Why should you not use Zerobounce?
Summary
What email marketers say7Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Deliverability Consultant Blog explains that ZeroBounce's validation focuses primarily on technical aspects (syntax, domain existence) and might not detect spam traps, honeypots, or email addresses with a history of abuse. Thus, relying solely on ZeroBounce doesn't guarantee perfect deliverability.
Email marketer from Stack Overflow raises questions about ZeroBounce's GDPR compliance, specifically how it handles data from EU residents. It's important to verify their policies and practices to ensure they meet the requirements of data protection laws.
Email marketer from G2 reports that ZeroBounce occasionally marks valid email addresses as invalid, leading to potential loss of contacts and communication opportunities. They suggest verifying results from ZeroBounce with other tools.
Email marketer from Quora raises concerns about the data privacy practices of ZeroBounce. Some users may be uncomfortable with sharing their email lists with a third-party service due to confidentiality and security risks.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that ZeroBounce can be expensive, especially for businesses with large email lists. There are often cheaper alternatives that provide similar data validation services.
Email marketer from TrustRadius mentions experiencing slow and unhelpful customer support from ZeroBounce, particularly when dealing with complex or urgent issues. This can hinder the process of resolving data validation problems.
Email marketer from Email Provider FAQ explains that using any email validation service, including ZeroBounce, does not automatically guarantee a good sender reputation. If the initial list is of very poor quality, even cleaned data might still contain enough problematic addresses to negatively impact deliverability.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks explains that Zerobounce was early in the "we'll fix your bounce problem" space and were defending their abusive practices (dictionary attacks against mailservers among others). She does not like that industry as they mislead their customers about what they do, they abuse SMTP protocol to bypass security put in place by recipient ISPs, and the ones that don't do that collect a lot of data that they should not have. She was convinced early on that Kickbox were looking out for the overall health of the ecosystem as did Webbula.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that Zerobounce is adding people to mailing lists without permission. She notes it appears to be a tagged address she used to submit a proposal to a conference and they were a sponsor so got all the attendee addresses. They had originally suppressed her address because she's an EU resident but messed up and imported it for a send.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that early versions of ZeroBounce employed aggressive techniques and dictionary attacks, which reflects poorly on the company's ethics. They also highlight concerns about accuracy issues, noting that validation services, in general, can be inaccurate and should be used with caution.
What the documentation says3Technical articles
Documentation from NeverBounce (a competitor) highlights that ZeroBounce's integration options with marketing platforms and CRMs are not as extensive as some competitors. This might require manual data import/export, which can be cumbersome.
Documentation from ZeroBounce warns that the API, like all email validation tools, may produce false positives. It advises users to implement strategies to mitigate the risk of incorrectly removing valid email addresses from their lists.
Documentation from Email Hippo (a competitor) highlights that ZeroBounce's accuracy claims should be viewed critically. The actual performance can vary depending on the source and quality of email data. They suggest testing the accuracy with your own data before relying on the service.