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Many first-time email marketers start an email list only to realize that many of the signups they get are from bots or customers that input fake email addresses. It can be a very frustrating situation that can even hurt your email marketing efforts drastically if left unsolved. That leaves many wondering how they can check if an email is genuine.
We have your back. This article will break down everything you should know about checking if an email is genuine and the steps you can take to clean up your email list. Let’s get started.
How Can I Check an Email Is Genuine?
The best way to check if an email address is genuine is by using what is called an email address verification tool, also known as an email verifier. These verification tools are simple software programs that can validate emails added to your list within a matter of seconds or minutes.
Email verification tools typically come in two forms. The most common type of verifier activates the moment someone signs up for your list to verify the email address they input is real and active. The other email verifier is called a bulk verification tool. These tools can analyze already established email lists to ensure every email address is valid and active.
Let’s take a closer look at how these tools work.
How to Check If Someone’s Email Is Real
The best way to check if someone’s email is real is to have your email verifier send a code or button to the email address the customer input.
When they go through this quick email verification, they’ll either enter the code they received or click that button to show they’re really interested in signing up for your list and have access to the email address they listed. It’s an all-around easy process that provides you with instant results to know if their email is genuine.
Checking If an Email Is Real with Bulk Verifiers
Bulk email verifiers work a bit differently since they’ll be analyzing existing email lists. That said, they are usually swift and give you instant results to help clean your list of any fake or dormant emails.
When you have a bulk verifier analyze your list, it goes through several checks in the background to verify emails. That includes SMTP checks, server pings, checking for spelling errors, and more. Some of these processes are ones you could do manually, but the bulk verifier simply makes it much more efficient.
How to Check If an Email Address Is Valid Without Sending an Email?
Many email marketers want to validate email addresses without sending an email. This is common when you have a list that is already established where you didn’t have a chance to do the initial verification. Here are a few manual ways you can do so.
3 Ways to Manually Verify Email Address Without Sending Email
The top three ways to verify emails manually without sending content are:
- Ping the server: Tools like PuTTY for Telnet are able to help you manually ping the server of email addresses that sign up for your list. This is a relatively technical and tedious process to do manually, but it does give you a solid indicator via a positive signal if the email address is active.
- IP address and DNS checks: You can also use tools like MXToolbox to check the email account’s IP address and DNS records. Again, these are tedious processes when done manually, but it does provide you with solid evidence that the email is active and not spam.
- Check for misspellings: Many fake email addresses use misspellings of common domains like “@yahooo.com” or similar variations. Manually going through your list can help spot some of those.
While these processes work manually, it’s usually better for serious email marketers to use tools like bulk verifiers. It’ll help you save time and focus on what’s most important about your email campaigns, which is creating effective content that converts.
How Can I Verify an Email Address Online?
The best ways to verify an email address online are by using the email verification tools or bulk verifiers mentioned before. They’re quick and easy while getting the job done right.
Some people may wonder if they can check email address ownership by searching it online. For instance, a marketer may try to search “find the owner of Outlook email address [insert email]” or “who is the owner of [insert email].”
While this can help if the results show up that the listed email is attached to their name on other accounts, this is not a good method to verify an email is genuine and active with 100% certainty. There are many people who have real, active email addresses who still won’t show up via online search.
How Long Does Email Verification Take?
Many marketers worry that email verification will be a time-consuming process. However, it is actually very quick for both you and your customers. Whether you use the initial verification upon someone signing up for your list or a bulk verifier, the whole process usually takes seconds or minutes.
If you need assistance with the verification of an already established list to fix email deliverability issues, AudiencePoint can help.
How AudiencePoint Can Help
AudiencePoint’s email insight software is a unique solution for email verification. What makes our insight software stand out is it’s more than just a verification tool, and we use several processes that stand out amongst other options.
One of the reasons AudiencePoint stands out is the use of second-party data. This provides a data pool from many industries that helps verify that customers who are on your list are real when they’ve been active in their inbox.
Additionally, AudiencePoint can provide you with insights in real-time with accurate email metrics that are up-to-date with today’s standards. For instance, our insight software is capable of isolating Apple MPP opens from reporting to provide you with accurate open rate metrics and a better overview of which subscribers on your list are actually active.
With all of that said, our tools at AudiencePoint have successfully helped many companies suppress dormant email addresses on their list to improve deliverability, and we know we can help you too. Plus, we’ll help you maintain good engagement to prevent future issues by optimizing send times, segmenting your list, and re-engaging inactive subscribers.
Contact us today for more information about getting started.
