Email validation is crucial for maintaining a healthy contact list and ensuring effective email marketing campaigns. BriteVerify provides four primary statuses for email validation: Valid, Invalid, Accept All, and Unknown.
Understanding these statuses and how to handle each can help you optimize your contact list and improve your email deliverability.
Primary Statuses
Valid: A "Valid" status indicates that the email address is a confirmed valid account. These contacts are safe to mail, and you can confidently include them in your primary email campaigns.
Invalid: An "Invalid" status means that the email address is confirmed to be invalid. To maintain list health and avoid high bounce rates, you should not mail to these addresses. Removing them from your contact list is essential.
Accept All: An "Accept All" status is given to domains that always claim their email addresses are valid, even if they aren't. These domains often have firewalls or spam tools that may filter out or bounce emails at a later time. This status is considered risky, and there is a fair chance that emails sent to these addresses will bounce. If you choose to proceed, do so with caution:
- If your ESP’s bounce threshold is 5% or less: Do not mail.
- If your ESP has given you a dedicated IP: Mail slowly.
Unknown: An "Unknown" status indicates that the email address appears valid, but the associated domain is not responding. This could be due to temporary issues or a permanent problem with a dead or dying domain. Like the "Accept All" status, this is also considered risky:
- If your ESP’s bounce threshold is 5% or less: Do not mail.
- If your ESP has given you a dedicated IP: Mail slowly.
Implementation Strategy
To effectively use these statuses in your contact cleanse, follow these steps:
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Create Segmented Lists:
- Valid Contacts: These are safe to mail and can be included in your primary email campaigns.
- Invalid Contacts: Remove these contacts from your list to maintain health and deliverability.
- Unknown Contacts: Segment these contacts and proceed with caution. You can send low-priority campaigns to test their validity and monitor the results.
- Accept All Contacts: Similarly, segment these contacts and mail cautiously. Monitor engagement closely to identify any bounces.
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Mailing Strategy:
- Valid Contacts: Include these in your main email campaigns without concern.
- Unknown and Accept All Contacts: Send low-priority or test campaigns. Monitor engagement and bounce rates. Gradually integrate responsive contacts into your main list.
- Invalid Contacts: Remove these from your database to ensure a clean and healthy list.
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Ongoing Monitoring:
- Continuously monitor bounce rates and engagement metrics for all segments.
- Periodically re-validate the unknown and accept all contacts to check for any changes in their status.
- Regularly remove invalid contacts and re-validate unknown and accept all contacts to maintain a clean and updated list.
By following this strategy, you can ensure that your contact list remains healthy, improve your email deliverability, and maintain a good standing with your ESP. Regularly cleansing your contact list based on these statuses will help you optimize your email marketing efforts and achieve better results.