Email Validation

Validate email addresses before outreach to protect your sender reputation and improve deliverability.

How Email Validation Works

Email validation is a multi-step process that checks if an email address is real and deliverable:

Validation Steps

  1. Syntax Check: Verifies the email follows proper format (e.g., [email protected])
  2. DNS Lookup: Checks if the domain exists and has valid MX records
  3. SMTP Verification: Connects to the mail server to confirm the mailbox accepts email
  4. Disposable Check: Detects temporary/disposable email services
  5. Risk Assessment: Identifies catch-all domains and other risk factors

Validation Statuses

After validation, each email is assigned one of these statuses:

Valid ✅

The email address exists and can receive mail. Safe to send.

Recommendation: Proceed with outreach.

Risky ⚠️

The email may exist but has risk factors (catch-all domain, role-based, etc.). May bounce.

Examples: [email protected], [email protected], catch-all domains

Recommendation: Use with caution. Consider manual review or secondary verification.

Invalid ❌

The email address does not exist or cannot receive mail. Will bounce.

Recommendation: Remove from outreach list to protect sender reputation.

Unknown ❓

Validation could not be completed (server timeout, temporary error, etc.).

Recommendation: Retry validation or proceed with caution.

Supported Providers

Hunter.io

  • Best for: Email finder + verification in one service
  • Accuracy: 95%+
  • Cost: $49/mo for 1,000 verifications
  • Setup: Hunter.io Integration Guide

BounceBan

Mailveri

BYOK Model: You pay validation providers directly at their standard rates. Enrichabl doesn't mark up credits or charge per-lead fees.

Batch Validation Workflows

Validate thousands of leads efficiently with batch processing:

  1. Select all leads in your pipeline (or filter first)
  2. Click Validate Emails
  3. Choose your provider
  4. Watch real-time progress (processed/total, success rate)
  5. Review results when complete
Pro Tip: Validate emails before running expensive AI enrichment to save costs on invalid leads.

Best Practices

Protecting Sender Reputation

  • Always validate emails before cold outreach
  • Remove Invalid statuses immediately
  • Be cautious with Risky statuses (consider secondary verification)
  • Keep bounce rates below 5% for optimal deliverability

Cost Optimization

  • Clean obvious invalids locally first (typos, syntax errors)
  • Validate in batches to use provider bulk pricing
  • Cache validation results to avoid re-validating same emails
  • Use lower-cost providers for non-critical campaigns

When to Validate

Always validate:

  • Purchased or scraped lead lists
  • Lists older than 6 months
  • Before high-volume campaigns

May skip validation:

  • Inbound leads from forms (already verified)
  • Internal company emails
  • Recently validated lists (< 30 days)

Troubleshooting

High "Unknown" Rate

Cause: Greylisting or temporary server issues

Solution: Retry validation after a few hours

Validation Timeouts

Cause: Large batch or slow provider API

Solution: Split into smaller batches (5,000 leads max)

API Rate Limits

Cause: Exceeded provider rate limits

Solution: Wait for rate limit reset or upgrade provider plan

Next Steps