Yahoo! closing orphaned email accounts on July 15th. How do you prepare?

Jen Leonti

Below are suggestions from Yahoo! And StrongMail for properly handling dormant and orphaned Yahoo! accounts that will be retired towards the end of the summer.



Yahoo! is going to be retiring inactive email accounts on July 15. For any Yahoo! subscribers who do not respond, the accounts will become available for use to new subscribers. From mid-July through mid-August, all of these inactive accounts will be hard bounced. There are a few simple steps a company can take to ensure that their list stays clean and the person who receives the email is the one who signed up for it.



1. Examine all of your email lists for Yahoo! subscribers who have not responded in the last 10 months. Set these addresses aside for a campaign to be sent during the last half of July and the early part of August. Since the intent is to ensure that you have appropriate bounces for these accounts, this campaign does not need to be a re-engagement campaign. However, a re-engagement or win-back campaign with a small incentive would serve the dual purpose of suppressing the accounts Yahoo! is re-activating and encouraging your disengaged customers to come back.



2. Transactional emails usually contain personal information. It is vital to protect your customers' identities during this transition. If you typically send account updates, make sure that you send them during late July through early August to your Yahoo! subscribers. Create a suppression list for any addresses at Yahoo! where there has been no response in 11 months



3. Use a reply-to address and include a link to a user profile form to allow recipients to update their email and postal address if necessary. This will allow subscribers to contact you to change their email address, login to the profile form to make changes, or notify you if you are sending to the new recipient.



4. Be willing to suppress any unengaged Yahoo! email addresses you do not include in your late July or early August sends. If you do not have active feedback from Yahoo! then you may be sending to the wrong recipient. Protect your customers' identities and respect the inbox of the new individuals who obtain those addresses.



Take advantage of the time Yahoo! has confirmed these addresses will be hard bounced and you'll find yourself with a cleaner list and protected customers.



- Brought to you by Blackbaud Email Services



c/o jl