Do you engage with your clients and potential consumers via email marketing? Do you share a monthly newsletter with your employees? Are you a product company or service provider that does email campaigns? Then you should know that address validation is one of the most important steps you can take in ensuring the success of your activity. However, there are multiple ways to validate an email. How do you know which one is the best? From a manual web form validation to an email validation API, read along to find the particularities of some of the most widely used methods.

Why is it important to validate an email?

Before exploring the best ways to validate an email, let us answer this question. Why is it important to verify your contacts? Imagine you spend a ton of money on crafting the best marketing campaign, you invested months and months of your precious and limited time to create a large base of contacts and now, after what seems like forever, you are ready to send the emails you so very carefully prepared. You are expecting a great return of investment, but instead of being met by excited customers ready to buy your product/service, you are met by the much-dreaded bounce email: the address you have been trying to contact is no longer valid. Also known as an NDR, Non-Delivery Report, this means that your message failed to reach a specific recipient. The reasons for this may vary:

• The online address is not valid
• The email triggered a spam filter
• Low sender reputation
• The recipient’s inbox is full

And it is not just one, there could be tens, hundreds, or even thousands of such bounce responses. What do you then? Do you stop email marketing forever, deem it as not working and forget about it? Absolutely not! You go ahead and install an email validation mechanism to eliminate those unreachable and invalid addresses. But which one do you choose?

Top 4 methods to ensure email validation

Because it is so important to have a verification step incorporated in your email campaigns, a lot of methods have been developed over time, to address the more specific needs of your business. Please note that all of these methods are valid, they are all successful and will clean your contacts from corrupt files. They all serve the same purpose, to facilitate your online correspondence process and help you make (and save) money by ensuring your list of addresses is valid. Read along to find out which method is the best one for your business.

Method 1: Verification Through a Web Form

This might be one of the easiest ways for you to check a contact. If you’ve ever used the Google search bar, you already know all there is to know regarding this method. All you have to do is introduce the address into its designated slot and click the verify button. The result will be given to you immediately.

Method 2: Bulk email address validation tool through file check

This method, as the title suggests, is the best when you aim to check multiple addresses at the same time. Say you’ve been using this form of electronic mail for a while now, but you never run your contacts through a verification service. However, you realize that you should and decide to give it a try. This is the place to start. All you need to do is upload an Excel or CSV file containing the addresses you want to check and in just a few minutes, you’ll get your results. The program will remove all duplicate addresses as well as those entries which are either corrupt, invalid or unable to receive more mail.

Method 3: Email Validation API

Both of the methods mentioned earlier imply the manual introduction of data. An email validation API automates the entire process, which makes it the best choice when you plan to use an address validation service on a regular basis. In the long run, an automatic process will not only save you time, it will also save you money, making sure no corrupt address enters your database. The API (Application Programming Interface) will also make it easier and faster for you to keep track of the addresses. Moreover, the experience is not only facilitated on your part, but your clients also get to enjoy a user-friendly interface. By using an email validation API you can go for months without ever letting the thought of verification bother you, as the automatic process will be there to do the work you would have otherwise have to manually input.

Method 4: Verification in Forms

If you want to make sure that the addresses introduced into your contact form are correct, this service is the perfect solution for your need. If an incorrect address is entered, the client will immediately be alerted and therefore the possibility of missing out due to a typo will never occur. Certain verification services can offer a widget that allows you to verify professional addresses in your own forms. Moreover, the same widget can often be used to verify multiple elements, such as names, telephone numbers or postal addresses. With one service, you can error-proof your entire contact form, making sure there are no misunderstandings or loss of communication between the client and you. Eliminate costs with the use of a verification widget.

Conclusion

Verification is a very important step in your email marketing campaigns and the options to validate an email are numerous. Whether you choose an email validation APIor decide to do it through a web platform is up to you. The benefits are sure to follow regardless. Save money and improve the performance of your campaigns with the help of online correspondence verification mechanisms.

Publication: 17 December 9:16