Summary
The experts, marketers, and documentation overwhelmingly agree that the cost of email verification before a migration is justifiable. Email verification provides a tangible ROI by reducing bounce rates, improving sender reputation and deliverability, minimizing the risk of damaging sender reputation, protecting brand reputation, and improving engagement metrics. Email verification prevents paying for unusable contacts in the new system and prevents deliverability issues like spam, silent deletion and being blocked by ISPs, all of which can impact revenue. Email verification also prevents hitting spam traps, which can significantly damage sender reputation. Investing in email verification is framed as a cost-effective measure compared to the potential damage to sender reputation and business revenue caused by poor deliverability.
Key findings
- ROI Justification: Email verification provides a tangible ROI by reducing bounce rates, improving sender reputation, and increasing deliverability.
- Cost Savings: Verification leads to cost savings by eliminating sending to invalid addresses and lowering associated expenses.
- Risk Mitigation: Email verification minimizes the risk of damaging sender reputation and facing deliverability issues that can be expensive to resolve.
- Brand Protection: Verification is crucial for maintaining a positive brand reputation by preventing spam complaints and blacklisting.
- Engagement Improvement: Cleaning email lists leads to better engagement metrics and increased ROI from email marketing efforts.
- Cost Avoidance: Email verification prevents paying for unusable contacts in the new system.
- Deliverability Protection: Verification avoids deliverability issues like spam or silent deletion, which impact revenue.
- Reputation Management: Cleaning lists safeguards sender reputation, crucial for reaching the inbox.
- Spam Trap Avoidance: Cleaning your list prevents sending to spam traps, which severely damage sending reputation.
Key considerations
- Revenue Impact: Calculate potential revenue loss from deliverability issues to demonstrate the financial impact of not verifying email addresses.
- Contact Costs: Consider the costs associated with storing and sending to inactive or invalid contacts on the new platform.
- ISP Impact: Assess the potential financial losses from major ISP blocks due to a poor sender reputation.
- Brand Reputation: Understand the long-term effects of damaged brand reputation caused by sending emails to bad addresses.
- Proactive Prevention: Recognize that prevention through email verification is more cost-effective than fixing deliverability problems after a migration.
- Vendor Pricing: Consider whether the new vendor charges per contact and the cost of migrating unusable addresses.
- Hidden Costs: Recognize the potential hidden costs associated with poor deliverability and a damaged sender reputation.
- Spam Traps: Understand the consequences of hitting spam traps due to a dirty list, impacting deliverability and overall email program health.
- AWS Pinpoint: Leverage services like Amazon Pinpoint to validate email addresses and prevent sending to non-existent addresses.
- Lifetime Value: Obtain the average lifetime value of an email subscriber and use ISP breakdowns to demonstrate the potential financial losses from ISP blocks.
What email marketers say
11 marketer opinions
The provided answers consistently highlight that the cost of email verification before a migration is justified by several factors. Primarily, verification minimizes the risk of damaging sender reputation and deliverability by removing invalid, risky, and inactive email addresses. This reduces bounce rates, improves engagement metrics, and avoids potential blacklisting, ultimately leading to better ROI and cost savings from email marketing campaigns. Several responses emphasize calculating potential revenue loss from deliverability issues, the savings from reduced sending volume, and the avoidance of paying for unusable contacts on the new platform. Protecting brand reputation and preventing expensive deliverability problems are also significant considerations.
Key opinions
- ROI Justification: Email verification offers a tangible ROI by reducing bounce rates, improving sender reputation, and increasing deliverability.
- Cost Savings: Verification leads to cost savings by eliminating sending to invalid addresses and lowering associated expenses.
- Risk Mitigation: Email verification minimizes the risk of damaging sender reputation and facing deliverability issues that can be expensive to resolve.
- Brand Protection: Verification is crucial for maintaining a positive brand reputation by preventing spam complaints and blacklisting.
- Engagement Improvement: Cleaning email lists leads to better engagement metrics and increased ROI from email marketing efforts.
Key considerations
- Revenue Impact: Calculate potential revenue loss from deliverability issues to demonstrate the financial impact of not verifying email addresses.
- Contact Costs: Consider the costs associated with storing and sending to inactive or invalid contacts on the new platform.
- ISP Impact: Assess the potential financial losses from major ISP blocks due to a poor sender reputation.
- Brand Reputation: Understand the long-term effects of damaged brand reputation caused by sending emails to bad addresses.
- Proactive Prevention: Recognize that prevention through email verification is more cost-effective than fixing deliverability problems after a migration.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Reddit user u/EmailExpert shares that the risk of not verifying a list, especially before a migration, far outweighs the cost. They suggest a bad list can lead to deliverability problems that are expensive to fix and that prevention is much cheaper in the long run.
