Email List Cleaning, Validation and Data Matching

Frequently Asked Questions

1. If my database is 100% collected and owned by me or my company, should I bother to clean and validate it?

Yes.  Over time, many formerly valid email addresses become spam traps or “honeypots” once they are no longer in legitimate use.  Cleaning and validating your list protects your sender reputation and helps keep white listings in place.  It allows you to maximize your deliverability percentages with each email campaign and helps avoid being blocked, blacklisted or shut down by your ISP.  

2. Will cleaning and validating an email list really help deliverability of my newsletters and emails?

Absolutely.  It radically decreases spam-related issues and abuse complaints. Sending to valid, deliverable and non-complainer emails will improve your sender reputation, and virtually guarantee better deliverability rates.
 

3. What data file types do you accept for cleaning and validation services?

We accept email lists in the following file types: .txt, .csv, .xls, .xlsx or .zip files.
 

4. What will my list look like when cleaning and validation is completed?

The email cleaning and validation process requires the extraction of email addresses from your complete contact records, which often include columns for other data such as first name, last name, company name, address, city, state, phone, etc. 

Most companies do “standard" list cleaning and will give you two lists back. One will consist of valid and deliverable email addresses. The other will consist of invalid, scrubbed, cleaned and undeliverable email addresses. 

Beware: each list they give back to you will contain email addresses only, even if you provided full data records in your original list. This is likely to cause problems, especially if your data must be synchronized with a CRM or other database. 

Voodoo’s cleaning and validation service goes the extra mile to match your valid/invalid email addresses to the full data records you provided. We add a column to your original spreadsheet identifying each record as either “Valid” or “Invalid”. 

Please Note: We will not remove duplicates or any records from your database as part of this service, however the Voodoo system itself does this automatically.

 

5. Can I combine multiple lists and avoid paying a minimum for each list? 

Yes.  You can combine multiple lists into a single list.  This will reduce the price compared to paying a minimum for each separate list. Our pricing is based on a per-list total count.

 

6. Is my data safe from being accessed by anyone other than me? 

Yes. Our list cleaning service uses a PCI-compliant workflow, and the management and control of your order (and your data) is strictly limited from start to finish. We never sell or otherwise distribute customer data…ever.  Our reputation depends on it.

 

7. What do you do with data after it has been cleaned and validated?

In case you need a backup, your data is temporarily stored on a secure internal server that is not connected to the Internet.  The server is accessible only from an internal network to specific IP addresses and by an authorized individual with permission to work with your data. After 90 days, your data will automatically be deleted and destroyed.

 

8. Can I be sure my data hasn’t been used by others?

Yes.  "Data Seeding" is an easy and foolproof way to monitor this and make sure your data hasn’t fallen into the wrong hands.  Simply create a few new email addresses using free services from Gmail, Yahoo, etc. (Create special addresses that are easy to recognize, and DO NOT give them to anyone or use them for any other purpose!) 

Add these new email addresses to the list you provide for cleaning and validation.  If you ever receive an email to one of these newly created email addresses, please report it to us right away.  Voodoo has NEVER had a client report any email delivered to a seeded account.

 

9. Can you validate any email address?

Yes, we can validate any email address from anywhere in the world.

 

10. I’ve heard it’s hard to validate Yahoo email addresses.  Can you do that?

Yes. The process to validate Yahoo email addresses is much more complicated and time consuming, but we do include it as a standard part of our service.  However, we accept a maximum of 20% of Yahoo email addresses in the full list you provide for cleaning and validation.  This percentage is usually sufficient to cover the Yahoo address content of most lists. If your list has more than 20% Yahoo emails in it, please contact us at listcleaning@voodooviral.com to determine the additional charge based on the percentage of Yahoo addresses in your list.  


11. Can my list be comprised of email addresses from another single domain besides Yahoo, like aol.com or hotmail.com? 

Sorry, we cannot accept or process lists containing over 35% of addresses from any single domain (except Yahoo, which remains a 20% maximum).

If you are unsure if the domain content of your list complies with our limits, please email listcleaning@voodooviral.com and we will review your list, free of charge, prior to confirming price and processing your order. 

 

12. How long will it take to receive my validated data once I provide my list to you? 

This depends on list size and the number of jobs ahead of you. Normal turnaround time is 1-3 business days. Lists of one million or more records require additional time to complete. We do not guarantee any specific list turnaround time.
 

13. How do other customers rate your service?

Based on the customer satisfaction survey sent at the end of each list cleaning service, over 87% say they are extremely satisfied with the results of this service. A minuscule .1% have ever expressed dissatisfaction.  


14. What is your 95% accuracy guarantee? 

After processing, we guarantee the validated results of your email data file will be 95% accurate. If there are any questions about the validity of your processed list, we will review a complete bounce file, provided by you, free of charge. If necessary, we will review and re-run the file, also at no charge, to ensure compliance with our guarantee. (We do not provide refunds as part of this guarantee.)

Note: We include an email list cleaning and validation report with your returned order.  If we determine, based on our processes, that the email data contained in your file is seriously outdated, scraped, purchased or derived from an unreliable source, we will make a recommendation stating “Do Not Send” to this email list.  In such cases, we cannot guarantee the validity of your processed list because there are too many variables introduced by questionable data. 


15. More questions?

Please feel free to call us at 949-309-2847 ext. 1. We are generally available to answer questions Monday through Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm Pacific time.  We will return your call promptly if you do not reach a real person when you call.