How Belkins Masters B2B Lead Generation with Better Data

B2B lead generation depends on data quality

For a company like Belkins, a high bounce rate is a serious setback. It damages sender reputation and undermines the team's ability to deliver quality leads to clients.

“Many medium-sized businesses and enterprises count on us to provide accurate and actionable data. Even a sprinkle of invalid contacts in a list can ruin an entire campaign,”

“So our commitment to data quality is strong. We must maintain the highest standards for our databases.”

- Michael Maximoff, Belkins co-founder

But data is fragile – very fragile. The average email list decays by more than a quarter every year. In the B2B space, an even larger chunk of databases goes bad because employees leave jobs and mailboxes become obsolete.

Belkins, a lead generation and appointment-setting agency, experienced this challenge head-on.

Cold email outreach stalls when your emails bounce

“We first realized the need for an email validationⓘ service a few years ago, when we noticed an increase in bounces and a significant drop in our email engagement rates,” Belkins CMO Margot Kashuba recalled.

“Belkins processes a large number of email campaigns, and we saw that many of our emails weren’t reaching our customers. That led to missed opportunities and decreased customer satisfaction.

We also encountered issues with spam traps, which began to harm our sender reputation and risked getting our domains blacklisted, the marketer added.

- Margot Kashuba, Belkins CMO

The company was facing these challenges right in the middle of its most significant growth phase. “We were expanding our client base fast, so we had to generate and manage high-quality leads to meet the demand and standards we abide by,” said co-founder Michael Maximoff.

When bounce rates rose to over 19%, the Belkins team reached out to ZeroBounce for help.

“Email validationⓘ became the first step in ensuring bounce rates went down and our emails were going to valid and active subscribersⓘ,” Maximoff explained.

- Michael Maximoff, Belkins co-founder

Next, we look at how the B2B lead generation agency was able to continue its cold email outreach efforts and acquire qualified B2B leads with more confidence.

Email bounce rates went down 19%

Integrating ZeroBounce's email validator into their workflows was easy for the Belkins team. And the difference it made was tremendous, CMO Margot Kashuba told us.

“We conducted an internal study of our email list to evaluate the impact ZeroBounce made. Before using the email validationⓘ service, we had a bounce rate of 19.09%. After using ZeroBounce, our bounce rate dropped to 0.4%. It feels great to know that now, we reach out to a valid, healthy list of subscribers who engage with us like never before,” the CMO said.

Want to experience the same results for your business? Create a ZeroBounce account and check 100 email addresses for free – every month.

How ZeroBounce improves B2B lead generation and cold email outreach

A low bounce rate is a win in itself. It gives you peace of mind knowing you spend your email marketing budget wisely rather than paying to store outdated, risky contacts. But a clean email list comes with many added benefits.

Here’s what Belkins CMO Margot Kashuba told us about the improvements she and her team noticed after using our email validationⓘ service.

• Increased trust and reputation. “Maintaining a healthy email list helped us build and maintain trust with our audience. With fewer spam complaints and higher engagement, our sender reputation improved. Now, our emails are more likely to land in the inbox rather than the spam folder.”
• Higher email deliverability. "One of the most noticeable differences was the improvement in our email deliverability rates. Removing invalid email addresses, spam traps, and disposable emails from our list, lead to a higher percentage of our emails reaching their recipients."
• Lower bounce rates. “Prior to using ZeroBounce, we experienced a high bounce rate, which affected our sender reputation. After integrating the email validator, our bounce rate dropped significantly. That helps Belkins maintain a good standing with email service providers.”
• Better engagement rates. “With a cleaner email list, our engagement rates soared. More of our emails were being opened and read, and that led to higher click-through rates and conversions.”
• Cost efficiency. "By targeting only valid and active email addresses, we reduced the costs of sending emails to unengaged or non-existent recipients. The benefit was getting more value out of our email marketing budget."
• Better insights and reporting. “The detailed reports and analytics from ZeroBounce give us deeper insights into our email list quality. We can track improvements over time and make data-driven decisions to refine our strategies further.”
• Efficient workflow integration. “ZeroBounce integrates with our systems, so we can validate emails in real-time without disrupting our workflow. We can maintain our usual pace of operations while the email verifier checks our data.”

For a B2B lead generation agency relying on cold email outreach, staying on top of email list hygieneⓘ is vital – and the results speak for themselves.

“ZeroBounce has been a game-changer for our email marketing. The accuracy in identifying invalid emails and spam traps has kept our list clean and boosted our deliverability.

We especially appreciate the real-time validationⓘ and reports that help us make smarter decisions. Overall, ZeroBounce has made our email campaigns much more effective.

Plus, the customer support team is fantastic!”

- Margot Kashuba, Belkins CMO

Need help with your email list? Reach out to our team now – we're here for you 24/7.

How to choose an email validation service for your business

Next, we asked Belkins CMO Margot Kashuba how their team went about picking the right email validator. As it turns out, the high accuracy, the real-time email validation API, and the reliable customer support were key factors in their choice.

Was there any specific feature you were looking for in an email verifier?

Our primary focus was finding an email verifier to handle the high volume of emails we send out regularly. We needed software that could accurately identify invalid email addresses, spam traps, and disposable emailsⓘ and protect our sender reputation.

Additionally, we were looking for features like real-time validationⓘ. Business owners, marketers, and sales pros are all busy, so being able to automate the email validationⓘ process is a huge bonus. Data appending capabilities and detailed reporting also mattered a lot to us. We need to keep track of our data quality as this reflects in the effectiveness of our email campaigns.

How did you choose ZeroBounce?

We chose ZeroBounce after thorough research and comparisons with other email validationⓘ services on the market.

ZeroBounce stood out for several reasons:

• ZeroBounce’s guaranteed accuracy for email validation is 99.6%, which is as close to perfect as you can get.
• It has a reliable real-time email validation API, and this feature was critical for our team.
• Aside from checking every contact, ZeroBounce also appends missing data to our list. For a B2B lead generation agency, this is a boon we couldn’t find elsewhere.
• Customer support is exceptional. When we first reached out to ZeroBounce, the team’s response was prompt and helpful. That gave us confidence that we’d have strong support during and after implementation.
• The reporting and analytics feature also played a role in our decision. These tools allow us to monitor the health of our email list in real time. They provide clear insights and demonstrate the return on investment.
• The many positive reviews we read online reassured us we were making the right choice for improving our email marketing efforts.

ZeroBounce can segment your email list by provider

Alina Pets, Research Team Lead at Belkins, explained how ZeroBounce’s ability to categorize email addresses by provider helped improve their targeting strategy and inbox placement.

“ZeroBounce helps us split our list into Gmail, Outlook, and other platforms and send emails to these contacts from the same provider.

For the highest email deliverabilityⓘ, it’s better to send from Gmail to Gmail and from Outlook to Outlook accounts, so this is a great feature!”

- Alina Pets, Research Team Lead