> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.mailofly.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Audience Hygiene

> Best practices for list cleaning, sunsetting inactive subscribers, and maintaining high engagement.

# Audience Hygiene

Maintaining clean, engaged contact lists is critical to long-term deliverability. Sending to unengaged or dead addresses degrades your domain reputation and drives your emails into the spam folder.

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## The Engagement Trap

Mailbox providers (like Gmail and Outlook) track how recipients interact with your emails:

* **Positive Signals**: Opening, clicking links, replying, moving messages from Spam to Inbox.
* **Negative Signals**: Leaving messages unopened, deleting without reading, marking as spam.

If you continue blasting thousands of unengaged contacts who haven't opened an email in 6 months, mailbox providers begin classifying your entire sending stream as unwanted bulk mail.

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## Implementing a Sunset Policy

A sunset policy automatically removes or isolates contacts who stop interacting with your emails:

1. **Active (0–90 days)**: Send all standard campaigns and newsletters.
2. **At Risk (90–180 days)**: Reduce frequency. Send targeted re-engagement campaigns with strong calls to action.
3. **Sunset (180+ days inactive)**: Stop sending regular broadcasts. If they do not respond to a final opt-in confirmation, archive or delete the contact from your audience.

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## List Cleaning Checklist

* **Never Buy Email Lists**: Purchased lists contain recycled spam traps and bad addresses that will immediately get your domain blocklisted.
* **Validate at Signup**: Use front-end email format validation and verification to catch typos before contacts are added to your database.
* **Respect Unsubscribes Instantly**: Ensure users can easily opt out with one click.


## Related topics

- [MCP Server](/mcp-server/introduction.md)
- [Introduction](/audience/introduction.md)
- [Migration Guide](/audience/migration-guide.md)
- [Contacts](/audience/contacts.md)
- [MCP Quickstart](/mcp-server/quickstart.md)