How Do I Verify an Email Address Before Sending It? 

Many email marketers run into a situation where they’re building an email list, and everything’s going well. New subscribers are constantly signing up, and you see success right around the corner. Then, you check your metrics and realize a lot of your content is bouncing. Your sender reputation is down, there are spam complaints, and overall, your strategy is not as effective as it could be. It’s often because you have a lot of invalid or fake email addresses on your list if they weren’t verified at signup. 

In this article, we’re going to tackle what you should know about how to verify valid email addresses and delete invalid addresses. We’ll outline how an email address verification tool can help and the top ways to verify an email list before you send any emails to the recipient in question. 

How Do I Check If An Email Address Is Legitimate with an Email Verification Tool?

First, if you’re trying to check email address ownership, the best way to do so will be by using email verification tools. An email list validator is a software program designed to help you identify invalid email addresses in the background, so it doesn’t take up much time in your already busy schedule. Let’s take a deeper look at how that works.

How Can You Tell If An Email Is Valid Or Invalid?

There are two methods that are very common ways to validate email addresses in the marketing space. You’ll have initial verification and bulk verification solutions. 

If you’ve ever signed up for a list and saw a message that says “email address required verification,” that’s the initial verification method. It usually involves sending a code or a link to the new subscriber’s listed email. If they can input the code or click the link, it proves they can access that inbox and are successfully added to your list. 

Bulk verification works a bit differently. This option is for established lists that were never verified or if you want to check to see if any of your older subscribers have had their inboxes go dormant since they signed up. Bulk verification runs many processes in the background, like SMTP checks and IP address lookups, to determine if those subscribers have active inboxes. 

There’s also another method that many email marketers prefer, which will allow you to perform an initial verification without ever sending an email. So, let’s take a look at how that works. 

Can I Test An Email Address Before Sending An Email?

You can test an email address before ever sending a new subscriber an email. It’s a solution we provide through our email insight software at AudiencePoint. 

This method works by performing an API call through the signup form right as someone signs up for your list. That API call will pull data automatically and provide a reading on whether that new subscriber’s inbox is active. 

This doesn’t even have to be the only solution you deploy. If the API call provides a positive reading, you can then deploy your double opt-in email for the customer to confirm their subscription while significantly reducing the risk of that confirmation email bouncing since it was already verified through the API. 

How Do I Manually Verify Email Addresses?

Now, you may also be wondering if there are any manual ways you can verify emails without using software. There are a few options, but it’s important to note that these can be pretty tedious to perform over and over again. 

One method some deploy is using a different email account that isn’t on your primary business mail server to send an email to the subscriber in question. If it bounces, you’ll receive a message back from your email service providers saying “server can’t be reached,” “mail server address not found,” or something similar, showing that the account isn’t active. However, imagine trying to do this one at a time for 1,000 subscribers. It would take too much effort. 

Other methods can include options like manual server pings, running DNS records, or looking up IP addresses. However, these are pretty technical processes, and there will be a significant learning curve to learn how to perform these actions on your own. 

The average email marketer is much better off going with software solutions that can help, like our insight software at AudiencePoint. 

Is There a Free Unlimited Email Verifier Online?

There are several free unlimited email verifiers online. One of the popular options is Bulk Email Checker. However, the problem with free options like this is you still have to input emails from your list one at a time to verify them. That means when you’re adding 100 new subscribers to your list each week, it would be unsustainable to put that much time into email verification. 

Plus, tools like these don’t run deeper verification checks like using second-party data that our insight software through AudiencePoint can offer. 

What Are The Steps To Verify Email?

When you use premium solutions like AudiencePoint to verify emails, the process is very simple. 

1. The first step would be integrating an API call into your signup form. That will get an initial verification out of the way immediately. 
2. After that, you can also do an optional double opt-in through whichever email platform you use, like Mailchimp, which can be integrated with AudiencePoint. 
3. Lastly, as you grow and sustain your email list, you’d want to perform continued checks to ensure your subscribers remain active. That includes optimizing strategies to continue producing engaging content, identifying and re-engaging inactive subscribers, and suppressing any subscribers who become dormant. 

AudiencePoint can help with all these aspects. 

How AudiencePoint Can Help Verifying Email Addresses

As you can tell, our insight software at AudiencePoint can provide a lot of value for busy email marketers who want actionable solutions and email verification methods. 

Our tools will help you:

• Optimize send times
• Segment your email list
• Provide you with real-time metrics
• Track subscriber activity
• Verify your email list

All these solutions will help you simplify your email marketing strategy while creating better and more engaging content for your subscribers. 

Contact us today to learn more about how AudiencePoint can help.