What are the best list cleaning services for B2B email lists?
Summary
What email marketers say12Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Email Geeks mentions Kickbox as a good option but advises against removing contacts solely based on a single score threshold, recommending different thresholds for major regions due to variations in scoring (e.g., Russian-hosted mailboxes).
Email marketer from Reddit user suggests using a combination of BriteVerify and manual cleaning for B2B lists, recommending BriteVerify for initial validation and then manually reviewing questionable addresses for accuracy and relevance.
Email marketer from SendGrid Blog recommends using a reputable email validation service to identify and remove invalid, inactive, or risky email addresses from your B2B list, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a healthy sender reputation and improving deliverability.
Email marketer from Email on Acid Blog explains that maintaining good list hygiene involves regularly removing inactive subscribers, correcting typos, and segmenting your list based on engagement to improve deliverability and sender reputation, suggesting using list cleaning services as part of that overall hygiene strategy.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum recommends comparing multiple email verification tools by running the same sample list through each to see which one identifies the most invalid addresses and provides the most accurate results for B2B contacts.
Email marketer from DeBounce Blog shares that using a service like theirs can detect disposable emails, spam traps, and invalid email addresses in order to keep your sending reputation high when using B2B lists.
Email marketer from Hunter.io Blog suggests using their email finder and verifier tools to find and validate email addresses in real-time, highlighting the importance of verifying addresses before adding them to your B2B list to avoid bounces and maintain data quality.
Email marketer from ZoomInfo notes that using comprehensive B2B databases that offer email verification services can help maintain data quality and ensure deliverability.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that they like to use Zerobounce for B2B and notes that there are several other good tools available.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares positive client results with Million Verifier, noting its affordability but mentioning categorization limitations requiring additional investigative work.
Email marketer from NeverBounce Blog suggests implementing a multi-layered approach to B2B list cleaning, which includes syntax verification, domain validation, spam trap removal, and real-time bounce analysis, to ensure you're only sending emails to valid and engaged contacts.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that Mailgun has an Email Address Validation API.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks recommends Kickbox and suggests discarding anyone with a SendEx lower than 0.7, while also developing a plan to prevent recurrence.
Expert from Spam Resource recommends focusing on your own data hygiene and not relying solely on third-party list cleaning services. You need to know what your data practices are and how those can be changed and adapted to improve your list quality. Third-party services have their place, but fixing your own collection issues is key.
Expert from Email Geeks recommends Kickbox for data hygiene.
Expert from Word to the Wise warns against blindly trusting list cleaning services and emphasizes the importance of understanding how these services operate. Thoroughly vet and test any list cleaning service before entrusting them with your data. Furthermore, the article highlights the need for proactive data hygiene practices, such as implementing double opt-in and regularly removing unengaged subscribers, as more effective long-term solutions.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from ZeroBounce explains that their email validation service uses AI-powered algorithms to detect and remove invalid, abuse, and spam trap email addresses, while also providing insights into email quality, such as deliverability scores and potential risks associated with each contact.
Documentation from Clearout explains that their service employs a combination of AI-based and traditional verification techniques to identify risky and invalid email addresses in real-time.
Documentation from Kickbox Help Center explains that Kickbox verifies email addresses by performing real-time checks against their database and using a combination of syntax verification, domain checks, spam trap detection, and risk analysis to determine the deliverability of each email, categorizing them as deliverable, risky, or undeliverable.
Documentation from Mailgun details how their Email Validation API checks for syntax errors, typo detection, and domain existence, and also identifies disposable email addresses (DEAs) and role-based accounts to improve list quality and prevent bounces.
Documentation from Mailfloss shares that their service will automatically remove invalid email addresses from your lists in popular email marketing platforms.