Marketing & Communications
October 30, 2025 · Last updated on March 14, 2026
Recipe: Keep Your Mailing List Clean and Healthy
# Emails
# Marketing
# Recipes for success
Makes: A clean mailing list free from problematic or harmful email addresses
Regularly auditing your mailing list ensures that your emails land in the right inboxes. Removing harmful or inactive addresses helps you improve ROI, avoid spam complaints, and strengthen your sender reputation.
This recipe walks you through checking your mailing list against the Dotdigital Global Suppression List (GSL) to protect your deliverability and reputation.
What you need
- Dotdigital account access
- Dotdigital Global Suppression List (GSL): A database of email addresses and domains known for spam complaints, invalidity, or other risks
- Suppression Settings in Dotdigital: Where you’ll run the GSL scan
Time required
Prep: 2 minutes
Cook: 2 minutes
What will this help me achieve?
- Identify and remove potentially harmful email addresses
- Improve overall email deliverability and engagement
- Protect your sender reputation and reduce spam reports
Concepts we’ll be using
Global Suppression List (GSL): A tool provided by Dotdigital to identify risky or low-quality email addresses based on global patterns and complaints
Hard Bounces: Emails that cannot be delivered permanently
ISP and Direct Complainers: Recipients who frequently mark emails as spam
Invalid Domains: Domains incapable of receiving emails due to technical issues
Known Litigators: Individuals known to take legal action against unsolicited email senders
Prep
Log into your Dotdigital account
Navigate to:
Settings > Email > Suppression Settings Click Run GSL
Review the report to see how many addresses are flagged for suppression
Activate
- Review flagged contacts and choose which to suppress:
- Known Hard Bounces
- Known ISP Complainers
- Known Direct Complainers
- Invalid Domains
- Known Purchased Addresses
- Known Complainers (e.g. via social media reports)
- Known Litigators
- Confirm the suppression. Note: This action cannot be undone
- Repeat this process monthly to maintain list hygiene
More to explore
In this article, we’ll give an overview of how to link one or more Contact Preferences to Dotdigital. We’ll also cover how unsubscribes are managed and how your Customers can manage their own Contact Preferences online.
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