Email Validation

Email is still one of the most preferred and effective communication channels, with most people checking their emails daily. Worryingly, only 10% of email addresses collected are accurate, though - with bad data mostly resulting from human error. Real customers start with real emails - and the use of email verification is still the most effective way to ensure the collection of quality data. When you verify email addresses, your email marketing is more effective, fraud prevention is improved and the ability to protect your sender reputation increases.

So, what is email verification? 

Email validation is a way we describe the process of looking up and verifying the true status of an email address your customers might input in forms or provide in other communications with you. It essentially asks the key questions: Does this email address actually exist? And  beyond that, does it actually belong to someone who can receive messages?

Email validation - did you know..?

According to Convince and Convert, consumers who purchase products through email spend 138% more than those that don’t receive email offers. Also, in a recent Loqate consumer survey, we found that over 70% of global consumers check their email more than once a day.

Research from Campaign Monitor shows that 41% of emails are opened on a mobile device. And 23% of readers who open an email on a mobile device open it again later.

McKinsey state that email is almost 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined in helping your business acquire new customers, and according to Direct Marketing Association, Email marketing has ROI of around 4, 300%, and, of course, saves trees.

What does email validation do?

Here's the full low-down on what a good email validation process should be covering:

Format check, one two...

An email validation system will, first and foremost, check if the address follows the right structure with a username, "@" symbol, domain name, and appropriate top-level domain (that's its suffix, like .com, or .net).

Is the email real, though?

Needless to say, it's critically important to know the domain you're sending to exists and isn't a typo or made-up name - that's what any validation process worth its salt will quickly ascertain.

And more importantly.. does it work? 

Validation doesn't just check if an email looks legit on a superficial basis. That wouldn't work at all! Instead, it goes a step further and tests whether the address can actually receive messages through an SMTP connection. This will often mean sending a test email and seeing if a response is given by the server. 

Here are three key reasons you should look to validate your emails:  

Eliminate hard bounces

Hard bounces mostly occur because the email address no longer exists, was a fictitious email address, or was closed by the user.

Reduces Spam Complaints

Best practice dictates that for every 5, 000 email messages sent out you should receive less than five spam complaints.

Blacklists

Getting blacklisted stops your messages (including vital transactional emails) from getting accepted by the server.

Why is email verification important? 

Marketing Week state that 60% of consumers intentionally provide incorrect information when submitting their personal details online, and a further 10% of emails addresses entered into checkouts, sign up forms and internal systems are invalid. If the email addresses are entered via a mobile device then that figure dramatically increases!

Email validation is a key aspect to ensuring your data quality is top-notch, and means future marketing campaigns are far more likely to hit their mark as a result. Here are the key advantages that you'll notice with validated emails:

• Deliverability made easy:  Your validated emails reach real people and land in their inboxes. Gone are the days of being confined to spam folders!
• Reduces bounces: Verified emails aren't likely to bounce back due to being invalid or typoed addresses, which in turn improves your sender score. 
• A+ data quality: Email validation helps maintain a database with the utmost accuracy.
• Smooth sender reputation: Email service providers will notice that you're sending your communications to predominantly (or exclusively!) valid addresses, enhancing your deliverability score. Nice!
• Combats fraud: The best email validation systems will detect fake or disposable email addresses used for malicious purposes. This will mean you don't waste your time engaging with fraudsters, and that can only be a good thing.

How should you keep your email address data clean?

We happen to know a thing or two about email data quality here at Loqate. Here are our top tips for maintaining a tip-top database when it comes to emails. 

Make data quality your number one rule

Clean your email address lists regularly using a batch email validation tool will identify old or incorrect email addresses and remove them before your next campaign. With real-time email address verification you can validate each newly acquired email address to prevent typos and fake accounts from creating additional unwanted hard bounces.

Review your database regularly

Review and remove unengaged subscribers. Uninterested users can create problems - if a user has not opened any of your emails in the past three months remove them from your list to reduce the risk of spam complaints and hard bounces.

Find out more about email validation from Loqate.

What are the most common mistakes made when validating emails?

There is still a huge number of websites making basic fundamental mistakes when it comes to email. So, what can businesses do to ensure they are capturing accurate email addresses while reducing form friction? Here are the top errors that we have come across, and our top tips for improving email capture.

Mistake 1 - Making people enter their address twice

One way some retailers are attempting to stop invalid emails infiltrating their marketing lists is through the confirm email or double entry field.

Typing is tiresome - so entering anything more than once is a huge no-no – especially if using a mobile device. Every additional field means extra work, which in turn means increased risk of errors and a potential reduction in completion rates. 

The only way to be sure that the address you get belongs to the person who signed up is to send a confirmation email with a unique link (for double opt-in). Unfortunately, there is always going to be the chance of the user forgetting to click the link in the email. However, this is the only real way to confirm that the person signing up for your list actually wants to hear from you, and it is far better than punishing the user with typing the email twice!

There's good news, though. Double opt-in lists have been shown to get up to double the clicks and double the opens of single opt-in lists. They also get half the hard bounces and half the unsubscribes of single opt-in. So, it’s a win all round.

Mistake 2 - Not using inline validation

There are few things more infuriating, once you’ve filled out a form and hit submit, than being served with the same page again, flooded with angry red error messages about fields you’ve filled in incorrectly. Inline verification, such as the type we offer with our Email Capture, is a great way of avoiding user confusion by correcting field errors along the way.

Mistake 3 - Being too restrictive

Being too strict with your validation is a sure fire way to lose yourself some customers. Does your address tool account for the various characters people use in their email address such as slash (/), equal sign (=) or exclamation (!)? These are all valid symbols, so if you’re software is rejecting these you are literally turning potential customers away.

Mistake 4 - Regex validation

Using a regular expression (or regex) is another common way to validate email addresses. Whilst being easy to implement, these often fall into the trap of being too restrictive. A regex to validate email addresses ends up being more complicated than you first think once you’ve read the RFC ( a 47 page technical spec describing what a valid email address is) pertaining to SMTP (Simple Message Transfer Protocol and email addresses. It’s something that most people presume will be easy, until you drill into it and figure out just how complicated it can be. 

Mistake 5 - HTML5 form validation

HTML5 includes its own validation techniques for input types, so by setting the field type to “email” and using the new required attribute on a field you can get the browser to do the validation for you. This is all nice and easy, but validation is subject to the browser the visitor to your website is using. Some browsers will just validate the @ symbol exists in the form of something@something, while others look for something@domain.somewhere. Obviously this is not foolproof and gives no guarantee that an address actually exists.

Mistake 6 - Not providing clear labels

Personal data is the currency of the online world. Only by providing clear labels about how and why you need their email address will your users be inclined to part with it. Providing this information clearly can prevent them abandoning your form.

To avoid all of these common pitfalls and more, the easiest thing you can do is harness the real-time power of email address verification software. Loqate's Email Verify was engineered to be easy-to-install and simplify the whole process. And we offer 24/7 support in case you have any issues during the integration and beyond. You can't go wrong!