If you want your cold emails to land in your prospects’ inboxes, you should aim to keep your bounce rate below 5%. Bounce rate refers to the percentage of emails that failed to be delivered, commonly known as “bounced” emails.
A high bounce rate can negatively impact your email deliverability, resulting in your messages not reaching your intended audience. This limitation can hinder your ability to receive replies and capitalize on new business opportunities.
So, how can you minimize your bounce rate?
One effective method is to perform email verification before initiating contact, as reaching out without verification can damage your sender reputation. Considering the importance of maintaining a clean and authentic email list, you might even consider purchasing Gmail accounts to enhance your outreach strategies.
Methods of Checking Email Address Validity
In this guide, discover five reliable methods for validating email addresses without the need to send actual emails.
Method 1: Send an Email to the Address
Checking the validity of an email can be easily done by sending a message to it. This approach is particularly useful for marketers embarking on their journey or managing small marketing lists. It’s also effective if you’re only adding a handful of new addresses monthly.
To verify emails individually, a simple message like the following can be crafted:
“Hello, I’m verifying the validity of this address. If you’re receiving this email, kindly confirm.”
Sending such a message to a non-existent address will result in a bounce-back message from your email provider, resembling one of the following:
- Message Not Delivered: Your message encountered delivery issues to [email protected]. Please review the technical details below or attempt resending in a few minutes.
- Address Not Found: Delivery to [email protected] failed due to an unlocatable address. Double-check for typos or extraneous spaces and retry.
It’s worth noting that certain email providers utilize a catch-all address to intercept messages sent to incorrect addresses. In such instances, while your message is technically delivered, it won’t reach the intended recipient. Consequently, you won’t receive a response, leaving you unaware of the issue.
Method 2: Password Recovery
Have you ever attempted to reclaim an old email address, only to receive notification from your service provider that the address couldn’t be located? Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, the three primary email providers, employ a straightforward email address checker in their account recovery processes. This tool not only aids in password retrieval but also confirms whether the address was correctly inputted into your forms.
You can leverage this email address checker whenever you encounter a message from a @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, or @outlook.com domain. Simply visit the corresponding recovery page and input the address you wish to verify:
- Google: https://www.google.com/accounts/recovery
- Microsoft: https://account.live.com/password/reset
- Yahoo: https://edit.yahoo.com/forgot
While utilizing this method to verify email validity is beneficial, it may not consistently yield desired outcomes and can consume considerable time. This inefficiency is particularly notable for marketers managing extensive marketing lists and frequently adding dozens or hundreds of addresses monthly.
Method 3: Perform an IP Address Lookup
Performing an IP address lookup is a straightforward method to validate an email’s authenticity and is simpler than it may seem. It involves determining the geolocation of an IP address, which is embedded in the source code of each email message. By copying and pasting the IP address into an online lookup tool like What Is My IP Address, you can quickly ascertain the associated ISP, organization, and location.
However, while this method reveals the origin of an address, it doesn’t assess its deliverability or the reputation of its domain. Moreover, for marketers managing numerous addresses, this process can be time-consuming.
Method 4: Search the Address in Google
This method won’t tell you that an email address is fake, but it can tell you that it is valid. It works because most people have a presence on the internet—some have their own websites, while others are active on social media. Major search engines like Google or Bing constantly crawl the internet, indexing everything they find. That’s why most addresses that belong to real people can be found with a simple search engine query, while fake addresses can’t.
Method 5: Email Checker
Fake email messages are a problem today, which is why it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that there are many email checkers, also known as email verifiers, that can be used to validate email addresses with a couple of clicks. Free checkers typically limit the number of addresses you can validate in a month, and you’ll need to subscribe to a service if you need to check more addresses.
When determining how to verify email validity, there’s a multitude of services available, many of which are free to use while you evaluate which one best meets your requirements. Although each tool varies, they’re generally user-friendly, with some not even requiring registration.
Conclusion
Valid email checkers and other methods on how to check if an email is valid can keep your marketing lists clean and ensure that a fake email message won’t ruin your marketing campaign efforts. You want to spend your marketing dollars wisely. Ensuring that every email message you send is delivered to the intended recipient is one way to ensure your campaign’s success.