Home Factors 
Email is still one of the highest-ROI channels in retail. But it only works if you can actually reach your customers.
That’s a lesson one large home retail brand learned the hard way.
On paper, they had a solid customer list built over years of purchases and interactions. In reality, a significant portion of their database was unusable. Missing emails, hard bounces, and outdated records were quietly undermining every campaign they sent.
This case study shows how a thoughtful data appending and email hygiene strategy helped them turn a broken customer file into a usable, revenue-ready asset.
The Challenge: A Customer File Full of Gaps
Like many retailers, the brand had built a customer database over years of purchases, events, and loyalty interactions. But when they took a closer look, , the gaps were impossible to ignore:
- 23% of their 5,000 customer records had no email address at all.
- Of the 77% of contacts who did have emails, nearly 20% were classified as bad or undeliverable.
- Only about 25% of their email file was considered active and good.
It won’t matter how strong of a campaign you’ve put together when almost half of your email file is unreachable. Poor data hygiene directly impacts engagement, deliverability, and ultimately revenue.
The retailer realized they needed a cleanup.
The Solution: Comprehensive Email Hygiene + Append
Working with PGM’s data enhancement tools, the retailer implemented a multi‑step data append strategy designed to maximize both accuracy and reach.
1. Deep Email Hygiene
Before adding new contacts, the brand needed clarity on what they already had. Email hygiene identified:
- Hard bounces (19%)
- Invalid or unusable emails (20%)
- Questionable emails requiring caution (8%)
- Active, safe-to-send contacts (25%)
This process prevented them from damaging their sender reputation, which is a common issue when retailers blast campaigns to unhealthy lists.
2. Email Append
For the 23% of customers without any email address, new verified emails were added. This instantly opened new communication channels to nearly a quarter of their customer base.
3. Additional Household Emails
Buying decisions often involve multiple household influences, so the append process included identifying additional contacts and emails within the same home. This opened the door to broader engagement opportunities.
4. Additional Emails per Contact
Providing multiple verified emails for a single contact increased the likelihood of reaching them through at least one active inbox, because people often use more than one email address (personal, work, shopping‑only, etc).
The Outcome
The data append results were outstanding:
- 43% increase in marketable, reachable email addresses
- New insights into household‑level decision makers
- A cleaner, more reliable, and more actionable database
- Improved deliverability and campaign effectiveness
Why Data Append Matters
This example isn’t unusual. We see it all the time when brands take a closer look at their data. Customer files often grow over years and without regular upkeep, gaps and inaccuracies can quickly pile up.
When you partner with data intelligence providers like PGM, you can build a database that results in:
- Higher campaign ROI
- Better segmentation
- Cleaner analytics
- Stronger customer relationships
- Expanded household‑level visibility
Download the case study here: https://porchgroupmedia.com/case-study/data-append-home-retail-store/
