Email addresses are a valuable marketing asset, but only 10% of them are accurate. Checking email address validity is a vital component of data quality and can help you improve your sender reputation, fraud prevention and protect your sending reputation from spam traps and invalid emails.
There are multiple methods to check email address validity , and each one has its own benefits and drawbacks. It’s important to choose a method that will give you the results you need and that is scalable enough to handle your database.
First, you can ping your mail server to ask it whether the address is valid with tools like Telnet on Windows or PuTTY or nc (netcat) on MacOs. This can be quite accurate and is a simple way to verify email addresses, but it’s slow, cumbersome and risky for your infrastructure.
How to Check the Validity of an Email Address: Tips and Tools for Accurate Verifications
Another method is to perform an IP address lookup. Each email message has a unique IP address, and you can use that to determine the geographical location of an email sender. This is a less technical but more efficient option to check email address validity, and it’s a good choice for small to medium-sized businesses.
Finally, you can also opt for an email verification service that can verify your entire list in minutes. This will save you time and money, and it’s an extremely effective way to clean up your mailing list. With this service, you can quickly analyze your entire database, removing undeliverable and incorrect addresses that will increase your bounce rate and decrease your open rates.