How To Check Email Validity in 2022?

There is no doubt that email is the most popular communication channel in the business world. It helps in acquiring new customers and staying in touch with the existing ones. When you use cold emailing the right way, you can reach out to prospects and close more deals, and in the case of email marketing, you can boost the number of sales. However, there are a few points to keep in mind before you start your email campaign. Amongst them is to check email validity.

Why should you check if an email address is valid?

The main reason to check email validity before emailing is to avoid ruining your sender’s reputation. Sender reputation is a score given to your IP address by an email service provider. 

When you send emails to invalid addresses, and if they get bounced, your email service provider will put you under the scanner. A high bounce rate will make your sender score dip, and the email service provider (ESP) can penalize you for your actions and may blacklist you. 

You must be wondering what a bounce means. 

If you send an email and it fails to reach the recipient, it is called email bouncing. 

There can be many reasons for emails to bounce, and they are the following:

1. The email address is non-existent.

2. The recipient’s mailbox is full.

3. The email server is unavailable because of maintenance work or due to a crash.

4. The recipient blocked your email address.

Whatever may be the reason, a high bounce rate can wreck your sender’s reputation, and that can, in turn, negatively affect your email deliverability. 

Just in case you are not aware, email deliverability refers to the ability to make emails hit the intended recipient’s inbox. 

With a poor sender reputation, your email service provider has a high chance of considering your emails as spam and preventing them from hitting the inboxes of recipients. The emails will go to the spam folder instead of the inbox. When your emails don’t even reach the recipient, your whole email campaign will be a failure. 

Therefore, it is the accuracy of the mailing lists that decides the fate of your email campaign. 

You can avoid all the trouble when you check for the validity of the email addresses on your list. It is a necessity to verify emails as you have to build your domain reputation so that your emails reach their intended destination whenever you run an email campaign from your IP address. Maintaining sender reputation would require effort from your end. 

How Does Email Address Verification Work?

There are different techniques to check the validity of an email address. After the email verification process ends, all the invalid addresses get removed from the list, and you have a clean list for outreach.

Here’s how it works,

1. Email Address Syntax Check

This check removes email addresses that are not formatted correctly. 

2. Domain/MX records check 

In this check, the email address’s DNS entries get verified. When the domain turns out to be invalid, or an MX entry is not there, the email address gets marked as invalid.

3. Role-Based Account Detection

Sending emails to role-based accounts like [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] can be detrimental to your email deliverability. The process of role-based account detection can detect such email addresses and flag them.

4. Disposable Email Address Detection 

Disposable or junk collector emails get detected here. These are email addresses created temporarily for sign-up forms asking for a valid email address.

5. Honeypot/Spam Trap Detection

This detects honeypots, spam traps, blacklisted or fake email addresses so that you steer clear of them. 

6. Checking DNSBLs and URI DNSBLs for blacklisting 

Certain IP addresses used for spamming are present in DNS-based blackhole lists (DNSBL) or Real-time Blackhole Lists (RBL). DNSBLs are used to check email addresses and remove malicious emails in the validation process. 

7. Final verification  

In the final verification stage, each email address undergoes SMTP verification. In this stage, the tool checks for the mailbox’s existence by pinging the address without sending an email.  

What are the benefits of checking email address validity?

The clear-cut fact is that those who check the validity of the email addresses on their lists and remove the ones that are not valid can enjoy several benefits. Learn more about the benefits of email verification Here’s how validating email addresses is advantageous,

1. Reduces bounce rates

Once you remove the bad addresses from your mailing list or database, you will be sending emails to genuine recipients. As a result, your bounce rates will be lower and your sender reputation will increase. Since there is a higher likelihood that they will reach the inbox, you can generate more leads, increasing your conversion rate. 

2. Improves sender reputation and email deliverability 

As already mentioned, it is your sender’s reputation that affects email deliverability. Your sender reputation has to be good so that your emails reach recipients. Bounces, spam complaints, and emailing to spam traps can severely harm your sender’s reputation. That is why you must check email validity to maintain a clean list of contacts

3. Saves money

While running email campaigns may look free, there is a cost attached to it. Similarly, there is a cost involved in maintaining databases as well. When you send emails to invalid addresses, and they bounce back, you are wasting your money. Also, by not cleaning your list periodically, you are holding on to bad addresses adding to your storage costs. Regular checking of email addresses will help you save a lot of money. Help get accurate statistics

Email bounces dishevel the statistics of the email campaign. It becomes difficult to see what the final result of your efforts is. That is why validation of email addresses is essential. It helps you know in what direction your email campaign is heading.

When to validate email addresses?

Before finding out how to check if an email exists, you should know when to verify them. Here is when you should consider validating your list of email addresses,

1. You have added new contacts to your mailing list.

2. It has been more than one month since the last check.

3. Your bounce rate is on the higher side (ideally, it should be under 5%).

4. The open rates are on the lower side. 

How to check the validity of email addresses?

