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Verification Vs Email Hygiene

If you happen to be a marketer then this article is for you. No matter your role or the size of your company you might want to pause and ask yourself a few important questions first…

  • Does your business send email campaigns?
  • Are you guilty of buying third-party lists?
  • How often do you clean your email lists?
  • Do you have proper and clear opt-ins?

If anyone of these questions turn on a light bulb in your brain, then you should continue reading.

If you’ve ever fallen victim to the threats hiding in your email data, then it is time to start thinking about email hygiene. Are you finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a healthy reputation with your ISPs and ESPs, all while trying to attain higher deliverability rates? Are you dealing with a diminishing sender reputation due to the impact of these threats? Whether this is the first time you are hearing about email threats, or you’ve been hit with them before, it’s important to understand why verification alone isn’t enough anymore.

If you also want to learn more about what types of email threats are hiding in your email data check out our recent Intelligence Report: What’s Hiding in Your Emails.

After countless hours of researching email verification providers, you finally believe you’ve discovered the right fit for your needs. But before you send a check or swipe a card be sure you’ve taken a few minutes to educate yourself on the differences between simple verification and email hygiene. You may find out one might work better for you.

 

What is Email Verification?

Email Verification is a type of service that identifies valid or invalid email addresses, typos, and greylistings. In other words, it “verifies” that the email addresses on your list are connected to an active inbox. That’s it. That is literally all verification can do. But what about all the other hidden threats that are potentially hiding in your data, waiting to damage your valuable reputation? Can verification detect spam traps, moles, bots, and honeypots? Nope, verification is a simple service for identifying if an email is real or not. More than likely your email data is rife with potential problems that verification alone is powerless to detect. So let’s move on and learn more about email hygiene. Maybe it can help?

 

What is Email Hygiene?

Email hygiene is the process of identifying “problem” email accounts from email lists. Email Hygiene can go way beyond simple verification and identify harmful email addresses hiding in your lists. Some providers will remove these emails from your list, but at Webbula we simply identify them and tell you what the actual risks are in using them. This gives you the opportunity to judge your own risk tolerance. And it doesn’t destroy any data. Threats are categorized and rated to make the final decision as easy as possible. Reputation, Fraud, Delivery, and Conversion threats are identified and labeled for you.

 

Here at Webbula, our industry-leading solution is called emailHygiene which not only verifies email addresses but also identifies potential threats using a combination of Email Verification, Email Hygiene, and Social Media Authentication. We not only want to validate whether an email is valid or invalid but also protect your email reputation, increase ROI and conversions, all by identifying hidden nasties with Webbula emailHygiene.

While verification can flag undeliverable email threats, like bounces and greylisting, it is important to recognize that only Webbula emailHygiene can identify fraudulent emails and spam traps that can receive, open, click and track your campaigns.

Social Media Authentication (SMA), can validate emails associated with social media accounts related to social sharing, image sharing, blogs, and e-payment ecosystems. Socially related emails are more likely to be connected to a mobile device, making them excellent candidates for relevant mobile marketing.

 

Maintaining your Sender Reputation

Using email hygiene over a simple verification can help your brand maintain a positive reputation among email hosts, service providers, and consumers.

If you’re finding yourself sending to a problem or invalid email addresses, or to spam folders, it can be very damaging to your reputation. When that occurs, deliverability rates among email hosts decreases, which then leads to a vicious cycle that can quickly spiral out of control.

Email inboxes are also becoming more selective about the content they are willing to accept. A list full of problems, such as spam traps, invalid or unknown users, and other hidden threats, email hosts will start to consider you as a Spammer. If this happens your content will be redirected to the spam folder, and most likely go unseen by the user. Even worse, you risk getting Blacklisted. All of which are important issues that should be avoided at all cost.

 

Email Hygiene: Your best solution

Let’s face it, simple verification is just simply not enough to tackle all the threats hiding in your email data. If you are in need of a simple valid or invalid check, identifying typos or greylistings, verification might be for you. But if you’re a good sender and are still hitting spam traps, or even worse, getting placed on blacklists then it’s time to explore email hygiene to get your emails back in good health for your next email campaign.

To learn more about Email Hygiene, visit webbula.com today.

 

Be sure to check out these other helpful Intelligence Reports:

• Blacklisted? Here’s How Webbula Can Help

• 7 Spring Email Cleaning Tips

• Email Hygiene: The Solution You Need