Email Validation: What It is and How it Helps Your Email Marketing

Intro

Nobody sends an email and hopes it goes to the spam folder. This especially applies if you’re an email marketer. Email validation is a process of keeping email lists pristine so that landing in spam doesn’t happen. You can have the best marketing emails in the world, but without a healthy email list, you can’t know how they will perform. This article will explore what email validation entails and how to use it to help your email marketing.

Email validation is an essential tool for email marketing

If you use email for marketing, newsletters, or even transactional purposes, you must have a knowledge foundation of email validation. 

What is email validation? It’s a process of verifying the accuracy and quality of contacts on an email database. Also, it’s a cornerstone of your email success.

When marketers begin sending marketing emails, it’s not uncommon to have a “throw it up against the wall and see what sticks” mindset. It’s enticing to think that more email addresses on a list mean more people reading your emails. It’s just not so. More contacts do not mean better results. A list with bad data in it is counterproductive and even destructive. 

Most people’s first email validation experience involves bulk email validation. They take their entire list, upload it to the platform, and allow the validator to check the addresses. Inevitably, there will be some addresses that are no longer valid. You’re trying to find those emails because their removal is vital to your going forward.

Using an email verifier is essential for effective email marketing campaigns as it helps ensure the accuracy and validity of contact information. Employing a reliable tool to check if email is valid reduces the likelihood of bounced emails, improves deliverability rates, and enhances the overall success of the marketing efforts. By maintaining a clean and verified email list, businesses can optimize their communication channels, reaching their target audience more efficiently and fostering meaningful engagements.

So, how quickly do email lists start to decline? 

The severity and rate at which email lists go stale fluctuates from year to year. Email list validity was 0.45% better in 2022 than the previous year. It means one in five or as much as one in four email addresses goes bad within a year. That’s a lot of obsolete and detrimental data.

(Caption: Almost a quarter of your email database decays every single year.)

Email validation helps you reach people

It’s the most basic way email validation helps: it allows you to reach your audience. Ignoring email validation means less connection with the people who expressed interest to be on your list. It’s worth noting: permission is so critical to email marketing. Always use double opt-in to be certain every single person on your email list wants to be there. Now that you have permission, ensure those subscribers get what they signed up for. If they don’t hear from you, they’ll probably assume that something is askew on your end.

When you have bad data on your list, you get more bounces and more emails landing in spam. You’ll also experience an unpleasant side effect: a declining sender reputation. Sender reputation is how internet service providers (ISPs) determine who is legitimate and who is sending spam. When your sender reputation falters, your customers stop seeing your messages. Why? The ISPs began to perceive you as a spammer.

(Caption: Everything you do as an email sender influences your email deliverability. To see where you stand, you need a tool that shows your IP and domain reputation.)

If you validate your list, you’ll enjoy improved email deliverability, which is how well your emails land in the inbox. Where are your emails more likely to be seen: in the inbox or in the junk folder? That assumes that your email even shows up at all! Boosting your deliverability is necessary if you want to show up where your readers are: the inbox.

Email validation cuts marketing costs

Email service providers (ESPs) charge you based on how many email addresses you are sending to. Many ESPs will happily let you blast out a marketing email to a list packed with invalid or harmful email addresses. They’re fine with it, after all, they’re making more money. However, what do you have to gain from sending an email that doesn’t even have a real person at the other end? There’s no plus there.

Keeping all those inactive or invalid email addresses will only waste money. But, as mentioned above, it will also prevent your engaged readers from seeing the emails you work so hard on. In addition to draining your expenses, it also lowers your ROI. 

Although there is a cost associated with email verification tools, it oftentimes pays for itself. That’s not to say the costs of not validating your email list are only monetary. It will frustrate you and also waste your time.

Email validation keeps your ESP account safe

What happens when there is a problem that you avoid looking at? Does it get better? No. Not routinely validating your email list will make a bad situation worse. There are many cases where an ESP will cancel service because of a high bounce rate. Ignoring email hygiene tends to have a snowball effect.

(Caption: Gene Massey of MediaShares was blocked by his email service provider and wasn’t able to send any more emails until he validated his list.)

You may think: why would they cancel my service if I’m a paying customer? Because every ESP knows the peril of bounces. These companies are concerned about their own reputation. This is why it’s of great importance that you be equally concerned about your sender reputation. Check your email lists so you can be certain that you’ll be able to continue sending marketing emails. Getting canceled by your ESP is a hassle you can avoid.

Email verification prevents problems at the source

What’s better: brushing and flossing your teeth regularly or skipping that and just getting cavities filled at the dentist? It’s a cliche, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Practicing email validation helps you avoid deliverability problems, getting banned, as well as a plunge in all of your marketing metrics.

What if you could keep bad data off of your list from the start? You can. Any respectable email checking service should offer an email validation API. You can connect this anywhere you have a form that requires an email address. It’s one of the best preventative measures you can take to protect your list.

If someone tries to enter a potentially harmful email address (like a temporary email) or even just makes a typo, they will see a message that stops them from going any further. They can enter their real email address or simply fix the mistake. When you use bulk email validation and a validation API together, you will have peace of mind knowing that you are building a healthy, reliable email list. 

How to get started with email validation

If you don’t have an email validation service, you’ll need to take some time selecting one you can trust. There are five main criteria you should look at.

Accuracy

The more accurate your email checker, the more harmful data you can remove, and the more good contacts you will retain in the long run. However, don’t trust any validation service touting 100% accuracy. It doesn’t exist.

Speed

If you’re like most email marketers, time is of the essence. You don’t want a service that is inefficient or clunky. Speed is especially important for your API. People don’t have endless patience while signing up to an email list.

Data security

If any company handling something as precious as personal information doesn’t take data security seriously, you better look elsewhere. The email validation services that care about data security will tell you about their commitment. You don’t want to regret getting involved with a careless company.

Pricing 

Look for an email validation service that is a good value. However, stick to reputable providers. You don’t have to pay through the nose, but some services are cheap for a reason.

Support 

So many online services are hard to get ahold of. You may hit a snag. When you do, make sure you can reach someone at the company for help.

There are so many email verification providers out there that you don’t have to settle. Make sure the service you decide on checks all of these boxes.

Never used email validation? Best day to start is today

Routine email validation is nothing to be intimidated about. You should determine how often you need to validate your email list. This varies depending on your industry and the size of your list. If you’re not sure on the frequency, it’s smart to reach out to the email validation provider. If they’re a reputable company, they should be happy to answer any questions you have. For most people, quarterly email verification is the minimum and every-other-month is even better.

Once you’ve validated your list, get the email validation API connected to your forms. Every time your list is validated, it’s a good idea to look at the results to see if you notice any irregularities.

Email validation is easy to implement and has a tremendous upside to your email marketing efforts. There aren’t any negatives and it means you don’t have to worry about most of the problems that can arise. It allows you to concentrate on the creativity of your work and not on nuisance.