Tools to Validate Emails and Improve Bounce Rates

April 15, 2021

-By Joe Caston-

When it comes to email marketing, bounced emails are all part of the game. Much like a foul ball in baseball, a few are harmless but one too many and you’re going to strike out. Email verification tools help marketers reduce bounce rates by checking deliverability of email addresses and keeping marketing email lists clean.

While bounced emails are sometime unavoidable, there are strategies to verify email addresses before sending out communications to prospects. You may not care about a few bounced emails to begin with, but when you see your campaign results getting worse and worse, and then eventually your communications land in the SPAM folder – then you begin to jeopardize your email reputation.

Whether you’re already suffering from a bad bounce rate or a poor email reputation, there are ways to make sure your emails never end up in SPAM.

You may be wondering – what is bounce rate? Well, an email can ‘bounce’ for a variety of reasons. Sometimes a bounce occurs because the email you’re sending is too large, or it’s an issue on the receiver’s side. However, there are also permanent delivery failures because of invalid email addresses, outdated domains, or SPAM traps.

When your emails bounce, this triggers Google and email providers to think that you may be sending SPAM. When you cause enough issues, the chance of your email landing in the SPAM folder increases. A few bounces here and there may not be too much to worry about, but in the long haul, your email marketing efforts could be significantly hampered by invalid addresses.

However, there are a lot of simple email verification tools that can tell you whether your prospect’s email is valid or not. These tools work in a few different ways.

• Email address syntax check: These tests determine whether the email address is spelled correctly and if all spaces, dots, commas, etc. are in the right place.
• Domain check: This kind of check verifies whether the domain and email address are working properly.
• Email ping: This tool sends a message to a receiver’s server to confirm whether the address exists and whether it is active.
• Role-based detection: Email sends to role-based such as postmaster@, info@, sales@, admin@, etc. can negatively impact your deliverability.

What Is the Best Email Verification Tool?

Email validation software comes in all shapes and sizes, and different tools use different methods to verify addresses – with differing results. There are both paid and unpaid email verification services out there, all with different designs and varying ease of use. It will likely require some trial and error for you until you find the proper service for your needs.

Here are a few services worth exploring:

Clearout detects bad emails in several ways. It removes duplicate emails, the dots from emails, temporary emails and sub accounts. It also identifies and removes spam traps, emails with hard bounces and emails from blacklisted domains. Adobe utilizes their services, along with a lot of other smaller organizations because the software is easy to use and the price is attractive. Users can upload lists of 1 million emails at a time but also run verifications on single emails. With a Lead Finder, Clearout pinpoints key pieces of data from your subscribers’ email addresses well enough to create a separate list of potential B2B leads for outreach strategies. You can give the service a try by verifying up to 500 emails free of charge, and plans after that are tiered by a credit based system in which you only pay for the number of emails you need to verify.

ZeroBounce is a popular paid email verification software with clients such as TripAdvisor and AllState. ZeroBounce checks for spam traps, emails that return hard bounces and addresses that mark emails as spam at aggressive rates. It also removes fake and misspelled email addresses. The software can verify emails in bulk and one by one, if necessary. You can also integrate ZeroBounce into your site’s forms so that spam email or bad emails don’t get added to your list in the first place. It can also seamlessly integrate with popular email providers and other services. You can get started with ZeroBounce for free with its freemium plan, which has a limit of 100 email verifications per month. Premium plans start at $15/month for 2,000 email verifications, which is a 6% discount.

ZoomInfo boasts clients such as Google, Amazon and Zoom. Digital marketers like ZoomInfo because it can be used for marketing, sales, account management, recruiting, and more. ZoomInfo combines the world’s most comprehensive business database with best-in-class technology to fuel your go-to-market strategy from start to finish, and provide an accurate, 360-degree view of customers, prospects, and opportunities. With robust features and integrations seamlessly incorporated into your workflows, the company is on a mission to deliver more. ZoomInfo also has a customized payment plan, uniquely tailored to your business. You can start with a free trial and upgrade from there.

NeverBounce launched in 2014 and their clientele includes Uber, Dell, and Harvard Medical School. This service can clean, verify and sync emails very quickly, and for less than a penny per email. It can clean 10,000 emails in as little as 3 minutes, which works well for busy digital marketers. NeverBounce is also develop-friendly with easy integration tools. The pricing at NeverbOunce is pay-as-you-go and monthly tiered options, but they do offer 30% discounts to startups and nonprofits receive 20% off.

Bouncer caters to small businesses and offers a very user-friendly format. Users of Bouncer report that their support team is very responsive and the results they provide are highly detailed. The draw with Bouncer is for those that just need a service that is simple and effective. Most users are business owners strapped for time and need an effective tool to aid in their email marketing campaigns. Bouncer delivers with usability, accuracy and attractice pricing. You first 1,000 email addresses are free, and after that a credit system is used so that you only pay for what you need.

If you’re looking for a completely free solution or don’t want to spend money to begin with, you can utilize the free verifications for a number of different sites until you find one that works for you. Some services offer up to 1,000 free emails, which is a great place to get started.

Thanks to author Joe Caston, Founder and CMO of CapSumo, TMA's conversion rate optimization partner, and PlayMakersX. CapSumo helps you to generate more leads by seeing who visits your abandoned web forms. Instantly grow your email list, get more leads, and increase sales with the #1 conversion optimization toolkit. PlayMakersX offers digital marketing services as well as Lead Capture tools. Contact Joe and his team today to grow your traffic, leads, and sales.