Why Choose an Email Validation Service?

A whopping 77 percent of U.S. online consumers prefer receiving permission-based marketing messages via email, according to ExactTarget’s 2012 Channel Preference Survey, which is just one of the many reasons email marketing continues to grow.

A well-executed email campaign can increase sales and client loyalty, generate leads, produce additional business and reduce marketing costs. But just because you compiled the emails of current and potential customers for your campaigns doesn’t mean they are actually receiving your messages.

According to the Experian QAS white paper “Data Quality and the Customer Experience,” organizations suspect as much as 17 percent of their data might be inaccurate with the most common types of errors being incomplete or missing data, outdated information and duplicate data.

Email validation is one of the most effective tools for cleaning incorrect data, thereby increasing deliverability of email campaigns. Confirming an email address is valid when you receive it ensures you can communicate with your customer in the future and reduces the cost of mailing to bad emails.

When considering email validation solutions, be sure to look for those that utilize the advanced validation services and not simplistic Javascript validation scripts. Freely available validation scripts and regular expressions only check address syntax – they ensure the email address contains a mailbox name, an @ symbol, a domain name and a minimum character count. An address like [email protected] will pass these types of validity tests nearly every time because it meets all syntax requirements.

Commercial validation services, on the other hand, eliminate invalid email addresses using sophisticated algorithms and dozens of rules and tests.

Email validation increases your deliverability by:

• Detecting format and syntax errors in email addresses, including format restrictions for common domains, such as AOL
• Verifying whether the domain of the email addresses exists and can receive mail
• Determining whether the mailbox can receive email
• Suppressing spam traps and other bogus and malicious addresses

Advanced validation services, compared to open source solutions, will prevent more bad emails from getting on your list, meaning your chances for better delivery rates are drastically improved.

Are you interested in trying email validation? Contact TowerData for a free validation report.

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