Building a healthy email list is important to the growth of your business. Practicing good list hygiene is necessary for avoiding issues with deliverability. After all, you want to make sure that all the useful content you’re generating to nurture your prospects is actually landing in their inboxes.
There are two steps you can take now to improve the quality of your email list: email verification and email validation. Keep reading to find out what these two activities are and how they help you maximize the impact of your email marketing efforts.
Email List Verification vs Email List Validation
Let’s begin with an overview of the differences between verifying and validating email addresses. Note that both practices are part of maintaining good email list hygiene and many of the tools listed below can help you achieve one or both of these goals.
What is Email List Verification?
Email list verification is the practice of identifying invalid or risky email addresses and removing them. This is a complex process completed by tools that verify email address formats, check whether an email address is active, and confirm there’s a real person who uses it.
For example, if someone provided you with a disposable email address to gain access to gated content, you’d end up sending emails to an account that doesn’t even exist anymore. Not only is this a waste of your time and resources, but it can also damage your deliverability.
Sending emails to invalid email addresses can hurt your outreach campaigns in several ways, including a negative impact on your campaign metrics and more severe consequences like account suspension.
Whether you’re trying to drum up new business with sales outreach or launching a drip campaign to warm up cold leads, the goal of your email campaign is to deepen the connection with your sales prospects or subscribers. It’s important not to let a poorly maintained list prevent you from doing that.
What is Email Validation?
Email list validation is a practice that boosts deliverability by confirming that an email address has a valid domain. It’s a simpler process than verification because the goal is simply to ensure that an email address truly exists.
Part of the validation process is syntax checking to ensure the addresses on your list all follow the proper formats. Using email detection tools and email validation services helps ensure you don’t waste credits sending an email to an address containing typos (think: Gmail spelled “Hmail”) or an obviously fake email.
Your Email Service Provider (ESP) keeps track of how your contacts interact with your campaigns. If your open rates are suffering because the emails aren’t making it to real inboxes, you’ll trigger spam trap detection. And if you receive too many spam complaints, your sender reputation will take a hit.
Maintaining a positive sender reputation is necessary to stay out of the spam folder. It also saves you money because most ESPs charge you based on the number of contacts you have on your list and on the number of emails you send each month.
Now that you’ve learned why it’s important to verify and validate your email lists, let’s explore the top tools you can use to get the job done.
The 10 Best Email Verification Services and Tools
Whether you’re building a new email list from scratch or cleaning up a CSV file before uploading the data to your CRM, there are times when you might want to use an email verification tool.
The following tools are the best we’ve found for improving your list hygiene with powerful email verification software and email validation tools to optimize your email marketing campaigns.
NeverBounce
The team behind NeverBounce is a group of digital-marketers-turned-email-verification-specialists who understand just how important deliverability is to the success of a campaign. When they had trouble finding the right verification solution, they built their own. The result was a 3-in-1 tool that is a top pick for SMBs and corporations that need real-time email verification and a solution that works for bulk email lists.
It’s insanely easy to integrate NeverBounce into your tech stack. Besides the 88+ available integrations, NeverBounce gives you access to their custom API, JavaScript widget, and webhook to build an integration to fit your needs.
You can experience the power of NeverBounce’s proprietary 20+ step cleaning process for less than $.01 per email. Clean your first 10,000 emails for only $.008 each with the pay-as-you-go plan or sign up for a subscription to save even more. Not ready to commit? Get started with a free analysis to find out if your list needs cleaning and how much it will cost upfront.
DeBounce
For simple, fast, and accurate email validation, DeBounce is the tool you need. There are over 850 ratings on TrustPilot that testify to its high-performance list cleaning abilities. This feature-heavy tool is designed to get your emails into inboxes so that you save money and make an impact. With a whopping list of 114 integrations, DeBounce plays well with the best email marketing tools on the market.
You might think a tool this incredible would have a massive price tag, but DeBounce is as affordable as it is powerful. You can pay-as-you-go with credit packs that never expire starting at $10 for 5,000 verifications. You’ll even receive 100 free credits just for signing up.
ZeroBounce
Major corporations prefer this popular email verification tool because of its wide array of integration options. ZeroBounce has robust features including a real-time email verification API that prevents bad emails from getting onto your list and bulk verification capabilities that can tackle even the largest email lists with ease. This tool also checks for spam traps that drive up your bounce rate and negatively affect your email deliverability.
