Sweet.
You’ve landed a list of email addresses of people in your target audience.
Now you can launch the perfect email marketing campaign!
But wait. Why are so many of these emails not getting delivered? Why are we getting flagged as spam?
Uh-oh.
Turns out a good chunk of those email addresses weren’t real, or weren’t accurate anymore.
You didn’t get what you paid for/worked for. You wasted time putting that email campaign together. And now you’re dealing with spam complaints.
Yikes.
If only there was some way this could have been prevented…
You know where I’m going with this, right?
The right email validation tool could have saved you here.
So how do email address validator tools work? And what are the best email validation tools for how to verify an email address?
Glad you asked 😎
By the way, we offer a done-for-you B2B lead-gen outreach service — so rather than worrying about doing all this email stuff on your own, we can do it for you! Interested? Grab a time from my calendar and let’s chat!
Table of Contents
What Is Email Validation?
Email validation is the process of taking an email address and making sure it’s “valid.” Usually, that means a combination of:
- The email address is still active.
- The email address is still receiving messages.
- The email address belongs to a real person.
- The email address belongs to the person you think it belongs to.
With the right email validation tools, you can upload your entire email list and automatically scan it for issues.
You’ll get a notification if an email address is no longer active, or if there’s a discrepancy between your records and what actually exists.
The Best Email Address Validator Tools
Here are the best email validation tools:
1. Hunter.io.
First up, there’s Hunter.io. It’s an email finder and email address validator in one that makes it simple to get the email addresses you need for your sales and marketing strategies.
All you’ll need to do is enter a domain name and run a search; the tool will list various email addresses it finds on the company website and related online assets.
You’ll also get to verify each email address to ensure it can receive messages. You can get 25 free searches per month when you sign up, or pay for more advanced features.
2. Voila Norbert.
There’s also Voila Norbert. It’s an email finder and email validator as well, with utility for sales, recruiting, marketing, business development, and more.
You can run searches in a number of different ways, and Voila Norbert will run your criteria against its robust B2B email databases. It claims to have a 98 percent success rate in terms of email validation.
You can get started with the tool and get 50 free leads, but advanced features will require a paid subscription.
3. Kickbox.
Kickbox stands out in email list cleaning and verification, offering robust individual and bulk address validations, complemented by a real-time verification API. Its unique Sendex scoring metric, alongside a 95% deliverability guarantee, ensures high-quality email lists, visible through an insightful dashboard. Integrated with over 30 major marketing tools like Klaviyo and Mailchimp, Kickbox streamlines list management effectively.
While prized for its accuracy and comprehensive support, Kickbox’s premium pricing and potential limitations in processing very large lists or handling cold emails and purchased lists due to speed and policy constraints should be considered.
4. Searchbug Email Validator.
Searchbug Email Validator identifies valid, invalid, disposable, toxic, and catch-all email addresses from your list to prevent email bounces and increase email deliverability.
It also identifies abuse addresses owned by users who often mark emails as spam. This protects you from getting labeled as spam and allows your emails to land in inboxes. Finally, email validation detects spam trap email addresses that do not belong to real people. There are no monthly fees, subscriptions, or memberships to worry about. Just pay for the information and services you need.
5. Mailfloss.
If you’re looking for a simple email validation tool, you should try Mailfloss. It’s designed specifically for bulk email validation, so if you have a long, old list of unverified emails, you can scan them.
It’s highly automated, so it doesn’t take much manual effort to use. It also has built-in integrations with a variety of sales and marketing tools.
Improve your team's email response time by 42.5% With EmailAnalytics
- 35-50% of sales go to the first-responding vendor.
- Following up within an hour increases your chances of success by 7x.
- The average professional spends 50% of their workday on email.
You can use it to detect and remove invalid email addresses, spam traps, and temporary emails.
6. EmailListVerify.
Also consider EmailListVerify. The name says it all here.
Trusted by big names like MailChimp and Shopify, EmailListVerify has validated more than 5 billion email addresses.
You can trust this tool to identify and help you remove any inaccurate or invalid email addresses from your list, whether they’re the result of a typo, user abandonment, or malicious intentions.
7. Zero Bounce.
With Zero Bounce, you can validate a lengthy list of email addresses with a 98 percent success rate. You’ll also gain access to a variety of other email-related tools, including AI-based email scoring and tools to improve your email deliverability.
You can also use it for both individual email verification and bulk email verification – which is handy if you have hundreds, or even thousands of email addresses to verify.
Paid subscriptions and a pay-as-you-go model are both available.
8. DeBounce.
9. Email Checker.
It’s got a simple name, but don’t underestimate it. Email Checker offers real-time verification of your bulk email lists – and it’s had experience processing more than 19 billion emails.
With it, you’ll be able to cleanse your email lists of temporary addresses, inactive inboxes, and email addresses with typos and syntax errors.
10. MillionVerifier.
MillionVerifier offers one of the highest accuracy rates of any tool I could find, promising 99 percent accuracy.
It also offers a 100 percent money back guarantee and a flat rate of $299 for up to 1 million email validations (hence the name).
You can also try it for free if you want to see how it works before you buy.
11. MailerCheck.
MailerCheck, from MailerLite, is an email validation tool currently serving more than 1 million customers.
Its convenient, automatic system allows you to scrub your list of email addresses associated with inactive mailboxes, duplicates, and those that were misspelled or erroneously entered.
It also allows you to produce detailed reports – so you have even more transparency in your email list management.
Why Use Email Validation Tools?
Most people use email address validation tools for one of two different purposes:
- Cleaning an existing email list. First, you might be interested in “cleaning” an existing email list. Periodically cleaning this list of inactive or incorrect addresses can preserve the integrity of your campaigns.
- Cleaning a new email list. Or maybe you want to verify the accuracy and integrity of a “new” email list. For example, if you’ve purchased a list of email addresses (largely considered a no-no in the email marketing world) or if you’ve followed our guide on how to build a targeted list of prospects, a cleaning step can ensure your data is as accurate as possible.
In either case, your goal is to make your email list as “clean” as possible.
Ultimately, your goals are to reduce bounces, reduce spam complaints, and prevent yourself from getting on an email blacklist.
Even if you have solid practices for collecting emails and managing your email lists, it’s still important to do rounds of email validation occasionally to scrub your list.
Like what you see from these email address validator tools?
Well, email validation is only part of the story.
If you want to maximize your chances of landing more sales and pave a path toward a more productive, successful sales team, you’ll also need a tool to help you measure and analyze your team’s email activity.
A tool like EmailAnalytics.
Yep. That’s our tool. And yes, I’m #biased 😉
But you don’t have to take my word for it. You can try it for yourself and see what it can do.
You’ll see how many emails your team sends and receives every day, who they’re emailing with the most, their busiest days and times of day, and even their average email response time.
Sign up for a free trial today and get started with no cost and no commitment!
Jayson is a long-time columnist for Forbes, Entrepreneur, BusinessInsider, Inc.com, and various other major media publications, where he has authored over 1,000 articles since 2012, covering technology, marketing, and entrepreneurship. He keynoted the 2013 MarketingProfs University, and won the “Entrepreneur Blogger of the Year” award in 2015 from the Oxford Center for Entrepreneurs. In 2010, he founded a marketing agency that appeared on the Inc. 5000 before selling it in January of 2019, and he is now the CEO of EmailAnalytics.
