An extensive mailing list can work wonders for your digital marketing camping. However, in handling such a large amount of customer email data, you’ll need to sieve through the list consistently. It will help to create a healthy emailing list.
The failure to do so can make the data worthless and cause you big problems. Thus it’s vital to have an email verification service that helps to clean up your customer data. It can also enable you to remove fake, inactive, or risky email addresses that can affect your email deliverability rates.
Need more information on what email verification is about? No worries. I have created the ultimate guide on all you need to know about email verification services.
What is Email Verification?
Email verification is a process of confirming if an email address is fake, active, or a threat. It is an effective possess that enables you to reduce your hard and soft bounce rates during email campaigns. Email verification services help you in executing a bulk validation of every address on your mailing list. And it verifies other inbound email addresses in real-time. With the use of an API integration system, it prevents fake signups and stops invalid data from entering your system.
Who Uses Email Verification?
Email verification service is a must-have if you use an emailing list and run email marketing campaigns. It’s also vital if you are looking to increase subscriber sign up via email. If you need to reduce bounce rates, increase open rates, and gain maximum RIO for your email marketing campaigns, this is for you. So, eCommerce store owners, bloggers, social influencers, digital marketers, content writers, etc. These are the people who frequently would use email verification.
Why Do You Need Email Verification?
If a subscriber changes their email address, the old one is usually deleted. However, the change does not reflect in the mailing lists. Reports show that emailing lists can reduce at a rate of around 22% yearly. Therefore, if you have about 100, 000 email addresses on your list, 22,000 of them may become invalid in a year. Considering this alongside an email marketing campaign RIO, you won’t want any glitch in your contact list.
When the data on your list is compromised, it amounts to poor email deliverability and open rates. Thus the return on investment for your emailing campaigns will drop. Not only will sending campaigns to inactive email addresses cost you money, but the bounced emails will also damage your sender reputation. Such damage could lead to you getting the boots from your email verification service provider.
With the right sender reputation, the email marketing service keeps its servers from being blocked by email service providers like Yahoo, Google, Yahoo, or Outlook. The sender is rated by the service provider based on spam or block reports and dropout rates. Thus, it is an indication that you will require continuous email contact list checks and updates, so it’s healthy and effective.
How Does Email Verification Work?
The email verification is carried out in a three-step process that occurs in fractions of a second. These steps include:
- Checking Email Syntax and Formatting
- Server or Domain Confirmation
- Mailbox Validation
Checking Email Syntax and Formatting
The first email verification step is to check the email syntax. Email syntax is the correct order that an email address ought to be created. The verification service examines the email addresses against the syntax of other recognized email service providers. For instance, a valid Yahoo email address won’t begin with a number. If it does, then it’s a sign that the address may be fake.
After the email syntax, the service checks email formatting. There are intricate rules that show the admissible usernames for email addresses when it comes to email formatting. The formatting process takes several and different orders, so it can not be a manual process. Therefore, it requires an email verification engine to check within seconds. These checks point out to the fact that an email address shouldn’t contain any special characters.
Another process check example is the mandatory “@” symbol that needs to be present in all email addresses. Let’s say you have a custom writing service review website called Online Writers Rating on your mailing list. Can you spot which of the email addresses the verification check will pick up as invalid?
- Support9onlinewritersrating.com
- Support#onlinewritersrating.com
- support@onlinewritersrating.com
- support+onlinewritersrating.com
Server or Domain Confirmation
The server of domain confirmation is the next step for email verification. The email verification service check shows the DNS records for the email address domain name. If you have an email address “sales@lol.com,” the domain name is “lol.com.” Thus the verification service analyzes the mail exchanger (MX), ensuring that the address is valid and can receive emails. Additionally, a full email box will lead to high bounce rates. As a result, the server or domain confirmation helps to take out the fake addresses. But because the services aren’t able to tell between a full box or phony email address, it leads to the same decline in sender reputation.
Mailbox Validation
Once the verification service can check the first two steps, it moves to the mailbox validation. In this step, the service validates the mailbox. It entails trying to reach the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server. (The SMTP is a communication protocol for electronic mail transmission) Then it tries to understand if the particular mailbox exists and can receive emails.
In this step, the verification service sends the email address with an EHLO message. Then it will wait for a response from the email server. If there is a server response, it means that the email address exists and can receive emails.
Generally, the best email verification services can carry out these steps without sending a single mail. The process mechanism behind it allows it to verify your emailing list in no time. But this may also depend on how large or small your email contact list is. The email server age, workload, and modern anti-spam systems can sometimes slow the processes down.
Besides these checks, verification services also check for duplicate email addresses, role accounts, spam traps, and temporary email addresses. Such assessments can be done based on your business email marketing needs. There is also the real-time verification that validates each email address at the time of signup. It is carried out by integrating an email verification API with your system to collect customer data. Therefore, the data that is coming into your system is healthy. Alternatively, there is a double opt-in procedure that can be done right after signup. But this process might rob your subscribers off in the wrong way when you send them confirmation emails.
Selecting the Best Email Verification Service for Your Business
There are several email verification service providers in the market. These are some of the basic features you need to look out for when choosing one:
Trust: To give out valuable information to a service provider, you need to establish some level of trust in them. You don’t want a case of having your data stolen, sold, or corrupt. You can build trust through research and referrals.
Check their website or reputable customer review sites like Amazon customer reviews, Yelp, or Google Reviews. Also, you can contact the service provider to make your inquiries. And pay attention to how they respond to your questions.
Security: Your data needs 24/7 protection from hackers and viruses. So you need to examine the provider’s Terms of Service on data security and retention policies. Ensure that their service, like downloads, uploads, and reporting, will consistently happen over HTTPS/SSL connections.
Consider the data security laws in the email verification service provider’s locality. Also, ask questions about how your data will be stored and protected. In general, make sure you carry out your due diligence checks.
No Emails: A genuine email verification service provider will never send an email to your contacts. It would help if you always remember this. Any service provider that sends such emails is a sign of a red flag.
Experience Matter: Email validation is a complex process. It requires time to develop databases, algorithms, and likewise, the server reputation that indicates it’s doing great. Reputable verification service providers handle an extensive network of servers across the world. They use this to communicate with email servers in their preferred methods. Such providers can learn fast and update their systems and procedures regularly.
Conclusion
And that’s it, the ultimate guide to all you need to know about email verification!
The concept can be straightforward and very beneficial to your business. You don’t want your emailing list filled with invalid contacts that can affect your email marketing campaign’s success. With a healthy contact list and sender reputation, your bounce rates will reduce while your open rates will increase.
With this information, you can engage the best email verification service provider. One that can help to improve your email marketing deliverability rates, conversions, and RIO.