How can I prevent fake email addresses from being added at checkout and causing hard bounces?

Email marketer from ZeroBounce explains that email verification services help to ensure the email addresses you are collecting are valid and safe to send to. These tools use a variety of checks to identify potential problems, such as disposable email addresses, spam traps, and hard bounces.

Email marketer from Email Hippo shares that using email validation tools to verify email addresses in real-time before they are submitted can identify and reject fake or invalid addresses, preventing them from being added to your list.

Email marketer from Email Geeks recommends Recaptcha, other user agent checks, and honeypots. Mentions using services meant to evaluate risk of emails is a bit rough.

Email marketer from Neil Patel explains that double opt-in is one of the best ways to protect your email list from spam and fake signups. By requiring users to confirm their email address, you ensure that only legitimate subscribers are added to your list.

Email marketer from Email Geeks shares the choice is to leave the forms as they are and deal with any deliverability related consequences or fix the checkout by adding either ReCAPTCHA, double opt-in or the honeypot field mentioned previously and risk some churn.

Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that to prevent fake email addresses, you'll want to implement a recaptcha or honeypot (invisible field that only bots will fill out, so you can reject those submissions without mailing). If it's human behavior, you'll want to make providing an email address optional instead of required. Recommends preventing hard bounces if possible even if they're ultimately being suppressed.

Email marketer from Validity shares that prompting users with suggestions for common email typos (e.g., @gnail.com instead of @gmail.com) can help prevent invalid email addresses from being submitted.

Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum shares that monitoring IP addresses and blocking those associated with suspicious activity can help prevent fake email addresses. This can be done manually or through automated tools.

Email marketer from Shopify Community shares that adding a CAPTCHA to your checkout page can help prevent bots from submitting fake email addresses. CAPTCHAs require users to prove they are human, which can deter bots from completing the checkout process.

Email marketer from Kickbox shares that implementing checks to identify and block disposable email addresses (DEA) during checkout can prevent temporary or fake email addresses from being used, which helps to reduce hard bounces.

Email marketer from SendPulse shares that collecting additional information during checkout, such as name, phone number, or address, can help verify the legitimacy of the email address. Bots are less likely to provide accurate information for multiple fields.

Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that all the fake ones that don’t bounce still hurt you with complaints, lack of engagement and negative points against your brand for spamming the real people that own the email address that some bot happened to use. Also shares a list of other scenarios that get blocked such as the same email adding to hundreds of lists from different IPs.

Email marketer from Email Geeks says that Shopify should have anti-fraud measures that would automatically kick in and block originating IPs, and that reCAPTCHA should be enabled by default.

Email marketer from Reddit explains that using a honeypot field (a field invisible to humans but not bots) can trap bots. When a bot fills out this field, the submission is flagged as spam and rejected.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that protecting your contact forms from abuse is crucial. She suggests measures like CAPTCHAs, rate limiting, and honeypots to deter bots and fake submissions.

Expert from Spamresource explains that using email validation services to check email addresses at the point of entry can help prevent fake or disposable email addresses being used at checkout.

Expert from Spamresource shares that implementing a confirmed opt-in process ensures that the email address provided is valid and that the owner of the email address wants to receive communications. This prevents bots from subscribing with fake addresses and improves deliverability.

Documentation from Google reCAPTCHA explains that integrating reCAPTCHA into your checkout form can effectively block bots. They offer various versions, including invisible reCAPTCHA, which minimizes user friction.

Documentation from Amazon SES explains that maintaining a suppression list (of hard bounces and complaints) and ensuring these addresses are not re-imported into your system can prevent future bounces and protect your sender reputation.

Documentation from Mailgun explains that using their email address verification service, which checks if an email address is deliverable, exists, and is a real email address, can prevent bots and fake sign-ups.

Documentation from OWASP explains that implementing robust input validation on your checkout form can help prevent fake email addresses. This includes checking the format, length, and characters of the email address to ensure it is valid.

Documentation from Cloudflare explains that using bot management tools can help identify and block malicious bots that submit fake email addresses at checkout. These tools analyze traffic patterns and user behavior to distinguish between legitimate users and bots.