, Author at verify550.com

Don’t be fooled by email hygiene services

There are too many email hygiene services and you could be fooled into purchasing false information. Any yahoo can say they know how to remove traps, but how can you prove it without mailing to it? Don’t be fooled. When you see a link that says scrub email list free or a service that gives it away, buyer beware.

Anyone can fake an algorithm. All you need is a couple hundreds bucks a month and hire someone from any freelancing site along with buying a front end theme, logo, color scheme and bam! Instant hygiene company. But where did they get their suppressions? How do they track traps, complainers and litigators including how do they continue to do mx and smtp checks in real time without blowing through domains and IP’s.

The chances are that an email list cleaning free doesn’t mean it’s free. In this case, the more you spend, the better. It’s easier to get back big sums than little ones. Don’t be fooled! Email hygiene services are now a dime a dozen. With over 50 of them in service and half of them white labeled, you really do not know who is legit and who isn’t. It’s really important to vet your hygiene company and build trust. A relationship is the key to long term hygiene relationships. You should be able to contact your hygiene specialist instantly with any questions or concerns.

Email marketing via volume is going down like a sinking ship. This doesn’t mean it’s dead, rather the opposite. It means it’s being regulated and no longer the wild wild west of marketing. As antis-spammers grow and artificial intelligence monitoring systems increase, so does the need for cutting down on spam. Email service providers are now working in tandem with email list hygiene companies trying to build relationshiops to halt hitting spam traps, complainers and litigators altogether to save money. This means, you need to not be fooled by some fake hygiene company in order to get onto the good IPs during the first upload.

Make no mistake about it. There are less than 5 companies in the world that understands email list hygiene and we are one of them. We were the second company in the world to offer this service. Don;t be fooled by some newcomer who says they have an algorithm that can beat the system. The only thing that works now is legacy suppressions, longevity and real consultation.

Why do they Call Email List Cleaning Instead of Email Aggregation?

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Email list cleaning sounds spammy and the term really needs to be changed in this industry. Since most email marketers are using large scale ESP’s now to mail to their opens and clicks, every email marketer needs an email list cleaner free from the slander. I propose we change the phrases “Email List Cleaning” or “Email Hygiene” to “Email Aggregation”.

Why not? I have coined many phrases in this industry. In example, what people used to call screamers and complainers, now they are called “Protestors”. And what was called “Traps” have now been changed to “Advisories” and “Sleeper Cells”. Why not remove the cleaning element out all together and just call it email aggregation?

Email marketing is getting more expensive and the spam fighters will not let go of the bone. The best email list cleaner free from slander will be the one who changes the way we do business. By changing industry terms to more friendly and non-aggressiveways, the better we stay in this industry. There is no need for ego, greed and lack of empathy here, If email marketing is still a low cost way to spread the word, then we as the advertisers need to be better as people.

Email aggregation sounds better. It says we are taking large files and manipulating it. That is exactly what we do. We take large databases and match/remove bad information. We also clean up and remove syntax errors and characters that do not belong in email. eHygienics, our flagship product can aggregate 10 million emails an hour. Now THAT is impressive. 9 GB of data being queried within milliseconds. Why on Earth would we use terms that sounds demeaning when we can do such amazing technological feats?

Knock Knock, Email List Validation Service Humor

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Email list validation has a humorous side. I have been scrubbing email lists for over 10 years and I think it’s time to share with you the hilarious stories while doing email hygiene services. 10 years is a long time to be doing what you love and it seems fitting to finally disclose the funny moments of email list validation service.

The Senator

Can Spam has no say when it comes to the political field. In comes a very well-known Senator a few years back. I received a call from his campaign manager. It was short and sweet. 1.) I need all the data you have in <state redacted> and 2.) I need all of it cleaned. We don’t supply data but we were able to find it for him. We also do not mail but we consulted with them on where to go. At the end of the day, we tens of thousands of dollars from this campaign and received a phone call from the Senator himself, “Great job guys. You F***ing blew my mind at how fast you put this all together!” I still have the recording.

The Porn Star

I got an email I almost deleted one morning as I was just waking up. It was an email from one of the greatest porn stars in adult film today. I responded back and within a day, she paid us to teach them about how the Can-Spam Act works and what they can and can’t do. We also scrubbed a list of everyone in the industry. I thought it was funny cleaning a list of 100,000 porn stars, producers and directors.

The Harvester

We get at least 2 or 3 of these guys a year, “I have 2 billion records. How much to clean?” One day, a dude Skyped me out of the blue asking me about my email validation services. He told me he received an email list from the black market. It was 12 billion emails and he wanted them all validated. Now the funny part, he only had $2,000. I don’t think so. We never scrubbed his 12 billion, but that was not before he sent me the DVD’s in the mail.

The Millionaire

Without naming names, can you see the face of any of the dozens of guys who films themselves on YouTube showing off their Mansions and Lambos? We consulted for one of them. They showed me the lease receipts for the yachts, mansions and cars. It cost them $100,000 to rent the film crew, locations and set. They made 5 million from gullible people who bought their DVD’s on “How to get rich”.

I Need an Email Verification Tool I can Trust

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Every email marketer has said this phrase, “I need an email verification tool I can trust”. What they lack are the questions associated with it. In example, an email verify tool needs to be online and not a desktop version. The reason is that your data is still vulnerable to theft even with a desktop version. A company that aggregates data online must have strict policies in place to not touch your data. Especially now after the GDPR has passed. Also, desktop software requires suppressions. We have 9 gb of suppressions so the desktop version will not offer that for you. Basically, the argument that your data is safe is a misnomer. The suppressions are located on an outside server and your data is being uploaded and saved. It’s a good way for them to steal your data.

