What are potential reasons for spam or fake email addresses in a marketing email list?

Email marketer from Email Geeks knows they bought email addresses from a tradeshow.

Email marketer from Marketing Forum shares that many users provide disposable or temporary email addresses to access content or services without committing to long-term communication.

Marketer from Email Geeks suggests that people might enter bogus emails if the brand requires an email to get a discount or enter the site and the user experience is unenjoyable.

Email marketer from HubSpot Blog responds that reasons for bad email data include natural decay, typos, changes in job roles, and deliberate fake submissions.

Email marketer from ZeroBounce Blog responds that people change jobs, forget passwords, or simply stop using their email accounts, causing those email addresses to become inactive and invalid.

Email marketer from Reddit suggests that purchasing lists is a major source of spam addresses, as these lists often contain outdated or scraped addresses.

Email marketer from StackExchange explains address harvesting by bots can lead to many invalid addresses ending up in your list, as these addresses are often automatically generated.

Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog explains that incorrect email addresses can stem from typos, users providing fake information to avoid registration, or outdated contact lists.

Email marketer from Sendinblue Blog shares that invalid emails exist due to typo errors, disposable email addresses, role-based addresses, and spam traps.

Email marketer from Email Hippo Blog answers that honeypots and spam traps are email addresses created specifically to identify and block spammers. Landing on these lists can severely damage your sender reputation.

Marketer from Email Geeks suspects that many of the email addresses are fake addresses put in to bypass some blocker to getting at a download.

Email marketer from ActiveCampaign Blog states that bots can fill out forms with random or intentionally fake data, leading to invalid email addresses in the list.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests the email addresses might come from purchased CDs containing scraped addresses from websites and Usenet.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that addresses from very old lists tend to be problematic because people change jobs or ISPs. Some domains may also be gone and revert to catch-all addresses, addresses where all mail bounces. Many of these addresses are people who have no relationship with the sender.

Expert from Spam Resource explains that email harvesting is a method where spammers use automated software (bots) to crawl the web, extracting email addresses from websites, forums, and other publicly available sources. These harvested addresses often end up in spam lists without the consent of the email owner.

Documentation from Mailchimp explains that invalid email addresses can be hard bounces (permanent reasons such as non-existent address) or soft bounces (temporary reasons such as full inbox), and can also include unsubscribed or manually removed addresses.

Documentation from Validity (formerly ReturnPath) explains spam traps are email addresses that are used to identify spammers. These can be pristine traps (never used), recycled traps (old addresses), or typo traps (addresses with common typos).

Documentation from RFC (Request for Comments) describes the official standards around email address structure (RFC 5322). Deviations from these standards can cause email addresses to be technically invalid.

Documentation from MessageBird (formerly SparkPost) explains that incorrect email address syntax (e.g., missing @ symbol, invalid characters) can cause addresses to be invalid. This can happen due to manual input errors or system processing issues.

Documentation from Microsoft Support responds that fake accounts are created using false information or without the user intending to sustain the account. This can be for malicious purposes, or to access gated content without providing real details.