How Email Verification Works and How to Find the Right Service

Is your bounce rate higher than 2%? Then you may be in need of an email verification service to help you get your list back in shape.

Everywhere you look there’s another company asking for your email address or running another promotion to get you to subscribe to its emails. There’s a good reason for this. We are living in the age of email! If you are like most people, you check your email several times a day. Email lists are one of the most cost-effective and efficient methods to stay in direct communication with your customers.

What is email verification?

Your list of email addresses is indispensable – one of the most valuable assets you have. Within your list is the potential to gain loyalty, promote your brand and stay in regular contact with your audience.

Like most other things of value, even your email list needs regular maintenance. You change the oil of your car regularly and hopefully go to the dentist from time to time. A minimum of once every quarter, you should use email verification. The process ensures you communicate only with real human beings, who want to hear from you and will eventually buy from you.

Bad email addresses you should remove from your list

All email lists will have varying amounts of bad emails. Removing them improves your list hygiene and allows you to connect with your audience – by landing in the inbox.

Here are some bad email addresses email verification services help to remove:

• complainer emails, known as “abuse emails,” who regularly mark newsletters they subscribe to as spam.
• misspelled – thus invalid – addresses, entered in with a letter or number off.
• catch-all emails, which are somewhat of a lottery: some will be perfectly valid, others will bounce. Start by isolating them from the others, then consider scoring them.
• disposable emails, created to last for a short period of time. They self-destruct and end up bouncing.
• abandoned emails – nobody monitors them anymore, so they’re only taking up space in your list.

Keeping these bad emails on your list will negatively affect your sender reputation. So, before you send out another newsletter or campaign, consider using an email verification system to remove them from your database.

A clean list will greatly increase the likelihood that the newsletters and promotions you so carefully planned and crafted actually end up being received by your intended audience.

How do you find the right email verification service?

As stated, we’re living in the age of email. Because of the prominence of email marketing, more and more senders are realizing the importance of verifying email addresses. Fortunately, this has resulted in a lot of companies to fill this need.

However, not all technology is created equal. There are some email verification services or email checkers that have sought to fill the demand without offering the quality level you would expect. It’s important to keep some things in mind when looking for an email verification service.

• Accuracy. This is the number one thing. You want to find a service that is at least 98% accurate.
• Speed. How long is this going to take?  For a list of up to 100,000 addresses, you shouldn’t have to wait more than an hour. Of course, if you have millions of email addresses, you can expect to wait a few hours.
• Customer support. If you are new to email verification, you may find yourself in need of help. Find an email checker that offers 24/7 support.
• Security. An email verification service is a data processor. You want to be sure they are GDPR compliant, which means it will keep the data safe during the verification process.
• Price. Check different services and see the one that offers the best value for the investment.

What are the benefits of using email verification?

Some people receive hundreds of emails a day. If your email never lands in the inbox, then it’s as if you never even sent it.

Having a healthy email list increases the score that Internet Service Providers give all email senders. A bad score can put your sender reputation in peril and have your email relegated to the spam folder.

It’s also something that pays for itself. Most email distribution services charge based on the number of emails on your list. That goes for the invalid email addresses too. Getting the bad or inaccurate emails off of your list saves you money in the long run. An email list that has been properly verified will result in a higher return of investment (ROI).

As you can see, email verification is a part of your routine that you simply can’t afford to overlook. Verify your list frequently and be sure to use a reputable email verification service.