Three Ways To Verify Email Addresses
- by Jess Nelson , December 30, 2015
Email verification is an essential step to a mature email marketing program. Neverbounce.com recently released three recommended methods to verify email addresses in 2016.
Email marketing remains the highest return of investment per dollar spent, according to Neverbounce.com, but one key concern for marketers is that the full value of email marketing can only met when every email targets the intended recipient. Otherwise, bouncebacks and lost emails hinder campaign engagement results.
Growing and maintaining a healthy email list is one of the most critical components of email marketing. Here, email verification and cleaning service Neverbounce.com provides three tips for email marketers.
1. Email Append Services Connect Customers to New Email Addresses
By the end of 2016, The Radicati Group estimates that there will be over 4.3 billion email accounts. Yet as much as 30% of email subscribers change their address every year, according to Neverbounce.com.
Email appending, also known as e-appending, is a marketing practice that matches known customer data to an unknown or new email address. An email append service can help marketers authenticate email addresses and add them to a healthy email list of real, genuine addresses.
2. Reverse Email Append Connects Known Emails to Anonymous Customer Data
Reverse email append services are a useful tool for syncing unknown contact information with a known email list. For example, a company with a list of emails with no other identifiable information can utilize reverse append email services to identify customer information and connect it to the company’s email list.
Connecting customer information with a known email address is a necessary component to personalization, since personalized emails are impossible without more in-depth customer information and behavioral data.
Reverse email append can also help email marketers better segment their email lists through demographic and geographic information to better target intended recipients.
3. Email Address Authentication Is Essential To Focus on Sale Conversions
Some consumers might sign up for an email marketing list to receive promotion codes or benefits, but might use a fake address to avoid the nuisance of email marketing in their inboxes.
Validating emails not only ensures marketers have collected a clean, healthy and deliverable email list, but it also deletes emails that are no longer in service so marketers can focus their attentions on live recipients that may actually convert to a sale.
Helpful birds-eye view of some useful tools for email marketers but the devil is in the details. The three tips described herein can lead to serious and costly issues if not performed by the right provider.
Email appending - the potential ROI on this is enormous but, if not performed perfectly, this practice could introduce spamtraps, heavy spam complainers, and other malicious email addresses to your file. Accordingly, follow these guidelines:
1) Use a provider with an impeccable reputation. Handing your customer file, perhaps your most valuable asset, to a fly-by-night or less than reputable company will burn it for good
2) Only perform email appends on your customer list (i.e. not a compiled list, bought list, modeled list, etc.)
3) Ony match against 100% opt-in data that has been throroughly cleaned and be sure to deploy an opt-in permission message to ensure deliverability and honor your customers' preferences
4) Ensure all results are guaranteed 100% deliverable and accurate
Postal Appends - again, this will cost you many times over if not performed properly so follow these guidelines:
1) Only work with a provider with an impeccable reputation
2) Choose a provider with the expertise and knowledgebase to remove malicious and other problematic email addresses from your file BEFORE beginning their matching process. Paying low cost will kill you in the long run if you end up with toxic data
3) Only match against 100% self-registered opt-in data, which has been cleaned through a comprehensive email hygiene service
4) Make sure all matches are NCOA'ed
Email Address Authentication - validating deliverability is just one piece of the puzzle. ISPs rely on three main factors for deliverability:
1) Spamtraps/honeypots - hitting just one can get your email program blocked and potentially blacklisted
2) Excessive spam complaints - ISPs' spam complaint thresholds are ~ .3%. Exceed these thresholds and your emails will be blocked and not delivered.
3) Excessive bounces - ISPs' bounce thresholds are ~ 10%. Exceed these thresholds and your emails will be blocked
A comprehensive email hygiene, correction, and validation service can block spamtraps and heavy complainers, correct inadvertent entry errors, and validate the deliverability of every email address in your file for a penny or less per record, thereby ensuring that your email addresses are SafeToSend.
See http://www.freshaddress.com/services/email-validation/ to learn how 2,500+ leading marketers and nonprofits, including 25% of the Fortune 100, build, clean, and update their customer email address files to maximize their email marketing revenues.