How to Verify & Clean Email List to Maintain Email Hygiene

You must have come across situations when you send emails to your subscriber's list; many of your emails start bouncing.

So, what now? Well, email list verification and email validation help avoid such issues. So, let's understand how to verify emails and clean email lists in detail.

Table of contents

• What is email verification?

• How does an email verifier work?

  • 1. Syntax check
  • 2. Domain existence check
  • 3. MX record check
  • 4. Catch-all domain check
  • 5. SMTP authentication (Email address ping)

• Why is email verification so important?

• Types of email verifiers

  • • Software email verifiers
  • • SaaS email verifiers

• How to choose the best email verification service?

  • ✅ Credibility
  • ✅ Pricing plans
  • ✅ Verification method
  • ✅ Extra services
  • ✅ API verification
  • ✅ Customer support

• Takeaway

What is email verification?

Email marketing is not just about crafting a perfect subject line, email copy, placing the CTA right, or adding images. There's a lot of background work that's involved. One such work is verifying and cleaning your email list.

Email verification is the way to ensure that your lists of email addresses are valid and legit. It helps increase the deliverability of your email, allowing you to reach more users. Email verification is an integral part of best practices in email marketing.

Email verifier is essential to building a healthy email list. To reap more out of an email verified, let's find out how an email verifier works.

Related guide: 19 Email Marketing Best Practices to Follow in 2022

How does an email verifier work?

The email verifiers eliminate invalid email addresses by analyzing your email list. The main features include syntax and formatting tests, server confirmation, and mailbox validation. The following is the general method for how email verification functions:

1. Syntax check

It checks whether the email address is spelled in the right way. For example, the email address shouldn't have any commas and spaces, and all the periods, '@' symbols, the domain name should be in a proper structure.

The following are the checklist for syntax control algorithms:

• It checks the local part, the at-symbol ( @ ), and a domain name with a dot-symbol ( . ) are present.

• It doesn't allow more than 64 characters in the local-part, proper placement of dots (.) and the symbols (@).

• Special characters (? "# $ % & ` * + _- . / | ^ {}) can only be used in the local part of an email address, but not in the beginning or at the end of the local-part.

• It checks common mistakes like periods (.) at the start or the end of the email address, commas (,) instead of periods (.), semi-colon (; ), or apostrophe (') instead of the at-sign (@).

• Further, verification is done for the spaces or blank areas ( ) in the middle or at the end of the address, double periods (…) in the local part or domain name, missing ".com" or period ( . ) in the address, or any misplaced signs (@).

• Email verifiers detect spam traps and invalid email addresses before they're flagged by Internet service providers (ISPs) or Email Service providers (ESPs).

2. Domain existence check

Email verification services check if the domain name is written correctly and the web and domain are real and operational. For example, if someone entered the email address: support@mailmodo.com and the domain under mailmodo.com is not registered, an email verifier would mark it invalid.

3. MX record check

A Mail exchanger record or MX records identify whether the email address is valid. Unlike the email verifier, which checks the format and characters of an email address, this checks if the domain name is present and has email DNS settings configured.

4. Catch-all domain check

A catch-all server accepts all emails sent to the domain, regardless of whether the particular mailbox exists. The email verifier checks if the email is part of an entire domain.

The domain name is verified automatically for a catch-all by a credible bulk email verifier. You will act at your own risk if you see a verified email as a catch-all email and choose whether you want to send emails to it or delete it from the list entirely.

5. SMTP authentication (Email address ping)

Individual mailbox validation is the final step in the process.

Email verification services use the SMTP protocol to check if the recipient's domain has a valid MX record. If it does, then it checks if the username exists or not and proceeds.

Now you know how an email verifier works, but why is it essential to verify emails?

Why is email verification so important?

Verifying your email address is essential to make your email campaigns more effective. Besides, there are other reasons too:

• Email verification helps you generate more leads and avoids any scope for fraud.

• It lets the ISPs decide whether your emails will land in the inbox or the spam folder.

• Keeps your email lists up to date.

• 22.5% of email addresses are invalid annually, according to a survey by HubSpot. It is most likely due to changing or deactivating the company email addresses.

This impacts your deliverability rate as the hard bounces might exceed the acceptable rate. Hence, if you don't clean your email lists, your sender's reputation will get hurt.

Remove wrong, invalid, and provisional addresses from your email list. The last thing you might wish is to avoid landing in the spam folder or seeing a higher bounce rate.

Types of email verifiers

There are many email verification services, but what type of service you choose should be based on your needs and business type. Let's look at two main types of email verification services:

• Software email verifiers

Verifying services and tools provide a reasonable solution for bigger businesses where one person is responsible for lead list management and verification.

The benefits of software email verifiers are as follows:

• Automated verification

• Unlimited email searches validation

• Full database ownership

However, software email verifiers have quite a few inconveniences:

• Installation updates.

• Back-ups (not automatic cloud storage).

• Access to one device.

• PC and OS requirements are restricted.

• No integrations.

• SaaS email verifiers

SaaS email verifiers provide a cloud-based framework that allows you to use the browser to access all data stored in the cloud directly. Finally, check Mailmodo, a saas tool for all your email marketing needs, offering a subscription-based model.

Some of the many advantages include:

• Unrestricted access from every part of the world to your account and database.

• Team choice.

• No limitation in OS.

• APIs.

• A toolbox is also included with one subscription.

Since we discussed the types of email verifiers, let's find out what you should look for in a good email verification service.

How to choose the best email verification service?

Various email verifiers are equally consistent with their algorithms, servers, programming, and optional service. Below are some tips to help you figure out the best email verification service.

✅ Credibility

Before trusting any service with your most precious assets:

1. Don't risk losing, stealing, or selling your data.

2. See their website for information on their physical address, telephone, and email help.

3. Contact them to ask some questions to ensure that they are legitimate.

✅ Pricing plans

Seek to find the perfect service at the best price from the website. But, remember, the cheapest choice is not always the best choice.

✅ Verification method

Not everybody on websites shares how the verification process is carried out. However, you would like to research to ensure the reports are correct. First, check the verification method of the Mailmodo.

✅ Extra services

Check if there are any extra features and benefits that they provide. There's no point in switching between a dozen players if you can all get them on a single platform.

✅ API verification

You will need an API to directly implement email verification on your platform or product. It is not a must-have for any email verification platform, but it opens up many email verification possibilities.

✅ Customer support

A vital component of any excellent email verification service helps ensure that your chosen service has at least two ways to reach the team (preferably person, 24 hours a day) if you have questions or problems.

Takeaway

Once you have verified your email list, you can see that it improves your deliverability numbers and helps you maintain your sender reputation. If you would like to know more about this, feel free to contact the Mailmodo team, and we would love to tell you more about email hygiene and how you can improve your deliverability and conversions. Read how our client Project Pro achieved 3X open rates by improving their email deliverability.