As a sender, you may benefit from a high-quality mailing list validation process, which may help you achieve a higher delivery rate and a better sender reputation. In this post, we’ll walk you through the whole process to avoid having invalid emails end up on your mailing list. To begin, though, it is necessary to define email validation & hygiene.
Validation of email addresses
A mailing list’s validity and deliverability may be checked without sending any test emails using a process known as mailing list validation or verification. As a result, your email campaigns are more likely to succeed, with less complex and soft bounces, fewer spam traps, and improved overall performance. In most cases, email validation consists of the following three steps:
A grammar and syntax check.
Before further processing, it is necessary to check all email addresses against widely accepted email formatting standards and look for typos and spelling errors in both local (before the @ symbol) and domain (after a @ symbol) parts of an email address. This process includes looking for any spaces or invalid characters, a missing “at” sign, etc.
Authentication of the domain and server.
Verification of the DNS and the existence and functionality of the mail exchanger (MX) records continues if the syntax and formatting are correct.
Confirmation of the mailbox.
Last but not least, a check is made to see whether the requested mailbox already exists and isn’t already full. SMTP is the most common method for this. Using an EHLO or HELO message, the email verifier program sends a ping to the specified email address and waits for a response. An email from this address confirms that its validity and usefulness have been verified.
Types of email verifiers
There are two forms of email verification software: SaaS and on-premises. When it comes to email validation, the software is something that you can download and install on your computer. Still, SaaS-based solutions are hosted online and accessible from any computer or mobile device.
Now that we understand their differences let’s examine the advantages and disadvantages of both kinds of email verifiers.
Pricing
Desktop email verifiers are more cost-effective since you pay once for a licensed copy of the application and can use it to scan infinite lists of emails. Users may either pay a monthly membership fee or pay for verifications or the number of emails they can access each month using online-based solutions.
Several people may use the same account.
If you choose a desktop verifier, you’ll only be able to use it from the computer it was first set up. On the other hand, SaaS-based solutions allow you to log in from any device and share a single account with several people. Some online verifiers enable you to restrict access to specific IP addresses.
Data protection is a significant concern.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods. On the one hand, when you use a desktop program on a single device and keep your email list there, you have complete access and control over it. You don’t need to be concerned about data breaches as long as you keep an eye out for malware and leave it to your firewall to deal with. It’s essential to have a copy of your database in a safe place if your computer fails. Therefore you should back up your data often.
As long as your web account is up and running, no viruses or hardware problems will impact the data you provide while verifying your mailing lists. A backup copy should also be kept on hand in case of data breaches or other system malfunctions, as with any online service.
Safety of IP addresses
Using desktop verifiers excessively might harm your IP reputation despite its many advantages. Email servers may return false-positive or false-negative validation statuses in spam attacks that require numerous validation requests. Anti-spam databases may ban your IP address in the worst-case situation. You may hide your IP address using a proxy, but this adds time and money to each validated email.
