Deleting contacts | Clean Database Best practices

[TereB-n-O]

Hello 

I am trying to clean up my DB but I wanted to know if you have any suggestions on the criteria that can be used. I already know about the hard bounce contacts, but unfortunately there aren't much contacts with that value.

Any other criteria you suggest? I am trying to delete at least 1,000 contacts. With the bounce filter I am only able to delete 100 - 200. Maybe the 'last activity date' property could help?
Thank you!

[Josh · Accepted solution]

Hi @TereB-n-O,

There are many options, but I love the "Sends Since Last Engagement" Report. What we would typically do is create 3 lists: Red, Yellow, Green. Each list would be an active list and use the "Sends Since Last Engagement" criteria.  

• Red: a high volume of sends since last engagement
• Yellow: a medium volume of sends since last engagement
• Green: a low volume of sends since last engagement

The high, medium, low isn't a specific number, but more along the lines of how many marketing emails you send via that portal. You can likely delete many of your red contacts, especially if you add additional disqualifying filters. If you need to remove more, you could potentially remove some yellow...again, with some additional criteria.

As another option, you could look at things like IP location. If there's a country that you'd never do business with, you could potentially remove a high volume of contacts. 

Here's an article to help.

Josh