.

Questions people ask

What spam rate should a sender stay under?

Google's sender guidelines, checked on 30 October 2026, say to keep the rate reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.10% and to avoid ever reaching 0.30%.

Should I remove subscribers who don't open my emails?

Google's sender guidelines suggest considering it, and also suggest periodically asking recipients to confirm they want to stay subscribed. Ask first, then remove those who don't answer.

Read a chapter of your own book before you pay for it.

The outline, one sample chapter up to 2,500 words and a watermarked cover are free: 60 Book Credits on sign-up, no card.

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