There’s something about a form requesting email addresses that inspires mistrust and creativity in some users. If someone is keen to protect their inbox from your marketing activities then it’s pretty likely you’ll see a regular stream of test@test.com or mickey.mouse@disney.com coming into your database.
Incorrect emails are not always intentional though. Maybe it’s the rise of tiny mobile keyboards or users second-screening while they type that encourages honest typos like sarah@gmal.com on your web forms?
However it originated, a bad email address is problematic for a number of reasons, some less obvious than others.
1. Blocks communications with your customer
This is pretty common sense, if the email address supplied is incorrect, (whether intentionally or not) you won’t be able to contact your customer to confirm their order, tell them about any issues or send them future promotions. A bad email is a lost opportunity and a customer frustrated by the silence.
2. Contaminates your data
No CRM manager wants to collect and store bad data, but having a percentage of invalid email addresses could also trigger your ESP (email service provider) watchdog to flag your whole mailing list as ‘poor quality’, potentially preventing you from sending an entire email campaign without a data clean-up first.
3. Affects your campaign ROI
Every marketer wants to achieve their targets and build the ROI of their email marketing activities. A percentage of contacts in your database that are not mailable will directly impact the response rates of email campaigns before they are even opened.
4. Damages your reputation
If you do manage to send an email campaign to a list containing invalid email addresses, you risk acquiring a bad sender reputation due to the volume of emails bouncing after delivery. The more of your emails that end up bouncing, the worse your sender reputation will become, ultimately you would become blocked completely by the email providers receiving your messages – which is tricky and time-consuming to resolve.
Are you still emailing Mickey Mouse?
Prevent bogus registrations and typos at the source by including a thorough email verification service on your website and CRM forms. Simply checking that emails contain an @ symbol and dots is not enough. Good email validation will also check that the domain exists and is able to receive inbound messages, all in real-time.
Email verification from PCA Predict is available on a pay-as-you-go basis with no set up fees and no minimum usage limits. Our API makes it possible to integrate email address checks on your website, app or CRM forms – wherever you collect email addresses.