8 Mar 2025 - Reddit
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum explains that using email verification tools before a migration can prevent transferring 'dead weight' to the new system. They also note the advantage of avoiding paying for inactive or invalid contacts on the new platform.
20 Mar 2023 - Email Marketing Forum
What the experts say
3 expert opinions
The experts emphasize the importance of email verification as a key aspect of list hygiene before migrating to a new vendor. They highlight that by cleaning the list, you avoid paying for and migrating unusable contacts, prevent deliverability issues like spam or silent deletion, and protect your sender reputation. Investing in verification is framed as a cost-effective measure compared to the potential damage to sender reputation and business revenue caused by poor deliverability and hitting spam traps.
Key opinions
- Cost Avoidance: Email verification prevents paying for unusable contacts in the new system.
- Deliverability Protection: Verification avoids deliverability issues like spam or silent deletion, which impact revenue.
- Reputation Management: Cleaning lists safeguards sender reputation, crucial for reaching the inbox.
- Proactive Hygiene: Regular list cleaning, including verification, is essential for a healthy email program.
- Spam Trap Avoidance: Cleaning your list prevents sending to spam traps, which severely damage sending reputation.
Key considerations
- Vendor Pricing: Consider whether the new vendor charges per contact and the cost of migrating unusable addresses.
- Hidden Costs: Recognize the potential hidden costs associated with poor deliverability and a damaged sender reputation.
- Spam Traps: Understand the consequences of hitting spam traps due to a dirty list, impacting deliverability and overall email program health.
- Revenue Impact: Evaluate the potential revenue loss from emails being directed to spam or silently deleted.
Expert view
Expert from Spamresource explains that maintaining good email list hygiene, including verification, is crucial for ensuring deliverability and avoiding spam traps. They suggest that the cost of verification is far less than the potential damage to sender reputation and business revenue caused by poor deliverability.
1 Aug 2022 - Spamresource
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that cleaning your list regularly is essential for a healthy email program. Email Verification is a major component of list hygiene. If you aren't cleaning your lists, you're sending to spam traps and hurting your sending reputation.
20 Jan 2022 - Word to the Wise
What the documentation says
5 technical articles
The documentation consistently emphasizes that email verification, as a part of regular list hygiene, is crucial for maintaining a healthy sender reputation and improving deliverability. By removing invalid and inactive addresses, organizations can reduce bounce rates, improve engagement metrics, and protect themselves from being blocked by ISPs. The cost of verification is portrayed as a proactive investment to safeguard deliverability, protect revenue streams, and ensure marketing efforts are focused on engaged and valid email addresses, resulting in better overall campaign performance.
Key findings
- Reputation Maintenance: Email verification is critical for maintaining a good sender reputation.
- Deliverability Improvement: Verifying email addresses improves overall deliverability rates.
- Bounce Reduction: Verification reduces bounce rates, positively impacting sender reputation.
- Engagement Boost: Cleaning lists improves engagement metrics by focusing on valid addresses.
- ISP Blocking Prevention: Validating addresses lowers the risk of being blocked by ISPs.
Key considerations
- Revenue Protection: Consider the potential loss of revenue and wasted marketing efforts due to poor deliverability caused by invalid addresses.
- Proactive Investment: View email verification as a proactive step to protect deliverability and revenue streams.
- List Hygiene: Regularly clean your email list as a critical component of email marketing strategy.
- Campaign Performance: Understand that focusing marketing efforts on engaged and valid addresses leads to better campaign performance.
- AWS Pinpoint: Leverage services like Amazon Pinpoint to validate email addresses and prevent sending to non-existent addresses.
Technical article
Documentation from SparkPost explains that regular list hygiene, including email verification, is critical for maintaining good sender reputation and deliverability. They suggest removing invalid and inactive email addresses to improve engagement metrics and reduce bounce rates.
4 Feb 2025 - SparkPost Documentation
Technical article
Documentation from SendGrid explains that high bounce rates negatively impact sender reputation and can lead to deliverability issues. Verifying email addresses before sending reduces bounces and helps maintain a healthy sender reputation, ensuring emails reach the inbox.
6 Apr 2022 - SendGrid Documentation
Are email list cleaning services useful for improving email deliverability, and how do they work?
How can I accurately verify my email list and identify potentially harmful domains?
How can I validate email signups from unusual or new domains to avoid spam traps?
How do email database cleaning services remove waste and invalid addresses?
How do email list cleaning companies clean millions of emails daily and avoid being blocked?
How do I validate email addresses and maintain a clean email list?
Is constant email verification worthwhile for B2B and B2C, and what platforms are recommended?
What are reliable and affordable email verification tools for bulk check-ups, and what tools should be avoided?
What are the best email verification services and strategies for deliverability, especially for higher education CRMs?
