Email Verification to Ensure You Only Get High-Quality Leads

It’s no secret that a lead’s email address is one of the major points of contact alongside their phone number. So, whether you’re buying or selling leads, or leveraging organic traffic sources or affiliate marketing, it helps to know whether the provided email is valid, active, and deliverable.

In other words, you want to ensure that the lead in question is worth paying for or worth the effort, while also protecting your business from low-quality, duplicate, and outright fraudulent leads, a major threat that can undermine your marketing campaigns.

Take our marketing fraud prevention quiz to learn where you rank.

Email verification and validation software does all of that, giving you a data-driven estimate of the quality of the lead through running their email address against your internal and – most importantly – external databases like, for example, blacklists of disposable email providers, spam trap databases, domain reputation databases, and other reliable email quality data sources.

Then you know whether the lead is good enough to buy or engage with

Sounds good?

Read on to learn everything you need to know about email verification and how email verification solutions like iClear can help you verify leads’ emails before you purchase them.

Book a demo to learn how Phonexa’s native email verification and validation software can help your business.

What is Email Validation and Email Verification?

Email verification and email validation both boil down to checking a lead’s email address:

• Email validation checks an email address and domain structure to ensure the email is properly formatted. For example, john@@example..com, fake-domain.zzz, mike@@gmail.com, or mike@nonexistdomain.xyz are all invalid emails.
• Email verification checks whether a specific email address exists, belongs to a real person, and is active. Valid emails may not pass verification if they belong to catch-all domains, the recipient’s mailbox is full, the server is down, or the email is disposable.

For practical purposes, both email validation and email verification ensure that you’re dealing with leads that match your marketing criteria. Although an email address alone may not provide all the details about the lead, it is often enough to determine whether the lead is worth pursuing.

Read also: 5 Ways Email Marketers Can Master Omnichannel Strategies

Important: Email validation and verification are more effective when used in conjunction with other checks, such as verifying the lead’s phone number, location, and other demographic and psychographic parameters, which ultimately help you pinpoint the intent and value of the lead.

Take a product tour to explore Phonexa’s performance marketing software suite.

How Email Verification Can Improve Your Marketing Campaigns

1. Confirming the Lead at the Moment of Capture

For buyers, real-time email verification and validation make the biggest impact, allowing them to confirm the lead’s quality and intent. In practice, email verification software like iClear – integral to Phonexa’s performance marketing software suite – verifies the email (and other data) when a lead submits a form, catching errors and fake entries.

Then, depending on the system’s configuration, you can accept, reject, or flag leads based on their email quality. Real-time email verification gives you full freedom in choosing which leads to buy, while you also have an opportunity to double-check leads rather than reject them by default.

2. Correcting the Lead’s Email Address on the Fly

Before flagging or rejecting the lead based on the wrong email address, an email verification system can prompt them to correct the entry, such as changing the incorrect johnbrooks@gnail.com to the correct johnbrooks@gmail.com.

Auto-correction prompts can be implemented across all touchpoints, from forms to website registration, helping you improve lead quality and obtain valid email data from leads that might have been rejected or flagged as low-quality. For lead sellers, auto-correction increases the value of their leads, improves reputation, and reduces potential refunds and disputes.

For consumers themselves, real-time corrections provide clear guidance on filling out the form, making the process more intuitive. Without such prompts, users may either submit incorrect data and never be contacted, or they may abandon filling out the form if they are unable to submit it.

3. Ensures the Fastest Time-to-Contact Rates

Real-time email verification has found extensive application in time-sensitive marketing campaigns, like Black Friday and Christmas sales. When you’re competing against dozens of other brands, you may only have a few minutes to contact the lead, so you need to know which follow-ups to send to whom, especially if you’re segmenting your email campaign or have limited seats in the offer.

4. Zeroing in on Quality Lead Sources

One of the biggest benefits of email verification is that it helps evaluate the performance of your traffic sources, allowing you to allocate your resources most effectively. For example, if you’re seeing that leads from a specific affiliate, campaign, or marketing channel come with fake emails and cost more than they should, you might want to investigate the issue.

Read also: Key Affiliate Marketing Metrics to Track for Business Growth

More importantly, if you enable real-time email verification for all acquired leads, you can spot issues instantly, staying cost-effective at all times. Speaking of which, with iClear, you can use both real-time and post-purchase email validation and verification, depending on your goals.

5. Adding a Verified Email Address to the Lead’s Profile

Email verification software doesn’t work separately but is always integrated with a lead management system or CRM. The collected and verified email address is typically added or compared against multiple other data items before the system makes a decision.

So it’s very much about flexibility. On the one hand, you may want to give leads a chance to correct their email address so you don’t lose them; on the other hand, you don’t want to purchase or – if already purchased – spend resources on leads that are unlikely to receive your emails.

Email Verification with iClear – Know the Leads You’re Buying

You only want leads with active email addresses, but there’s more to it than verifying whether a specific email address is valid and belongs to a real person. There are also factors like verification and lead price that affect which emails you want to verify and how scrupulously.

