Sending emails to addresses that don’t exist, are misspelled, or have the wrong mailbox type can cause all sorts of issues for email marketers.
This post will demonstrate the ease, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness of choosing a service like Bouncer as your email checker over the other manual solutions.
Your data is clean and secure, your lists are in tip-top shape, and your campaign returns are on target.
How can I verify an email?
Before we look at how to validate an email address, we need to look at why you should do so.
- Reputation
- Deliverability
- Accuracy
- Performance
You’re in trouble if you don’t validate your email lists. Every year, about 20% of email addresses are discarded or cancelled. Bounce rates can rise by 20–25% if you don’t frequently confirm your lists’ addresses.
High bounce rates harm sender reputation.
Campaigns delivered to spam folders instead of inboxes due to poor sender reputation. In that case, your prospects of converting visitors into leads and sales are nil.
If your email addresses and campaigns are inaccurate, you should expect poor performance and outcomes.
Why you shouldn’t send a test email to verify an address
Sending a test email to an address verifies its validity. Easy, huh? If your test hard-bounces, the address isn’t valid and should be removed.
So, what’s the problem?
To test additional emails, expect more severe bounces. Even without sending out campaign messages, harsh bounces tarnish your address reputation.
Deliverability, and hence sending and campaign metrics, are affected if you get added to spam lists.
Only a dummy email account from a separate domain can be used to avoid data loss. That is, if you want to use this strategy, which you shouldn’t.
You will also send spam to your recipients!
There are simpler and more effective ways to validate addresses.
How to Ping a Server to Verify an Email
Pinging the mail server is one approach to validate an email address without sending one.
This requires a console app. An accurate test, but arduous, complicated, and time-consuming for many addresses.
- First, you’ll need the domain’s MX record. Use a lookup command in your console program. Once you have the list of MX records, you want the one with the lowest preference value.
- SMTP address validation Connect to the email server through the MX record previously located, establish an SMTP handshake, specify the email address to validate, and finally validate it.
See your outcomes. A legitimate address will return a ‘OK’, while a failing address will return the following: ‘The email address you tried to reach is invalid. Also, please double-check the email address for typos or extra spaces.
As stated previously, this is a lengthy process requiring advanced knowledge. It works well for one or two addresses, but not for a huge list.
Why validate email lists?
1. Your lists will be in great shape
The annual weeding of dormant addresses is simply the beginning. Workers moving jobs, suppliers, or businesses frequently affect the health of your lists, causing too many hard bounces.
2. It ensures delivery
With a good email reputation, more communications reach their inboxes. Avoiding spam folders increases click-through rates and conversions.
3. Lowered bounce rates
Regular list validation keeps bounce rates low and deliverability high. Hard bounces tarnish your email reputation, which you must safeguard.
4. Higher conversions
Email marketing, especially to a well-opted-in database, has a high ROI. Validating customer data ensures message delivery, increasing sales and conversions.
5. Brand profile elevation
Engaging with your audience, whether they are subscribers or buyers, strengthens customer connections. Email marketing is one of the finest techniques for repeat sales if the content is relevant and interesting.
You won’t reach the inboxes you need to reach without a clean database, excellent deliverability, and a great email reputation.