Email Validation Versus Email Verification

Understanding the distinction between email validation and verification is crucial when conducting email campaigns that convert. While both terms sound similar, they serve distinct purposes in ensuring the reliability and accuracy of getting your emails into prospects’ inboxes.

What Is Email Validation?

Email validation is a simple yet reliable process that works to verify if an email is syntactically valid, meaning, checking that it is in the correct format and verifying that the domain exists and is set up to receive emails.

Email validation serves as a beneficial tool for form validation purposes, such as user sign-up processes, where it ensures that the format of an email entered by a user meets certain criteria. However, it's important to note that while email validation checks the syntax and structure of an email address, it does not inherently verify whether the email address is deliverable or if the recipient's mail server will accept emails sent to that address.

What Is Email Verification?

Email verification involves an additional step that checks if the receiving email server of a particular domain would deliver that email (using SMTP), without actually sending it. Ultimately checking that the email addresses on your list are linked to a real inbox, making sure your messages can be delivered.

When verifying email addresses, the accuracy of results can be compromised due to various factors. Some servers may block this type of verification, while others might intentionally send false positives or negatives. Additionally, spam traps and domains configured with catch-all emails can contribute to incorrect outcomes during the verification process. However, many verification tools or services perform several checks, such as:

• Syntax Check: Verifies whether the email format adheres to the correct syntax, detecting any structural errors.
• Domain Check: Validates the existence and authenticity of the domain associated with the email address.
• SMTP Server-to-Server Check: Confirms the connection with the recipient's email server, ensuring its ability to accept incoming emails.
• Catch-all Domain Detection: Identifies domains configured to accept all incoming emails, reducing the risk of false positives.
• Disposable Email Detection: Flags temporary or disposable email addresses that might not guarantee long-term engagement.
• Spam Trap Detection: Identifies and excludes potential spam trap addresses that could harm a sender’s reputation.

Enhancing Your Campaign's Impact With Verified Emails

Effective email campaigns require more than engaging subject lines and personalized content. Properly stacked prospect lists, with verified email addresses are equally important for success.

Emailing invalid addresses negatively impacts your delivery rate and sender reputation, ultimately leading to ineffective email campaigns and wasted money. Invalid addresses often lead to bounce-backs, rendering the emails undeliverable and contributing to higher bounce rates. Additionally, consistently sending to unverified addresses can tarnish the sender's reputation with internet service providers (ISPs) and email service providers (ESPs), diminishing the chances of future emails reaching the intended recipients' inboxes.

Verified email addresses increase the chances of recipients engaging with the content by ensuring that emails reach their intended destination. This, not only improves the chances of getting a response but also enhances the effectiveness of the overall email marketing strategy.

Find Verified Emails With Anymail Finder

By using email verification tools or services, you can filter out invalid or inactive email addresses from your mailing lists to ensure efficient resource allocation and maximize marketing effectiveness by reaching engaged audiences reliably. Find verified email addresses with Anymail Finder, and pay only for emails with a deliverability rate of 97% or higher.