Email Verification
Email verification is the process of checking whether an email address is correctly formatted, belongs to a working domain and mailbox, and can receive mail before a message is sent.
Also called: email validation, email list cleaning
Why it matters
Sending to addresses that do not exist creates bounces, and high bounce rates tell mailbox providers that a sender is not careful with its lists. That can push future emails, including ones to real buyers, into spam. Verification removes bad addresses before a campaign, which protects sender reputation and keeps reporting on reply rates honest.
A verifier typically checks syntax, confirms the domain has MX records, and asks the mail server whether the mailbox exists without sending a message. Results usually fall into valid, invalid, risky and unknown. Catch-all domains accept mail for any address, so a verifier cannot confirm them. Verification differs from email finding, which produces the address in the first place.
Example
A marketing team imports 2,000 event attendees into its CRM before a follow-up campaign. It runs the list through an email verification service. Addresses marked invalid are removed, catch-all addresses are moved to a smaller, slower send, and only addresses marked valid go into the main sequence.
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