Should I email unknown status users after email validation during transactional domain warming?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from StackExchange explains that 'unknown' status often means the validation service couldn't confirm deliverability. They suggest sending a small test batch to see if the addresses bounce before including them in larger sends.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that when in doubt, it’s best to err on the side of caution. They recommend segmenting or removing ‘unknown’ addresses, especially during domain warming, to avoid potential issues with mailbox providers.
Email marketer from MailerLite advises regular email list cleaning to remove invalid or inactive addresses. They suggest that sending to 'unknown' status users increases the risk of bounces and spam complaints, negatively impacting deliverability.
Email marketer from Email on Acid recommends creating segments based on email validation results. They suggests that users with an 'unknown' status be added to a low priority segment that is sent emails less often.
Email marketer from SendPulse suggests using email verification tools to identify invalid or risky email addresses before sending. They advise against emailing 'unknown' status users as they may be spam traps or inactive accounts, which can damage your sender reputation.
Email marketer from ZeroBounce recommends segmenting email lists based on validation results. They suggest treating 'unknown' emails with caution, potentially suppressing them temporarily or permanently if deliverability issues persist.
Email marketer from Woodpecker.co recommends against cold emailing addresses with an 'unknown' status because you don't want to damage your sending reputation.
Email marketer from Neil Patel explains that you should remove unknown or inactive users from your email list to maintain a healthy sender reputation and improve deliverability. Sending to these users can harm your sender score.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that validation tools vary with regard to “unknown” status.
Email marketer from HubSpot stresses the importance of sending emails to engaged users. They advise removing unengaged or questionable email addresses, including those with 'unknown' status, to protect sender reputation and improve overall deliverability.
What the experts say7Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that list hygiene is a part of maintaining your email deliverability. It is important to remove unknown users or unengaged users to maintain your email marketing success.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that an “Unknown” status from a hygiene service likely means the service doesn’t have data or can’t check the email address. He suggests to keep mailing and handle bounces.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that sending to unengaged users or those with an unknown status will lower your engagement metrics and result in your emails being categorized as Graymail. Graymail is something you don't want to happen to your important transactional emails.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that if an ESP calculates deliverability rate as delivered/sent, it could mean that the “sent” mail has been queued or the “delivered” mail has been accepted by the recipient MX with a 2xx response.
Expert from Email Geeks explains the meaning of statuses from validation tools: Attempted = Sent, Delivered = no bounce received, Unknown = they have no info, Anything else = they have information about a bounce or clues that the mailbox is good.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests segmenting out “unknown” status addresses and sending to them last in the warmup process for safety, as they will likely deliver or bounce eventually.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that you want to avoid hard bounces. While not directly related to 'unknown' statuses, it provides insights into how email sending infrastructure interprets different delivery responses, which can help understand why some addresses are hard to validate, causing an 'unknown' result. You should strive for a bounce rate of lower than 3%.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from RFC 5321 outlines SMTP standards which indirectly relate to email validation. While it doesn't directly address 'unknown' statuses, it provides context on how mail servers communicate, and why some validation services might not be able to definitively determine the validity of an email address.
Documentation from Google's bulk sender guidelines recommends maintaining a clean email list and removing invalid addresses. Although it doesn't directly address 'unknown' statuses, it highlights the importance of sending emails to valid and engaged users to avoid deliverability issues when sending to Gmail users.
Documentation from Mailchimp encourages users to only send marketing campaigns to users who have opted in to receive them. While not directly related to 'unknown' statuses, it provides insights into how email sending infrastructure interprets different delivery responses, which can help understand why some addresses are hard to validate.
Documentation from AWS explains how Amazon SES handles bounces and complaints. While not directly related to 'unknown' statuses, it provides insights into how email sending infrastructure interprets different delivery responses, which can help understand why some addresses are hard to validate.