How do email database cleaning services remove waste and invalid addresses?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Clearout shares they remove inactive or unengaged email addresses that are unlikely to convert.
Email marketer from NeverBounce shares that they remove duplicate email addresses from lists to improve deliverability and engagement.
Email marketer from ZeroBounce shares that AI-powered email validation uses machine learning to detect hard bounces, spam traps, and disposable email addresses with improved accuracy.
Email marketer from EmailListVerify responds that their services reduce bounce rates through email verification.
Email marketer from DeBounce explains their service identifies and removes email addresses from parked domains that could be harmful to sender reputation.
Email marketer from Reddit user u/EmailExpert shares that email cleaning services use proprietary methods to detect and remove spam traps from email lists.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum user User42 explains that services identify and remove disposable or temporary email addresses to prevent abuse and improve data quality.
Email marketer from Experian explains that email verification and hygiene services validate email addresses to identify and remove invalid, inactive, or risky addresses, reducing bounce rates and improving deliverability.
Email marketer from Email Hippo explains that they identify and remove role-based email addresses (e.g., sales@, info@) that can negatively impact engagement.
What the experts say6Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that legitimate data hygiene services focus on prevention at the point of capture, helping avoid typos and malicious additions, which is more effective than trying to clean a badly maintained list later.
Expert from Spam Resource identifies a way to clean an email list which is through Honeypots
Expert from Email Geeks explains that some services spam your addresses to see which don't bounce, buy bounce data from ESPs, use SMTP partial transactions, or compare your list against purchased spam lists.
Expert from Email Geeks explains some services are run by ESPs and use bounce data across customers to clean email lists and the best time to implement list hygiene.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that some services abort the transaction after RCPT TO, which is unreliable. Others buy bounce info from marketers or ESPs, which is better but still imperfect. Some also claim to remove spam traps, but they don't remove all of them.
Expert from Email Geeks explains the legitimate list hygiene services are designed to be used at address capture time to avoid typos and malicious additions.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from MailerCheck shares their system removes email addresses that have resulted in a hard bounce, indicating the address is invalid or non-existent.
Documentation from Hunter.io explains that their email verification service checks if an email address exists and is able to receive emails without sending an actual email.
Documentation from Mailfloss explains that it performs syntax checking to identify and remove email addresses with invalid formats or typos.
Documentation from Kickbox explains that they identify and remove risky email addresses that could damage sender reputation, including spam traps, complainers, and litigators.