Here are a few potential scenarios:

• You’re buying leads from the same lead generation company for a long time
• You’re tapping into a new lead source
• The quality of leads you’re buying is declining

In each of these scenarios, you may require a different level of email verification. In the first case, you might only want basic verification to ensure the leads haven’t made a mistake when typing their email address into the form. In the second and third cases, you may need a thorough evaluation to assess the traffic source or determine why the quality of the leads has deteriorated.

With iClear, you can cover all these needs and more while paying only for the power of the system you’re using.

Phonexa’s Email Validation and Email Verification Features

iClear: Basic Email Domain Validation	£0.0005 per check
iClear: Email Validation & Hygiene	£0.003 per check
iClear: Email Scoring	£0.003 per check

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Email Verification and Email Validation

Before digging deep into Phonexa’s three email verification features, it’s worth mentioning that all of them can be executed either synchronously or asynchronously.

• Synchronous checks are performed in real-time, with the software able to accept or reject the lead based on the check’s result. Likewise, you can choose to flag leads with suboptimal email data while still accepting them.
• Asynchronous checks are performed at any time after the leads are acquired, allowing you to evaluate the performance of each of your lead suppliers and campaigns. Then you can double down on the most profitable traffic sources and eliminate those that are not cost-effective.

At first glance, synchronous checks might seem far superior – why would you delay verifying your leads if you can do it right away at the same price? However, it can be tricky at times, mostly because synchronous checks rely on the server’s speed, which can potentially result in a poor user experience and drop-offs.

Even a delay of 2–3 seconds can be significant, causing some users to abandon filling out the form. In contrast, asynchronous checks do not affect user experience – the user can interact with the form without delays and submit it without waiting for the server response.

Book a demo to learn more about Phonexa’s iClear and other features and add-ons.

iClear: Basic Email Domain Validation

iClear: Basic Email Domain Validation is the simplest email validity check that searches an email for typos and errors. For example, if a lead submits an email like john@gnail.com, iClear will reject or flag it so you don’t spend money on non-convertible leads. 

If you do want to buy the lead despite the error in the email address, you’ll get a chance to correct the error or typo before sending your marketing emails, ensuring higher email deliverability.

Here’s how you can use the Basic Email Domain Validation feature:

• Reject or flag leads with invalid email addresses
• Check email addresses post-purchase
• Block submissions with temporary emails
• Issue real-time prompts to users who are trying to submit invalid emails

Validating the lead’s email address may be the only service you need when purchasing leads from reputable sources. If you know that the leads you’re buying are of high quality, you might only need to ensure they haven’t made a mistake when typing their email address in the form.

Read also: 7 Lead Generation Strategies To Drive and Convert More Business Leads

iClear: Email Validation & Hygiene

In addition to validating emails – ensuring they have proper syntax and spelling – iClear can categorise them into Good, Risky, and Toxic based on the deliverability status and whether the email is disposable, blacklisted, associated with spam, known for abusive behaviour, and more factors

Good	Deliverable and active emails
Risky	Deliverable emails that include a domain that accepts all emails or emails associated with distribution groups like no-reply@ or test@.
Toxic	Undeliverable, blacklisted, disposable, or known for abusive behaviour emails.

Differentiating emails by status makes it easier to navigate your lead acquisition campaigns, especially when it comes to Risky emails, some of which might be legitimate leads. For Risky emails, you can simply flag them and manually supervise them post-purchase.

Read also: Dominate CRO & UX Through User Behaviour Data & Analytics

iClear: Email Scoring

The Email Scoring feature with iClear allows you to quantify the quality of incoming emails and set the system to purchase emails that meet the minimum qualification score.

Email Checks with iClear

Risk Score	Risk Score is a numerical value that represents the likelihood of an email being valid. Leads that show engagement with your email campaigns and exhibit high inbox activity have lower risk scores, so you may want to prioritise them over inactive and potentially mismatched leads.
Deliverability Status	The Deliverability Status check ensures you only purchase leads that can be contacted via email. For affiliates, checking the lead’s email deliverability status helps avoid chargebacks and maintain a good reputation.
Disposable Email Detection	The Disposable Email Detection check identifies temporary emails, such as john@mailinator.com. In affiliate marketing, temporary and disposable emails are often used to earn undeserved affiliate commissions.
Spam Trap and Honeypot Identification	The Spam Trap and Honeypot Identification check detects email addresses that are typically used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to catch spammers. For both affiliates and advertisers, checking their leads for spam traps helps preserve their reputation.
Role-Based Email Detection	The Role-Based Email Detection check identifies corporate emails that are not tied to a specific person, such as support@, info@, or sales@. You may not necessarily want to reject all role-based emails at all times, especially in B2B, but it surely helps to stay informed.
Domain Reputation Analysis	The Domain Reputation Analysis check identifies whether the lead’s domain is blacklisted, associated with spam, has proper DNS settings, and other reputation-based factors. For example, leads with emails like user@cheapoffers.biz might be rejected outright because of the unreliable domain.
Catch-All Domain Detection	The Catch-All Domain Detection check identifies email addresses with domains configured to accept any email address, including non-existent ones. For example, if you’re offered a lead with an email address asdf@domain.com, identifying that domain.com is a catch-all domain will help you reject the lead.
Recent Abuse Detection	The Recent Abuse Detection check verifies the lead’s email address for a history of fraudulent activity, complaints, mass sign-ups, and other email marketing abuse strategies.For example, if a loan advisor company receives a lead with an email address like marcus_loans23@fastmail.com, and the same email address has been signed up for 12 offers yesterday and has been reported by other lead buyers as fake or undeliverable, they might want to reject this lead.

