Your email marketing will generate greater profitability (ROI) if you spend time building and maintaining a list of committed subscribers. Mailchimp lists have built-in tools that will help you on the go.

In addition, we have certain list requirements that all Mailchimp users must comply with, so we recommend some best practices that will help you ensure that your subscribers stay committed to your business.

In this article, you will learn the recommended and mandatory practices for collecting and maintaining lists.

Requirements for lists

As a marketing platform with millions of users around the world, our obligation is to guarantee the reliability of the service we provide. This implies the fulfillment of a series of requirements related to the contact lists that are reflected in our Terms of use.

These are the most important requirements that your contact list must meet.
Do not use third party email list

Third party lists are prohibited under our Terms of Use. This includes purchased or leased lists and lists compiled from external sources, including public websites. The preparation of your contact list corresponds exclusively to you.
Get the necessary permits

It is possible to store different types of contacts in a Mailchimp list, even those who have not subscribed to receive marketing content. Remember that it is mandatory to respect the permission levels of the contacts on your list. Check this article about the types of contacts to solve your doubts about which marketing materials to distribute among the different contacts.
Recommendations for your list

Mailchimp puts at your disposal a series of integrated tools to help you sort and organize your list. However, it is up to you to exercise the recommended practices in data collection and maintenance of the list. A poor maintenance of the list can lead to low participation, complaints of misuse and problems of non-compliance. Depending on the circumstances, and due to these incidents, we would be forced to close your account.

In addition to our requirements, follow these recommendations to optimize the status of your list.
Use a main list

If possible, it is best to use a single list, organized by groups or segments, instead of keeping several lists in the same account. For Mailchimp, all these lists are independent, even if they are in the same account, and therefore billing takes place taking into account the total number of subscribers of all of them. If you have duplicate contacts in several lists, we recommend that you create a master list, or master list, because that way you will save money. In addition, a single list is easier to manage and order.

In this article you have all the information to combine several Mailchimp lists into a single main list.
Maintain the necessary permits

For the contacts subscribed to your list, the permissions can become obsolete if you barely interact with them. If you have subscribers that you do not usually interact with, we recommend that you send them an email outside the Mailchimp platform to have them confirm their subscription again. In this way, you will reduce the number of emails returned and complaints of misuse.
Retake inactive subscribers or delete them

We strongly recommend that you reconnect with inactive subscribers from time to time to confirm that they are still interested in your business or product. If your inactive subscribers do not respond to your recruitment campaign, it is best to unsubscribe them from your list.
Allows subscribers to update their profile

If you use Mailchimp for your email marketing, include a link to update the profile in your campaigns, so that recipients can update their personal information and their subscription preferences. If you use interest groups, subscribers will have the possibility to change groups from their profile.
Evaluate the confirmation method

You have the option to choose between two methods of subscribing to your list: the single confirmation and the double confirmation. Double confirmation requires users to give their permission by email before you can include them on your list as subscribed contacts. With this method you ensure that those who subscribe have an interest in your business and exclude invalid email addresses from your list.