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In this article, we’ll explore email bounce checkers. Are they useful tools that can help improve your email campaigns and prevent those harmful bounces? We’ll break it down so you can make the best decision for your needs. Keep reading to get all the details.
What Tool to Check for Email Bounce?
Many marketers who are trying to prevent bounces will want to know if there’s an email address verification tool that can detect when an email address is invalid and will cause a bounce. There are several available, and some options are better than others.
These tools are called email bounce checkers. Most of them operate by reviewing several factors about email addresses on your list, like checking IP addresses and DNS records to determine if they’re real and valid. These tools aren’t 100% accurate, but they can be a good place to start on the path to a healthier email list.
Alternative to the Traditional Email Bounce Checker
If you want an alternative to the traditional email bounce checker, our email insight software at AudiencePoint can help with various elements associated with email deliverability and creating a healthier email list.
Our software uses a variety of factors to authenticate emails on your list and provide you with actionable ways you can improve engagement and deliverability. That includes using second-party data, tracking accurate email metrics, identifying inactive subscribers, and suppressing dormant email addresses.
Overall, these aspects contribute greatly to cleaning up your list of subscribers and preventing bounces from occurring. It’s an excellent multi-layered approach to get better and longer-lasting results.
Can You Test an Email Without Sending It?
The above mentioned email bounce checker tools can help you test email addresses without sending content to them. These tools work by running server pings, reviewing DNS records, checking IP addresses, analyzing syntaxes for misspellings, and more to determine if email addresses on your list are valid. All of this is done without sending any content.
You can also do many of these processes manually, but that takes a lot of time and effort for the typical email marketer or business owner with much to accomplish, so using tools is a much better option.
How Do You Test if an Email Will Bounce?
One way to test if an email will bounce is by using a different email address from the one on your primary domain to email the recipients in question. You want to use a different email from your primary business domain name since you don’t want any spam flags going up that will hurt your deliverability down the line due to email bounces.
Essentially with this method, you would send a simple email to each recipient. If it bounces, it’ll come back with a message like “server couldn’t be reached” or something similar.
However, this is a pretty tedious task to do for everyone who signs up for your list. Think about how long it would take you to go through 1,000 emails at this pace. Plus, for businesses that have 100,000 or more subscribers on lists, it would be impossible to manage.
That’s why using email bounce checkers or well-rounded alternatives like AudiencePoint’s email insight software is a much better idea.
Is There a Free Email Bounce Checker?
There are several free email bounce checkers. The Bouncer email verification tool and ZeroBounce are some popular options that offer the ability to use it for free. That said, they have some limitations about the size of the email list you can check for free and how often you can do free bounce checks.
Plus, you have to keep in mind these are free tools, so they may only go through some possible methods to determine if an email address is valid or not. Any business with the ability to invest in paid tools should to get the best results. AudiencePoint is a great option that can not only help prevent bounces but also improve your all-around email engagement rates.
Is There a Way to Verify an Email?
You’re probably also wondering if you can do an email verification online when someone signs up for your email list. There is a way to do this, and it’s typically a recommended best practice to build a healthy and engaged list of subscribers.
The best way to verify an email is by using email verification tools, which may also be called an email checker. Let’s learn a bit more about how these tools work.
What Is an Email Checker Verify Email Addresses?
An email verification tool or email checker is a way for you to verify that someone inputs a real and active email address before adding them to your list. That way, you don’t have to worry about emails bouncing later.
When someone signing up for your list goes through a quick email verification, they’ll typically receive an email verification code or button sent to the email address they listed. If they can input the code or click the button, it shows they have access to that inbox, and they’ll be successfully added to your list.
Is Email Verification Annoying for Customers?
Some marketers and business owners worry about deploying this method because they fear it will annoy customers. However, you can rest assured that it is common today, and most consumers are more than used to verifying their email addresses.
Plus, verification not only benefits you but also ensures subscribers get the email content they signed up to receive. Wouldn’t it be disappointing if you were excited to sign up for an email list and never got any content? Email verifiers help prevent that.
Can You Validate an Email Address Without Sending an Email?
Another problem many email marketers run into is having an email list they already built but have yet to go through the initial verification process. Or you may simply want to review your list again after it has been active for some time to ensure all the email addresses are still active.
Either way, it has many looking for other email list verifying methods they can do without sending an email.
One of the easiest ways to go through email list validation without sending emails is by using a bulk email verifier. Bulk verifiers work similarly to the email bounce checkers we discussed earlier.
They run through many checks in the background to ensure email addresses return active signals, are spelled correctly, and have usernames that don’t flag for common spam terms. This process is quick and easy, usually taking seconds or minutes.
Manual Ways to Verify Without Sending an Email
If you’re on a budget, you may wonder if there are any manual ways you can go through these checks without sending an email. There are ways you can do it on your own, including:
- Manually review usernames and syntaxes: A bulk checker will make this process much easier, but if you have a small email list, you could do it manually. You would check common syntaxes for misspellings, such as at “@ooutlook.com” or similar errors. You could also check for usernames with long strings of random letters or numbers.
- IP address and DNS checks: You can use tools like MXToolbox to do IP address and DNS checks manually. However, it is a technical process and time-consuming if you have a big email list.
- Ping the server: Tools like PuTTY for Telnet allow you to ping the server of the listed email address. If it brings back a positive response, you know it’s an active email address. However, it’s still a tedious process when done manually.
Overall, manual options can be more affordable than tools, but you have to weigh the time spent here vs. using it toward improving your other business operations. Usually, high-quality email marketing tools end up being a better investment.
Who Is the Owner of Email Checker
Another method that some may try manually is searching for “who is the owner of [insert subscriber’s email address]” to see if they can find it on search engines. It’s not a bad thought since you can find some people’s emails directly connected to their names from other accounts they have online.
However, this isn’t a reliable method to verify an email with 100% certainty, and also very time-consuming to do it for a whole list of subscribers.
Are Email Verifiers Accurate?
The initial validation method of sending a verification email upon signup with an email verifier is very accurate. It’s an almost 100% certain way to verify that a new subscriber has access to their listed inbox.
When you get into bulk email verification tools, this answer can get a bit trickier. Once emails are on your list for some time, it gets harder to tell with 100% certainty if they’re still active without emailing them and seeing if it bounces.
However, there has been tons of research into different processes to verify email lists in bulk. Hence, tools like AudiencePoint’s email verification solution use the best processes for today’s email marketing standards are very accurate and can give you excellent recommendations on improving your deliverability.
How AudiencePoint Can Help
AudiencePoint’s email insight software can help you identify dormant emails on your list while putting best practices in place to prevent bounces and improve engagement rates.
AudiencePoint has three diffrent tools called ListFit, Real Time Optimization, and Send Time Optimization.
These tools work effectively together to provide in-depth metrics for when subscribers become inactive and need to be re-engaged, when dormant emails should be suppressed, the best times and days to send content, and insights in real-time to plan your next email marketing strategy quickly.
On top of these aspects, AudiencePoint stands out from other options by using several email marketing best practices to gain better insights. That includes the use of second-party data to understand better how subscribers engage and by tracking accurate email marketing metrics through methods like isolating Apple MPP opens from reporting.
With all these tools and features, AudiencePoint is an excellent all-around option to improve the success of your campaigns. Contact us today to learn more about getting started.