How to clean and enrich your contact lists in Emelia for better deliverability

If you’re running cold outreach or any kind of email campaign, deliverability is king. But here’s the harsh truth: most contact lists are a mess. Old emails, fake signups, duplicates, and missing info can kill your sender reputation and waste your time. This guide is for anyone using Emelia who wants to actually reach inboxes, not spam folders.

Let’s skip the sales pitch and get practical. Here’s how to clean and enrich your lists in Emelia so you get more replies and fewer headaches.

Why Bother Cleaning and Enriching Contacts?

You might be tempted to skip this step and just blast out your emails. Here’s why that’s a bad idea:

  • Bad data = bounces. High bounce rates tank your reputation with email providers. Too many, and even valid emails go to spam.
  • Missing info kills personalization. No first name? No company? Your emails look robotic and get ignored.
  • Duplicates waste your send quota. And annoy people if you hit them twice.

You don’t need a “perfect” list. But you do need a clean enough list to avoid the obvious problems.

Step 1: Export and Back Up Your Current Contacts

Before you start scrubbing, get a backup. Things can go sideways and you don’t want to lose valuable contacts.

  • Export your current list from Emelia. Use CSV or Excel format — whatever you’re comfortable with.
  • Save a copy somewhere safe. If you’re making big changes, version your files. (Trust me. You’ll thank yourself later.)

Pro tip: If you’ve got multiple lists, work on one at a time. Otherwise, it’s easy to mix things up.

Step 2: Remove Duplicates

Duplicates aren’t just annoying — they make your metrics messy and can get you flagged for sending spam.

How to do it:

  • Open your exported file in Excel or Google Sheets.
  • Use the “Remove duplicates” feature to clear out emails that show up more than once.
  • If you’ve got multiple lists, combine them into one sheet first, then dedupe.

What to ignore: Don’t stress about minor variations in names (like “Jon” vs. “John”) unless you’re sending super-personalized campaigns. Focus on duplicate email addresses.

Step 3: Validate Email Addresses

This is where most lists fall apart. People make typos, companies rebrand, and some folks just give out fake emails.

What works:

  • Use an email verification tool. Emelia has built-in validation, or you can use third-party services like NeverBounce, ZeroBounce, or Mailfloss.
  • The goal is to flag:
    • Invalid emails (typos, bad domains)
    • Catch-all domains (riskier)
    • Temporary/disposable addresses (always remove)
    • Role-based addresses (info@, sales@ — these often go nowhere)

How to do it in Emelia:

  1. Upload your contact list.
  2. Run the validation feature (check your Emelia plan — some limits may apply).
  3. Review the flagged addresses.
  4. Remove or fix invalid/temporary emails. For catch-all and role accounts, use your judgment.

What to ignore: Don’t obsess over every “catch-all” result. Some are fine, but if you see lots of bounces from a domain, remove it.

Step 4: Fill in the Blanks (Enrich Your Data)

Now you’ve got a cleaner list — but how much do you actually know about these contacts? Personalization works, but not if you’re missing basics like first name, company, or job title.

How to enrich:

  • Manual enrichment: For small lists, look up missing info on LinkedIn or company websites. Tedious, but accurate.
  • Bulk enrichment tools: Tools like Hunter.io, Clearbit, or Snov.io can fill in missing fields (name, company, LinkedIn profile, etc.) automatically.
  • CSV enrichment in Emelia: Emelia offers some enrichment features. Upload your list, and let it append missing fields where possible. Check what’s available on your plan.

Pro tip: Prioritize fields you’ll actually use. If you only personalize with first name and company, don’t waste time gathering job titles.

What doesn’t work: Don’t trust enrichment tools to get everything right. Always spot-check for weird results — AI can hallucinate, and databases are rarely perfect.

Step 5: Standardize and Format Your Data

A clean list is only as good as its formatting. Inconsistent data makes your emails look sloppy.

  • Names: Capitalize first letters (“john” → “John”). Fix all-caps or all-lowercase.
  • Companies: Standardize company names (no “Inc.” in some, but not others).
  • Email addresses: Make sure they’re all lowercase.
  • Custom fields: If you’re using things like {Industry} or {City}, fill blanks with a default like “your industry.”

Quick fix: Use Excel formulas or Google Sheets functions to automate most of this. Don’t do it by hand unless you have to.

What to ignore: Don’t stress about perfection. If someone’s “Johnathan” instead of “Jonathan” once in a list of 5,000, it’s not a big deal.

Step 6: Segment Your List (Optional, But Worth It)

Once your data’s clean, consider breaking your list into segments. Why? Different messages work better for different groups.

  • Segment by job title, industry, company size, or geography.
  • Create separate campaigns or messaging for each segment.
  • If you’re just starting, keep it simple — maybe two or three broad groups.

What to ignore: Don’t get lost in over-segmentation. If you only have 200 contacts, you don’t need 10 segments.

Step 7: Import Back Into Emelia and Test

You’ve cleaned, enriched, and segmented. Now bring your list back into Emelia and make sure everything works.

  • Import your updated CSV file.
  • Map your columns to the right fields in Emelia.
  • Send a test campaign to yourself or a small internal group first. Check:
    • Personalization tokens (like {FirstName}) fill correctly.
    • No weird formatting or blank emails.
    • Deliverability is solid (no immediate bounces or going to spam).

Pro tip: Always send a few test emails before launching a real campaign. It’s the easiest way to catch mistakes before they go out to hundreds of people.

Step 8: Keep It Clean (Ongoing Maintenance)

Cleaning isn’t a one-and-done thing. Your list will get messy again — people change jobs, companies fold, and emails go stale.

  • Validate new contacts before adding them.
  • Clean your full list every few months if you’re doing regular outreach.
  • Remove hard bounces and unsubscribes after every campaign.

What to ignore: Don’t worry about soft bounces (temporary issues) unless they become a pattern.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

  • Relying on purchased lists. These are almost always garbage. You’ll get poor results and possibly get your domain blacklisted.
  • Assuming more data = better results. Quality beats quantity every time.
  • Skipping the test send. This is how embarrassing mistakes happen.

Wrapping Up: Don’t Overthink It

You don’t need a perfect list — just a good enough one to avoid obvious problems. Start simple: clean out the junk, fill in what you actually use, and keep things up to date. Most of the “AI enrichment” tools out there are just okay, so spot-check before trusting them blindly.

Iterate as you go. The most important thing is to actually reach real people with your message. Clean data helps, but don’t let it stop you from getting started.