Make the Most Out of Your Email Campaigns with E-Delivery

With iClear offering fantastic email verification depth and accuracy, it’s only one of the many email and SMS marketing features you can get as a Phonexa user. As for the other features, most of them are packed into E-Delivery, our proprietary email and SMS marketing platform.

One of the strongest use cases for E-Delivery is remarketing leads that you’re buying or selling through automated email or SMS marketing campaigns. For leads and phone calls that aren’t sold, you can provide them with a personalised follow-up email that will keep them in the funnel. This is especially valuable for complex industries, such as finance and insurance, where sales cycles are longer..

 

Whether you’re using Phonexa’s LMS Sync, Call Logic, or Lynx, you can send emails and SMS in real-time to any lead who has provided consent for these types of communication.

• Pull in purchased and validated leads for nurturing
• Configure your Call Logic numbers to send text messages to opted-in contacts
• Coordinate lead, call, and email marketing data for comprehensive coverage
• Use dozens of reports to track the performance of your email marketing campaigns

Last but not least, you can use Opt-Intel alongside E-Delivery to create suppression lists for emails you don’t want to interact with, whether because of compliance concerns, potential CAN-SPAM violations, or simply because the lead has shown to be low-quality.

Read also: Why Do Companies Choose Inexpensive Leads?

Your All-in-One Performance Marketing Software Suite

Regardless of whether you’re buying leads, selling leads, generating leads for your own business, or you’re an affiliate network, you can benefit immensely from a software suite that allows you to synergise all your campaigns and coordinate them within a single dashboard.

Phonexa does it, providing you with eight tools for lead and phone call management – all under one roof, so you don’t have to juggle between reports and systems. Using Phonexa as a go-to lead management platform means gaining comprehensive reporting, full control over your campaigns, and seamless data flows between various marketing channels.

“The consumer journey could start with a publisher twice removed running an offer on email, and in the end, it comes all the way through to a call or web funnel in which that customer has changed hands three times before they end up at the end destination, then they may not even buy.Around 45% of consumers don’t buy the first time around, so how are you making sure that the attribution and the remuneration that you’re delivering through your marketing channels is feeding back to the right place? With Phonexa, we’re fairly agnostic – we will partner with third-party services and platforms to help our clients work however they like. We’ve seen best results when clients are using end-to-end tracking, and we’ve helped bring as much of that in-house as possible to ensure that the numbers that we’re comparing and talking about are the same numbers and we can hang our hat on that.” – David Pickard, CEO at Phonexa, from Affiliate Marketing Podcast

Here’s how Phonexa helps businesses grow by automating reports and routines:

 

No less importantly, you get exhaustive insights into every single lead, traffic source, and campaign. From tracking to distributing to analysing leads and phone calls to predicting future outcomes, you’ve got it all in one place, a convenience you’ll be happy to discover.

Get Phonexa’s all-in-one performance marketing software suite at a single price:

Build your plan now, or book a demo to learn more about Phonexa.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the advantages of email verification and email validation?

By validating and verifying the email of the leads you’re buying or selling, you can increase the cost-effectiveness of your business, improve email deliverability, reduce bounce rates, and – overall – make sure the leads in question are worth your time, money, and effort.

On top of that, if you’re using a lead management system like Phonexa, you can set up the system to automatically reject the leads that don’t pass email validation or email verification.

How do I verify a lead’s email address?

There are several methods and levels to verify the validity of a lead’s email address. With Phonexa, you can go as deeply as you’d like without paying for information you won’t use.

You can:

• Verify the validity of the lead’s email address and domain at £0.0005 per check
• Analyse emails into Valid, Risky, and Toxic at £0.003 per check
• Score emails based on parameters such as deliverability status and recent behaviour.

All checks are performed automatically, and then the system either accepts or rejects the lead or flags it for manual review. Likewise, you can verify email addresses.

What specific email data can you verify?

With iClear, you can validate the lead’s email and domain for errors and typos, as well as run them against third-party databases to identify whether the lead’s email is deliverable, disposable, spam trap, etc. Overall, you can check every bit of trackable data.