Introduction
We are in the business of email address validation. Email addresses and mail boxes exist on servers and use the services provided by these servers, services and The Internet in general.
Validating email addresses in real time is a tricky and complex operation. For each and every email address, our services have a “conversation” with the remote email server hosting the email address that’s being queried. Therefore, our service is to a large extent dependent on accurate information coming back from the remote email server. In most cases, things work great and we get back an accurate response as to whether an email address exists or not. However, there are a few instances where remote email servers just don’t play “nicely” with the net result that they refuse to cooperate, converse or simply provide incorrect information.
Ultimately, the accuracy of our email address checking services rely to a large extent on remote email servers being setup in a “standard” configuration that works with our services. Unfortunately, but in a relatively small number of cases, email servers are set up in non-standard configurations and can cause problems for an email address checking service such as ours. It’s not just our service that is affected by these non-standard email servers but every other email address checking solution on the market.
What this means in real terms is that you can expect accuracy of between 85-90% from our email address checking services compared to just 60-70% from our competitors products.
Scope
So, what’s the scope of the problem and how is it managed?
In our experience (based on historical data), we estimate that (approximately) between 10 and 15% of remote email servers have configurations that prevent accurate email address checking. We go into the technical details and reasons behind these issues in our Terms and Conditions.
This means that, for those 10% or so of email servers, it is simply not possible to validate email addresses. We manage this as follows:
- Providing an indication (where possible – i.e. know problem servers) of email addresses that cannot be validated by including a “flag” with the result returned from checking an email address. In our bulk email address checker service this “flag” is the “blocked/rejected” status. Please consult product documentation for details of the “flag” in other products / services.
- Providing clear policies and terms of operation/sale describing what you can expect from our services.
How This Affects Accuracy
Putting all this in perspective:- We estimate that, as a result of remote mail servers that do not cooperate with our service, you can expext a reduction of between 10 and 15% accuracy in email address checks. Looking at it from a different perspective, this means that, with our service, that you can expect between 85 and 90% accuracy when checking a typical list of email addresses.
Accuracy of between 85-90% is, as far as we have been able to determine in our market research, unprecedented. Other email address checker products will quote you accuracy figures somewhere in the region of 60-70%. In many cases, accuracy figures are not stated and it’s only after purchasing that customers of some of our competitors products find that accuracy is far less than anticipated.
Not 100%? What Good Is It Then?
…Is a question that we’ve had from time to time (usually from users of our free email address checker).
Let’s look at the benefits of email list cleansing. Ultimately, we are providing a service to reduce business operational costs by:
- Reducing email bounces from sending email (e.g. newsletters) to your prospects or clients.
- Increase the value (e.g. resale) value of your email address list. Fresh/”Validated” lists should command a higher resale fee.
- Reduce infrastructure costs such as network, storage, processing and backup associated with storing, processing and backing up old/”dead” email addresses.
We believe that, with our stated accuracy of 85-90%, your organization can still make significant time & cost savings. The cost savings to your organization should far outweigh the loss of 10-15% accuracy. It’s your decision whether your organization can tolerate the relatively small reduction in accuracy versus the potentially large gains in operational cost saving. For organizations that require nothing less than 100% accuracy, our service is not for you.
I Need 100% Accuracy!
We understand and we would love to be able to deliver 100%! However, the reality is that we live in a less than perfect Internet world where email servers can be offline, mis-configured or simply uncooperative. No process is able to handle all of these scenarios and, if anyone says (or implies that) 100% is achievable on any signifficant scale, they are not being entirely honest.
Alternatives to Automated Email Address Checking
Looking at the alternatives, checking of email addresses can rarely be 100%. Perhaps you would consider a “manual” process that might involve (for example): picking up the phone, emailing or sending customers questionnaires in the post. Even a manual process is subject to inaccuracy as clients don’t respond, provide fake email addresses or simply make a mistake in answering your question.
Policy Documentation
We treat our customers with respect and believe that solid business relationships are built not just on offering great products and services but also on trust and transparency.
To this end, we provide a comprehensive set of policies that describe what you can expect from our services as follows:
It is our sincere wish that, through comprehensive and transparent policies, we are able to deliver products and services that meet and exceed your expectations.
