Email verification is an essential step to ensure that the emails in your user list are valid and reliable. It helps to identify any potential issues that may arise when sending out a campaign. There are several reasons why an email may become undeliverable, such as:

• User may have accidentally entered the wrong email address.
• After signing up, a user might have deleted their account.
• User might have changed their email ID, the old email address may no longer be active.
• User provided a disposable email address that does not belong to them.

Sending an email campaign to such addresses or to unengaged profiles would not only be a waste of resources but could also harm your sender reputation and result in your campaigns being marked as spam. It is crucial to verify the validity of email addresses to ensure successful delivery and maintain a positive sender reputation.

To prevent this, we use a sophisticated real time verification process with multiple criteria limits. Our system verifies your email addresses in real time and flags the invalid or inactive email addresses to prevent sending emails to those. And, in case you exceed our defined criteria limit for invalid or inactive email addresses you will be notified. With this notification, you can take measures to clean your list and prevent your account from being suspended. By eliminating such email addresses, you can significantly reduce hard bounces, which negatively impact bounce rates and overall deliverability. 

Additionally, this helps identify and remove spam traps, minimizing the risk of being flagged as a sender of spam and avoiding damage to sender reputation. This practice contributes to improved engagement metrics, such as open and click-through rates, and prevents blacklisting by ISPs, ensuring that legitimate emails reach the intended audience. 

How email verification works in NotifyVisitors

NotifyVisitors implements a robust two-stage email verification system to increase the accuracy and legitimacy of user information within the platform.

Stage 1 - When new users are added to the platform

Stage 2 - When the email campaign is sent

In this guide, we will explain the verification process for both scenarios, the minimum criteria for valid email addresses to prevent account suspension, and a strategy to eliminate invalid emails.

1. Email verification process for new users

Whenever a new user is added to the NotifyVisitors dashboard, an automatic verification process is triggered to confirm the validity of their email addresses. This backend process operates seamlessly regardless of the method used for user addition, whether it's through manual CSV uploads, opt-ins via signup forms, website or app integrations, or custom API integrations.

At NotifyVisitors, we take data quality seriously. Our strict policy ensures that our email communications are reliable. If our verification process detects any inactive or invalid email addresses whenever new users are added, we automatically flag them in our system. This way, you can avoid sending emails to those users in the future. Additionally, if you exceed the predefined limits for inactive or invalid email addresses, we will temporarily suspend your account's email sending capabilities. Rest assured, this is all done to maintain high standards and create a trustworthy communication environment.

Minimum criteria to maintain

NotifyVisitors conducts regular checks on a randomly selected 10% of the email addresses among the total new users added. These addresses undergo verification against our backend system. If the verification process reveals a rate of 5% or higher for invalid email addresses within this sample, your account will be suspended. This measure ensures the ongoing maintenance of data integrity and the adherence to quality standards.

However, there’s nothing to worry about, we will shortly discuss how you can prevent the inclusion of invalid email addresses and guide you on the necessary steps if your account happens to be suspended.

2. Email verification while sending email campaign

When you schedule an email campaign and opt for NotifyVisitors as your service provider, our system performs a thorough evaluation of your bounce and spam rate. This is particularly beneficial since we operate on a shared IP infrastructure, ensuring the maintenance of optimal sender reputations for your brand, our platform, and all our valued customers is our top priority.

1. Bounce Rate:

• If your bounce rate exceeds 5%, you will only have the allowance to send a broadcast email if the targeted audience contains new users less than 5000 and 25% of the total audience. 
• However, if your bounce rate surpasses 8%, your account faces suspension, prohibiting you from sending any emails, be it through broadcast or journey. 

It's important to note that the mentioned bounce rate specifically pertains to hard bounces, excluding soft bounces.

2. Spam Rate:

Our system also monitors the spam rate of your email campaigns. If the spam rate reaches or surpasses 0.3%, your account will be temporarily suspended. You will be notified via email about the suspension and provided with a warning.

Click here to learn more about bounce rate and spam rate guidelines.

Please be aware that if email validation fails for users who have opted in to receive emails, the emails sent to such users will also be marked as bounces. To ensure the validity of email addresses for users who opt-in, consider enabling double opt-in verification.

If, for any reason, your account is suspended due to non-compliance with the aforementioned requirements, there's no need to worry. Simply reach out to our support team, and they will provide guidance on the measures you can take to maintain email validation and reactivate your account.

Even during a suspension, you retain the ability to create email campaigns and save them as drafts. However, sending or scheduling these email campaigns for later will not be possible until the suspension is resolved.

Dealing with unengaged email addresses

To prevent sending emails to non-legitimate addresses and keep your bounce rate in check, we need to create a segment first. Then we can use this entire segment to either exclude while sending campaigns, or suppress or delete these profiles. By adopting this approach, you'll effectively preserve your sender reputation and steer clear of potential restrictions or account suspension within our system.

To execute this strategy, establish a segment where users are included upon meeting the following conditions:

• Received at least 5 emails in the last 90 days
• Did not opened email in the last 90 days
• Did not clicked email in the last 90 days
• Users added at least 30 days ago

For a step-by-step tutorial on how to create a segment like this and to suppress these profiles, kindly go through our guide “List cleaning of unengaged email addresses”

Conclusion

It is crucial to prioritize email verification in order to ensure the effectiveness of your email marketing strategy. This helps in optimizing resources, maintaining a good sender reputation, and avoiding account suspension. By following the minimum criteria, regularly checking new users, and proactively managing unengaged profiles, you can ensure the health of your NotifyVisitors account. These practices not only improve engagement metrics but also strengthen your sender reputation, leading to long-term success in email marketing.