Another question every email marketer asks about an email verification tool is the speed. Smaller lists of a few thousand are not a priority for scrubbing time. Larger lists of over a million are. Does the email verify tool scrub 1 million records within an hour? Surprisingly, start-ups purchase hundreds of millions of email addresses for purposes of advertising. It’s not the best way to go, but a short cut to get a message out. We have seen it especially in political campaigns where spam is completely legal.

You may have heard Email verification software companies offer appending services. This is a huge red flag. We do it through a third party service and do not store data in this form, however, if an email verification company says they offer appending, you really need to ask how they are getting their data. See, if they are collecting their clientele data, then they have all the data collected and appended. They store the date/time stamp of your data and use it for their customers. Before you even upload your database, ask them to sign non-disclosure documents so your data is safe.

Mailing to your data is the last question you should ask of your email verify tool. How are they verifying the email address? If they are doing an SMTP handshake, then they are doing either 3 things. 1.) Sending a blank email to your data 2.) Sending an advertisement and 3.) Handshake pull-back. The question is, are the email verification company profiting off your data by verifying it? Keep all these questions in mind when you look for a verification company. Your data is your hard work and offering it up without question is absolutely dumb.

Email Verification Services Are More Popular Than Ever

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Email verification services are on the rise. My last count was 50 companies who claim to clean email marketing lists. Out of those 50, probably half of them ‘white list’ from others. Still, 25 companies that do email list verification is/are a huge number compared to 10 years ago when it was just us 2. Back in 2007, when I started email list hygiene, the only company I knew of that was selling the service was Data Genie. Roger was the tech and Bret (whom passed away) was the sales person. I believe Roger is still scrubbing lists to this day. I remember back when I was managing The Viral Spiral advertising them in my newsletter.

For many years, validation was the only service available. As I have written in several blogs prior, validation removes traps, complainers, litigators and syntax errors. Little did it do verification or an SMTP handshake. The first company, that I was aware of back then, that started verification whom was sold to Experian a while back was called LeadSpend. After that sale, verification companies exploded because of the potential as one of the largest credit bureaus forked over millions for the technology.

Email list verification services have become popular with email service providers. Years ago, they frowned upon cleaning lists because it meant that the lists were being spammed, but now, every ESP refers their customers to hygiene companies because they want to keep the customers active and if they hit a certain complaint or bounce threshold, they lose the business. This means that the large ESP’s are confirmed to be indifferent to spamming. What this also means is list hygiene companies are doing their job and spam fighters are not.

Email list verification free is a term no longer useful in this industry. Because the large ESP’s are using hygiene companies, both entities can continue to charge higher rates because both are working. The day email list hygiene doesn’t pay off is the day email marketing dies. What once was thought to be a dying marketing trend, has only metamorphosed into a different direction and that fork in the road will keep email marketing popular, more expensive, but popular.

Is there a better way to find email hygiene services?

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Well, is there a better way to find email hygiene services other than Googling it? Yes and you need to really pay attention to this article. I try to write my blogs so that they give my competition a chance. I am confident that my system is superior so in all fairness, I recommend competition all the time. Many have asked me if there is a better way to find email verification services and in all honesty, it’s a great question, so I think it should be written about.

Out of the 40 – 50 email list hygiene companies worldwide, half of them are white listed. At least 1 to 2 new ones come on to the scene but rarely ever make the cut against the seasoned companies like my own. In fact, we were the second company ever in the world to offer email cleaning. But out of the monotony of trying to find the perfect one for you, let’s hone down on what you should know to find the best.

Meetup with mailers

Get on every forum, club, meetup and group of email marketers that you possibly can. The more email marketers you surround yourself with, the better chance of you finding a good email list cleaning company. This is a small industry and emailers stick to the best. Always ask questions and get answers from the best of the best.

Seasoned hygiene

Put a list of all the companies you find that do email list hygiene. Email hygiene came out of the United States. If the company is not from the US, then they may not be as seasoned as the originals. This is important because emailers metamorphose with the changes and so do the list hygiene companies. New ones whom are not seasoned tend to miss details from the past that have always been added to the system.

Cost

The cost always plays a significant role in email validation and verification. The typical cost for validation is around $250 per million and verification around $1,000 per million. Any below that, you are at risk of not removing important emails from seasoned professionals. Email hygiene companies do not just pull a number out of a hat. There is a reason their prices are lower or higher.

Email verification software hiding in plain sight

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Are you always looking for email verification software and unaware that it is hiding in plain sight – right under your nose? We have researched our competitors and have found that there are around 40 email list hygiene companies and half of them white label others. What this means is there are only 20 companies in the world who have an Email verification tool. Verify550.com was released in November of 2017 but this doesn’t mean we are new. Our main company Quickie Marketing, Inc owns eHygienics.com which was the second company in the world to offer email list hygiene, providing a competition for Data Genie back in 2007. If you’ve been in this industry long enough, you may know Roger.

There are several kinds of email verify tools. Validation, which matches against static suppressions, strings, mx, domains, IP’s, endings and other forms of aggregation and Verification which literally does the SMTP handshakes. Both are different yet the industry seems to be confused as to which term is used for which. