Email marketing is an important part of any business plan, and email campaigns are a popular way to reach out to clients and leads. Yet, sending emails that bounce back can be annoying and time-consuming for sales and marketing teams.
According to Constant Contact research, the average email bounce rate is 9.75%, which can substantially impact an email campaign's effectiveness. A high email bounce rate might harm your sender's reputation, compromising email deliverability in the long run.
Verifying email addresses before launching campaigns is the best approach to ensure that your emails arrive in the inbox. This blog will go through various email verification procedures and best practices for improving email deliverability and ensuring a successful email campaign. Read below to find out more!
Why do You Need to Verify Email Addresses before Sending?
Verifying email addresses before sending emails is important for various reasons. Firstly, sending emails to unverified addresses frequently results in a high bounce rate. This means that the email was not delivered to the recipient, which can increase the likelihood that your email will be flagged as spam.
Second, unverified email addresses are frequently connected with spam or inactive accounts, which might impact your sender's reputation, especially when launching a cold email campaign. Establishing a solid reputation from the start is critical, and verifying email addresses may help filter out spammy and invalid ones, ensuring that your emails are delivered to a relevant and active audience.
Finally, validating email addresses before sending emails can improve deliverability, resulting in improved open and response rates. Email service providers like Google and Yahoo employ engagement metrics like open and click-through rates to assess whether or not an email is a spam. Sending emails to verified email addresses increases the likelihood of your emails being opened and engaged.
Is Email Verification and Validation the Same?
Although the terms email verification and email validation are frequently used as the same, they have significant differences. The main difference between email verification and email validation is their objective. Email verification checks the presence and activity of an email address, whereas email validation checks the syntax and structure of an email address.
In other words, email verification determines whether an email address is legitimate and active. In contrast, email validation determines whether the email address is properly constructed with the required components, such as the "@" symbol and domain name.
However, verification and validation are necessary to ensure that the email address is correct and you can send an email to it.
7 Ways to Verify Email Addresses
There are several ways of verifying email addresses. The sales and marketing teams must find the most effective way and ensure their email lists are updated. Here are a few approaches to email verification:
Way 1: Try Signing in
Try to log in to the email account connected to the email service provider to verify an email address's validity. This involves going to the email service provider's login page associated with the email address. Entering the email and any password will get you two types of messages. The email is incorrect if you get an "invalid email" message. The email might be correct if you get a "wrong password" message.
Although this method may not be appropriate for large-scale verification, it excels at smaller jobs like individually confirming accounts. Without the need for a complicated technological setup, it is also a great way to verify whether an email address exists.
Way 2: Social Media Verification
Social media can also be used to confirm the validity of an email address. This technique requires looking for the email address on various social networking sites and determining whether it is associated with active accounts.
It is important to understand that social media verification has some restrictions. Some people may use an email address other than the one you're trying to verify for their social media accounts. Nevertheless, other individuals might need to utilize social media more. Social network verification can still be useful in confirming the validity of the email address when used in conjunction with other verification techniques.
Way 3: Double Opt-in Method
The double opt-in method is a verification procedure that involves sending a confirmation email to the user's email address. The recipient must click on a verification link or input a code to confirm their subscription.
It is a highly effective way to confirm that the user's email address is valid and actively used by the recipient. This is because the confirmation email is only sent to the email address given by the user, and the recipient must take action to confirm their subscription.
Furthermore, the double opt-in process ensures that the user has given explicit consent to receive emails from your company. This is necessary for compliance with anti-spam rules and regulations such as the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States and the GDPR in the European Union.
Way 4: Email Authentication
Email authentication is a group of protocols used to confirm the legitimacy of both the sender and the email's content. Using standards like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC confirms that emails come from a legitimate source and are not flagged as spam.
· SPF checks the IP address against a list of approved IPs to determine whether servers are authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain.
· DKIM uses digital signatures to verify the sender's identity and the accuracy of email content.
· DMARC combines SPF and DKIM to allow domain owners to specify how to handle failed checks. Emails can be rejected, quarantined, or allowed to pass with a warning.
Modify the domain's DNS settings through the control panel of your domain registrar or hosting provider to add SPF and DKIM entries to apply these protocols. After adding the entries, check that they are configured properly and that the email authentication procedures are working as expected by using online tools like MX Toolbox or DMARC Analyzer.
Way 5: Ping the Server
Pinging the server is one method to determine whether an email address is authentic. A common network utility technique is sending a request packet to the server and waiting for a response. The server replies and verifies the validity of the email address and the operation of the email server.
To use this method, open a command prompt terminal and type the ping command followed by the email server's domain name or IP address. If the email server responds, you'll receive a message stating that the server is active, along with some statistics on the response time. If the server doesn't respond, it could mean that the email address is invalid or that the server is down or unreachable.
It's important to remember that pinging the server does not ensure that the email address is in use or that the message will deliver successfully. However, it can be a helpful tool for verifying the basic validity of an email address and identifying any errors in the domain name.
Way 6: Email Verification Tools
Another way to check email address authenticity is by using email verification tools. These tools are specifically designed to check the validity of an email address by performing various checks on the email address and its associated domain.
Popular Email Verification Tools are:
· ZeroBounce
· NeverBounce
· Hunter
· Snov.io
· BriteVerify
It's important to remember that while email verification tools can check an email address's validity, they are not perfect and might not be able to find all invalid email addresses. Moreover, some email verification tools could generate false positives, saying an email address is authentic when it isn't.
Way 7: Contact Data Providers
Contact data providers can help verify the authenticity of email addresses, especially in bulk. They offer services that cross-check email addresses against their extensive databases of up-to-date email addresses to ensure their validity. Compared to manual verification, this is frequently the most efficient way to validate many email addresses simultaneously.
The next benefit of using contact data providers is that they may provide details like the name, title, and employer of the owner of each email address. This information can be useful to ensure that the right person is being reached out to.
Using contact data providers could have a fee, especially for large lists of email addresses. Nonetheless, the time and effort saved by utilizing these services may justify the cost.
Nymblr's Verified Email Contact Base
Nymblr's verified email contact base is a game-changer regarding email verification, providing businesses with access to accurate and up-to-date data. With over 700 million contacts available for real-time verification, Nymblr is a cost-effective solution for B2B enterprises looking to build a strong prospects list.
One of the main advantages of Nymblr's contact database is its regular updating, ensuring that businesses can focus on the right audience while building their sales funnel. A database is essential for sales teams looking to improve their lead nurturing tasks, providing them with accurate data to make better-informed decisions.
How Often Do you Need to Update Your Email List?
Your email list is a valuable resource enabling you to communicate with current and prospective clients. Yet as time passes, your email list may become less valuable due to out-of-date data, which will decrease engagement rates, increase bounce rates, and increase the likelihood that your emails will be marked as spam.
To keep your email list current and effective, updating and checking it frequently is essential. Consider the following when choosing how frequently to update/verify your email list:
Consider your Industry: Depending on your industry, you may need to update and validate your email list after a while. For example, you should refresh your email list more frequently in a fast-paced business like technology, where employee turnover is higher than in a slower-paced area like finance.
Consider your Target Audience: Depending on the characteristics of your audience, the frequency at which you update and validate your email list may also change. For instance, if you're trying to reach a younger audience, you might need to update your email list more frequently because they tend to change email addresses more frequently.
It's a good idea to update your email list at least every six months to ensure that it remains accurate and up-to-date. It's crucial to strike a balance between the frequency of updates and the resources you have at your disposal to ensure that your email list is as accurate and efficient as possible.
Email Marketing Ideas
Now that you have a strong list of verified email addresses, it's time to start thinking about your email marketing strategy. Here are some email marketing ideas that can help businesses improve their outreach efforts:
Personalized Emails
Personalization is key in email marketing. Address the interests, requirements, and preferences of the recipient in your communications. Always address them by name in the email's body and subject line. This will help to increase open rates and engagement.
Informational Content
Customers often look for information that can help them make informed decisions. Use your email marketing efforts to inform your audience on market trends, best practices, and new goods and services. Make sure the recipient will find your information to be valuable, relevant, and informative.
Special Promotions
Give unique discounts or promotions to your email list subscribers. This can be an effective technique to get potential buyers to take action. Ensure your promotions are relevant to your audience and highlight the distinctive value only your company can provide.
The Takeaway
Any successful email marketing strategy must keep a clean and current email list. Now that you know the various email verification methods, choose the one that works best for your business.
With the help of Nymblr's verified email contact base, you can ensure that your efforts are focused on the right audience. Contact us, and we can guide you through improving your email campaigns.
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