If you are wondering how to check if an email is valid, there are many ways to do so. You can use the double-opt-in method that prevents people from registering invalid and fake accounts. 

Then there is the double typing method whereby the user must enter their email address twice while registering on online forms. It helps in preventing typos and syntax errors.  

One of the most reliable solutions for validating email addresses is to use email verification tools. 

These tools make the task of verifying email addresses more effortless and faster. It is worth the money you invest in purchasing them.

Email verification tools require you to upload your list of email addresses, and they would deliver the report marking the ones that are risky and undeliverable. You can then remove the invalid ones from the list and proceed with your email campaign.

Most tools are easy to integrate with cold email software and reduce your work of uploading the list of contacts twice. 

Tools that check if an email is valid to carry out three types of verification, and they are the following:

1. Syntax check

In this method, the tool checks the syntax of an email address. It ensures that the addresses don’t have any spelling errors, spaces, commas and makes sure that the domain part of the address is in place.  

2. Domain check

This domain email search method involves checking the domain and the recipient’s email address to see if it is working or not.

3. Email Ping

The tool sends a message to the recipient’s server to verify email addresses. It helps determine whether the email address exists on the server or not and if it is currently in use.

Types of email verification tools

While all the email verification tools aim at removing invalid addresses from the mailing list, there are three main types of verification tools:

1. Bulk verification tools

Bulk verification tools require you to upload a list of email addresses, most often in the form of a .csv file. The tool then checks all the addresses in one go and marks the addresses as valid, invalid, and risky. Bulk verification tools are suitable for those who have a vast database of email addresses. 

2. Real-time verification tools

With real-time email verification tools, it is possible to check email addresses when you collect them. The tool catches invalid addresses even before you add them to your list. If a person enters an invalid address in your form, you can find that out instantly using a real-time tool. You can point it out and ask the person to enter their email address again so that you don’t lose a lead.

3. Ongoing/Automated verification tools

Automated verification tools remind when email list cleaning is required or automatically scan your database of email addresses periodically and remove invalid and risky addresses.

What to look for when selecting an email verification tool?

Now that you know the different types of email verification tools, here is what you should look for when choosing a tool for yourself,

1. Accuracy

The tool has to have high accuracy to get the best results. It is the first thing that you should look for while choosing a tool. The one that offers 99% accuracy is a good choice. Many tools also guarantee bounce rates lower than 2% or 3% after they clean the list. 

2. Speed

A tool with a low turnaround time is ideal. However, speed matters the most when you have thousands of email addresses on your mailing list. Based on your needs, you can choose your ideal tool. 

3. Online service

It is best to choose an online email verification service, i.e., SaaS. It won’t take up space on your computer and does not require you to set it up. Additionally, you can use it anytime you want from any device.

4. Scalability

The tool must be able to verify both single email addresses and large mailing lists because every business has different needs.

5. Integration

Email verification is a part of the marketing and sales process. Therefore, it should be easy to integrate the tool with other platforms like email outreach tools. 

6. Multiple validation methods

The tool must carry out several validation methods such as syntax check, domain check, and email ping to verify email addresses so that you get the best results. 

SalesBlink’s Email Verification Tool

There are many tools that email marketers and salespeople can use having the above feature. One of them is SalesBlink. SalesBlink is a sales outreach automation suite that has an email verifier tool that helps you check if an email is valid.

Here’s how to use the tool, which is a part of the cold outreach platform,

1. After you are logged in to SalesBlink. Click on ‘Email Verification’ on the side menu under tools.

2. Enter the email address to be verified.

3. The tool will specify whether the email address is valid or not. 

4. You can also verify emails in bulk by dragging and dropping a CSV file in the bulk email verifier. It is possible to verify 1000 emails at once. 

The tool marks email addresses as valid, invalid, and risky. Therefore, you can remove the ones that fall in the risky and invalid categories from your list and proceed with your email campaign. 

Here is a comprehensive video tutorial to help you understand the working of this tool better.

Conclusion

Email is the most common outreach method and has a lot to offer when it comes to business communication. However, the main problem is to check if the email is valid and that when you send emails to email addresses that are not valid, it increases the bounce rate. That way, your sender reputation gets affected, and that has a negative impact on email deliverability. 

Your emails will land in the spam folder instead of the inbox, and you won’t be able to reach out to your leads which is the sole purpose of any email campaign. Try to avoid these issues by verifying email addresses before you run your email campaign.

You can achieve higher deliverability with the help of email verification tools that help clean your mailing list almost instantly by marking invalid addresses. We have already seen what all you should look for in the tool you choose for yourself. It is purely based on your needs and preferences. 

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