You can test-drive ZeroBounce with its free plan that allows you to verify up to 100 email addresses per month. Its paid plans begin at $16 per month for 2000 emails on the pay-as-you-go option, or $15 per month for 2000 emails on the subscription plan.
Mailfloss
This straightforward bulk email verification tool integrates with several email service providers. Mailfloss is a simple tool that harnesses the power of automation, so you can focus on creating winning content while it runs in the background.
Mailfloss keeps your list clean by removing emails with hard bounces or syntax errors. Use the built-in whitelist/blacklist options to control which emails get unsubscribed from your list so that you never lose any of your valuable contacts.
Mailfloss has a flexible pricing structure. You can either buy credits for one-time bulk verifications or choose a monthly subscription tier that fits the size of your list. Subscriptions start at $17 per month for up to 10,000 email verifications.
Clearout
Over 1,000 companies around the world trust Clearout for real-time verification and validation services. With a 98% accuracy rate and integration capabilities with top email marketing platforms, Clearout’s email validation tool could be a game-changer for your tech stack.
You get 100 free credits upon registration with Clearout, no credit card required. Pricing begins at $21 for a pay-as-you-go plan that grants you 3,000 credits or customized subscription pricing that gives you a hefty 20% discount.
MailboxValidator
MailboxValidator has a laundry list of features that thoroughly validate and clean your lists. This tool boasts an impressive 96% deliverability percentage and over 1.3 email addresses validated. The integration list isn’t as extensive as some of the other tools on this list, but it does include Zapier, which provides a serious leg up.
MailboxValidator offers a bulk plan that covers 30 days of validity for lists that you upload manually. Paid plans begin at $19.95 for 1,000 queries.
Emailable
Emailable (formerly called DataValidation) is a top-rated email verification service that is trusted by organizations around the world that need an easy way to protect the quality of their lists for optimum deliverability. In addition to offering list hygiene and security features, Emailable prides itself on its high level of support for its customers.
If you’d like to get started with this tool, you can enjoy 250 free credits to try it out. Pricing plans are available on a monthly or pay-as-you-go basis, with subscription plans that give volume discounts. If you choose to pay as you go for credits, expect to spend $37.50 for 5,000 verifications.
Verifalia
Verifalia is a real-time validation tool with longevity. They have helped over 35,000 customers clean and maintain healthy email lists since 2005.
You can test-drive Verifalia with a number of free verifications each day, one email address at a time, directly on the site. If you have a smaller list and patience to spare, you can validate up to 25 emails daily at no cost this way.
Verifalia offers affordable pricing tiers for every list size. You can buy a credit pack for as little as $4 to validate 500 emails or you can start a monthly subscription for $9 and validate 250 email addresses per day.
MailerCheck
The company that created the popular email service provider MailerLite has expanded its product suite with the creation of MailerCheck. The MailerCheck platform is a reliable tool for optimizing a list of email addresses before you hit send.
As both an email provider and an email verifier, MailerCheck is one of the best tools to find and remove disposable, temporary emails from your list One of the standout differences offered by MailerCheck is its ability to offer automated recommendations for tagging and segmentation to help users be more strategic with their campaigns.
MailerCheck offers a credit-based pay-as-you-go option that starts at $10 for 1,000 credits or a monthly subscription at a generous 20% price reduction.
Email Checker
This verification tool is another favorite of large corporations that manage massive amounts of data. Email Checker has built up a reputation for efficiency and accuracy which has helped to cement this tool as one of the market leaders. Few other tools can boast a 99% deliverability percentage, over 19.96 billion verified emails, and 1.3 billion bounces prevented.
Email Checker is a bulk email verifier that excels at real-time, automated verification. If you’ve got large lists that desperately need fine-tuning, this is the tool to try. The best part is you can start for free. When you’re ready to take things to the next level, you can pay-as-you-go or choose a monthly subscription plan.
Build a Clean Email List from the Start
Email list verification and validation are two practices that are essential for good email list hygiene. To keep your bounce rate low and your sender reputation high, you’ll always need to ensure that the contacts you have are still active and engaging with your content.
One of the best ways to ensure you’re building a list of quality contacts? Use a GDPR-compliant email finder to source accurate contact details for your ideal prospects from the beginning. After all, email list cleaning is a lot easier when you’re working with accurate, up-to-date B2B contact data.
You can start today with the Datanyze Chrome extension. Simplify your email verification process with Datanyze and you’ll be able to collect email addresses as you browse LinkedIn.
Sign up for free and use it to speed up your list-building process with ethically sourced email addresses that will get you one step closer to making the sale.
