By Bharti Jain
Email marketing is quite simple in its approach yet continues to get major results. I am not passing on something I overheard, but stating it based on my own experience as I am an email marketer too. I find email marketing better compared to other forms of marketing for some very valid reasons.
- Unrivalled ROI
- A global outreach
- Easy to get started
- No rocket science involved, very simple
- Elementary analysis
- Instant Impact·
According to recent metrics shared by Hubspot, the active email accounts have already hit 5.6 billion in 2019 and 99 percent of consumers check their email everyday! This fact must have increased your interest towards Email Marketing, but hold on guys there are some precautionary steps you need to take before starting off email marketing at a high scale.
The 1st step, which unfortunately is forgotten by many, is validating email data. It’s not just important, it is critical!
Sending emails to invalid or inactive email addresses can lead to either – increase in bounce rate, bad sender reputation or in worse cases land you in the blacklist and we don’t want that even in our dreams. Right!
So let all your lists pass the test of validation and verification every time you plan to use them, and for this you need to pick the right email verification tool. With so many different services and product options, where do you get started?
So, here are the essential features that an email validation tool must possess to make your email marketing campaign a success from the initial stage.
- Online Service – Online email verifier, also known as software as a service (SaaS) is an optimal option as it can be accessed anytime, anywhere, on any device and doesn’t require any of your computer resources. Moreover, it uses the service’s IP rather than your own IP, which makes it work way better.
- Level of Accuracy – How accurate is the verification process? An incompletely validated email contact list is almost as bad as a list that is not verified. 98%+ accuracy is the highest level available right now, so you shouldn’t go with any tool having anything lower.
- Scalability – The email verifier tool should be able to verify both single email addresses, and large email lists. Though verifying bigger email lists takes longer, it’s still done almost instantly. For eg: Bulk email verification incase of huge volume of data to be verified, quick validation when an immediate result is required.
- Real-time verification- Real-time email verification is the best way to filter out bad quality leads at the point of collection. Look out for ways in which it can be simplified for the users. Like-
- API integration is commonly available on most of the email verification services. Seamless integration should be taken care of.
- WordPress Plugin – WordPress is used by a major section of online business portals to prepare registration forms. Users deliberately look for email validation plugin for WordPress to avoid registration of any invalid user.
- Google Sheets Add-on – A large section of the working population prefer Google Sheets to save bulk data instead of investing in expensive CRMs. Availability as an email verification add-on to verify data in real-time, directly on Google Sheets is becoming a popular demand.
In short, don’t rely on one method. Keep innovating to simplify the task of the user.
- Varied Verification mechanisms – Relying on just one can be risky. Your email checker should allow you to verify emails by running various validation methods, such as syntax check, domain check and email server ping.
- Integrations – Email service providers (ESP) play an important role in the email marketing process. So, it’s good to have your email verifier that is capable of getting connected to or integrated with other modules, such as email generation tools, email sending tools, email list management tools and more.
- Data security – In the web world, the person with data is treated as the king surrounded by thieves to steal the data whenever, however. This urges the need of a high level of security which ensures that your data will be 100% secure. Some top rated email verification tools use STRIPE, which is considered one of the best software platforms for online payments, and is certified A+ by Quality SSL Labs.
- Reasonable free trials – Every user finds it better, if they have to pay for a tool that they have tried and tested according to their requirements. ‘Reasonable free trials’ cannot be defined as it will be different for every user but they should be enough to let the user make a fair judgment towards the tool.
- Data Analysis –All critical information regarding your email campaigns should be provided to you in a presentable manner, which is simple and easy to understand. Result segmentation, list analysis and archiving, deliverability score individually for each email ID, analysis of bounces, history of clicks, unsubscribes, etc. When you have all the required information in hand as and when required, you can plan and develop your future strategies accordingly and even edit the ongoing ones.
- Good support system – An active support system shows the strong infrastructure and morale with which the tool has been built. A quick research of the team becomes necessary when we are talking about a field with cut-throat competition. It is advised to go with a tool that provides 24*7 support in different ways, be it live chat, telephonic call, video call, email etc.
Conclusion, there are a number of factors to consider when you are choosing an email tester that will check email address validity and scrub email list you have.Clearout, is one such email verification and validation tool with 98%+ accuracy & has all above features.
Verifying email lists and delivering your email messages to valid, existing and legitimate email addresses using an email validation tool, you improve a lot of parameters-
- Delivery Rate (or Bounce Rate)
- Open Rate
- Click-Through Rate
- Reply Rate
- Conversion Rate
Email verification is a win-win process and worth every penny, so Good Luck verifying!
Bharti Jain is a senior content writer at Clearout .Earlier involved in the finance field, now she has completely switched towards content writing and content marketing. Together with writing articles, she is interested in creating vlogs, demo videos and designing social media content.