What is Email Validation?

A crucial step in cold outreach; the process of verifying an email address's legitimacy, deliverability, and activeness before sending emails to it.

Updated
August 16, 2023

Email validation, in the context of cold email outreach, refers to the process of verifying the accuracy and legitimacy of email addresses before sending messages. It involves using specialized software or services to check if an email address is properly formatted, exists, and is capable of receiving emails. By validating email addresses, cold email senders can reduce bounce rates, improve deliverability, and avoid sending messages to non-existent or inactive addresses, thereby enhancing the overall effectiveness of their outreach campaigns and maintaining a positive sender reputation.

What is email validation?

Email validation is the process of checking if an email address is legitimate, deliverable, and active before sending an email to it. By validating email addresses, you ensure that you're not wasting your precious time and resources on emails that bounce back or never reach their intended recipients.

How do you validate an email account?

There are several ways to validate an email address, but we'll discuss the most common methods:

  1. Syntax check: This is the simplest check. It verifies if the email address follows the standard format (e.g., something@example.com). It's like making sure your new friend's phone number has the right number of digits.
  2. Domain check: This step goes a bit further and ensures that the domain (the part after the '@' symbol) is valid and functioning. It's like checking if your friend's phone company is still in business.
  3. Mailbox check: The crème de la crème of email validation. This process verifies if the mailbox (the part before the '@' symbol) actually exists and can receive emails.

There are numerous email validation tools and services available that can perform these checks for you, ranging from free options with limited features to premium solutions with advanced capabilities.

At Coldlytics, we validate every email address using Zerobounce before delivering the list to you. If you're validating emails outside Coldlytics, we'd recommend using them too.

Why is email validation so important?

Validating email addresses before launching your cold email campaign has a bunch of very important benefits:

  1. Improved deliverability: By removing invalid addresses, you increase the chances of your emails landing in the right inboxes, boosting your open and response rates.
  2. Sender reputation: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) track the quality of the emails you send. Constantly sending emails to invalid addresses can damage your sender reputation, causing your future emails to be flagged as spam. Ouch!
  3. Cost savings: Email marketing platforms usually charge based on the number of subscribers or the volume of emails sent. Validating email addresses helps you avoid paying for undeliverable messages.
  4. Accurate metrics: With a clean list of valid email addresses, you can get a better understanding of your campaign's performance through reliable open, click, and response rates.

Now that you know what email validation is and how crucial it is for your cold email outreach, it's time to clean up your mailing list and set your campaign up for success! Happy emailing, and may the conversions be ever in your favor. 💌

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