What Are the Risks Associated with Using Inaccurate or Outdated Emails?
Using inaccurate or outdated emails for your email marketing will guarantee future bounces.
However, while the occasional email bounce is acceptable (and expected), bouncing too many emails can harm your business’s domain reputation in the following ways.
Outdated emails lead to higher bounce rates
The immediate risk associated with an outdated email is a high bounce rate.
When an email address is inaccurate or outdated, your email has no target destination. The message bounces back to your bounce address and increases the bounce rate for that campaign.
Internet service providers also keep tabs on the average bounce rate for your email domain. If you use an inaccurate email finder service to generate new leads, your email bounce rate will increase quickly.
High bounce rates decrease email deliverabilityⓘ
Many believe that email bounces aren’t an issue. You can delete the contact from your list if your email bounces back because the address is invalid.
The problem is that the more email bounces you have, the harder it is to deliver future emails. We use the term “deliverability” to describe your email domain’s ability to reach the inbox. When your domain has a high average bounce rate, your ability to deliver messages to the inbox declines.
In short, inaccurate emails lead to high bounces, lowering overall email engagement.
Spammy behavior can lead to email blacklists
Spamming and spoofing is a legitimate issue in email. Internet service providers (ISPs) look for bad actors and use email hygiene to measure a domain’s behavior.
An email bounce rateⓘ higher than 2% will impact your domain reputation. Because your deliverability declines, your open and click rates will also suffer. This lowered email engagement is also a warning sign for ISPs.
The effects of emailing a batch of outdated, inaccurate emails quickly compound and can leave you looking like a spammer. When your domain is no longer trustworthy, many ISPs may reject your emails, and some may even add you to a blacklist.
You may lose your email account
Similar to ISPs, your email service provider also has rigid terms regarding your emailing behaviors. Some of these requirements include:
- Keeping a clean, valid email list
- Minimizing your bounce rate
- Providing a clear unsubscribe link
- Minimize spam complaints and abuse reports
If your domain violates these terms, they may revoke your emailing privileges.
In summary, using inaccurate or outdated emails found with an email finderⓘ harms you in the following ways:
- Increases your email bounce rate
- Lowers email engagement
- Lowers your email deliverability (ability to reach the inbox)
- May result in a blacklisting
- May result in email service suspension
It’s essential to use email verification to keep your email list clean and your campaigns running smoothly.
Learn more about how to keep clean emails on your list ->
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