If you're uploading a new contact list - especially one you haven't emailed in a while - it's important to verify the email addresses before sending your campaign. This helps reduce bounces and protect your domain’s sending reputation.
You can either follow the steps in this article or scroll to the bottom of the page to watch the recorded video. (Click here to go to the video)
Why Email Verification Matters
When you send a campaign to an unverified or outdated list, you run the risk of high bounce rates. This can hurt your domain reputation and make future messages more likely to end up in spam.
Verifying a list checks whether email addresses are still valid. This happens behind the scenes without your contacts knowing. Our system checks the emails for syntax issues and if they pass that check it pings recipient email servers to ask, “Would you deliver an email to this address?”
If yes: the contact is marked as deliverable
If no: the contact is flagged as undeliverable
If uncertain: the contact may be marked as "risky"
⏱️ Watch this section in the video: 00:01 - 01:36
Who Has Access To Built-In Email Verification
Enterprise plan users: Get 10,000 verifications per month included.
Pro & Plus users: Can either upgrade to Enterprise or use a 3rd party tool like Bouncer, which is what our system uses behind the scenes.
⏱️ Watch this section in the video: 01:21 - 01:53
How To Verify Emails From A Contact List
Navigate to your Contact Lists page.
Find the list you'd like to verify.
Hover over the row and click More on the right side.
Choose Verify Emails.
If you're not on Enterprise, the system will alert you that verifications aren’t included in your plan.
Select your desired verification setting:
Default: Only removes undeliverable emails.
Optional: Also remove “risky” contacts (more on that below).
Click Verify.
The process typically takes 5 - 10 minutes. When it’s done, you’ll receive an in-app notification. You’ll also see:
A shield icon next to the contact list
Shield icons next to each contact that has been verified
⏱️ Watch this section in the video: 02:07 - 04:01
Should You Remove Risky Contacts?
If you choose to also filter out risky contacts, this includes addresses the system can't conclusively verify. The most common example is an “accept-all” domain - these accept mail for any address but may still bounce the message later if the specific address doesn’t exist.
Leaving risky contacts in: You’ll get more bounces, but you will likely reach more real people.
Removing risky contacts: You’ll reduce bounces more aggressively, but you'll likely also skip over valid emails in the process.
When in doubt, we recommend sticking with the default setting that only removes undeliverable contacts and leaves in risky contacts. If you struggle with email reputation or want to take the most conservative-possible approach, then remove risky contacts.
⏱️ Watch this section in the video: 03:02 - 04:06
Limitations Of Email Verification
Verification is a best practice, but it isn’t perfect. You will likely still see some bounces, especially on:
Older lists
Business emails, which tend to expire faster than personal ones
Yahoo emails are not verifiable. Yahoo will tell our verifier that Yahoo emails are deliverable even when they are not. So if you are emailing personal emails, you should treat Yahoo emails with the same regard as you would "Risky" emails
So even with verification, it’s smart to start with smaller sends - especially if the list quality is questionable.
⏱️ Watch this section in the video: 04:29 - 05:02
Watch The Video
Transcript
Transcript
0:01
hello Vipers for today's what's the flow
0:04
we're going to talk about email
0:06
verification
0:08
so email verification is an important
0:12
step in reducing bounces from your email
0:17
campaigns if you are uploading a list
0:20
particularly like a list that is either
0:24
a bit unknown like or if it's a list
0:27
that you that you know is old and you
0:30
are looking to fire things back up with
0:33
it
0:34
so the concern here is that emails in
0:39
your list are no longer good
0:41
and therefore when you send your
0:44
campaign to it you will incur a bunch of
0:46
bounces which will damage your domain's
0:49
reputation and make it more likely that
0:52
your emails will go to spam
0:54
and a verification like it such like
0:58
what is built in five Cloud will check
1:00
the emails for you ahead of time before
1:02
you actually send
1:04
this will be like none of your contacts
1:06
will know that this is happening really
1:08
it's just that our system will be
1:11
talking with your recipient email
1:14
servers and effectively asking hey if we
1:17
send an email to this contact would you
1:19
deliver it
1:21
now this is just for
1:24
users who are at the Enterprise tier
1:29
and uh if you do that then you you are
1:32
enterprised here then you have 10 000
1:34
email verifications per month that are
1:36
included
1:39
um now you are able to verify emails
1:42
with third-party services it's actually
1:44
quite affordable uh so if you are a pro
1:48
user or a plus user feel free to do this
1:51
to either upgrade to Enterprise or you
1:53
can go directly to third-party platforms
1:57
such as bouncer which is the provider
2:00
that we integrate with in our system so
2:03
it's quite easy to verify your emails
2:07
and we here we are at our contact lists
2:12
you verify your contacts buy contact
2:15
list
2:16
and once your contacts are in here you
2:19
can hover over it's off towards the
2:21
right
2:23
you hit more
2:24
you'll see verify emails is at this
2:27
point if you're unsure if your
2:28
Enterprise or Pro you'll find out it'll
2:31
tell you if this is not included in your
2:33
subscription
2:34
and of course if your questions just
2:36
reach out to us
2:37
you'll see right here a calendar of
2:40
how many uh how many contacts have
2:43
already been verified this month
2:45
and you have a choice here between
2:49
the regular verification which is how
2:52
this is uh the default here where just
2:55
undeliverable is checked
2:57
or you can also check here to filter out
3:00
risky contacts as well
3:02
now risky contacts are going to be
3:07
contacts that the system can't really
3:12
completely verify one way or another the
3:15
most common being except all
3:18
and basically accept all emails will
3:21
just it'll just say that yes we'll
3:23
accept anything but
3:25
um if you send there and this system
3:28
that has the accept all emails
3:31
doesn't actually have that recipient
3:34
there then it'll count as a bounce so
3:37
really the decision here is are you okay
3:40
with sending to those unknown emails
3:43
those except those
3:46
and being okay with the fact that you're
3:48
going to get some bounces in there
3:50
um versus removing those success dollars
3:53
which will incur some Friendly Fire you
3:55
could say in other words contacts that
3:58
would be good will be taken out and
4:01
you'll be doing that for the sake of
4:03
reducing bounces at all costs
4:06
if in doubt I would recommend just
4:08
leaving it as is hitting verify and uh
4:11
and then you will once you hit verify
4:13
it'll take a you know a little while
4:15
maybe five to ten minutes and then
4:17
eventually get a notification in-app
4:18
saying that your list has been verified
4:22
and you will see a shield icon next to
4:24
your list and you'll see a shield icon
4:26
next to any of the contacts that have
4:27
been verified
4:29
one important thing to keep in mind here
4:31
is that
4:33
email verification is not infallible you
4:36
will still probably get some bounces
4:39
especially if it's a lower quality list
4:41
especially if it's a a list that you
4:43
know is two three five ten years old
4:47
a lot of those emails are going to
4:49
change and another thing to keep in mind
4:51
here too is that business emails are
4:54
generally going to age out faster than
4:58
uh than personal emails will as well
5:02
um so hopefully this all helps let us
5:05
know if you have any questions thank you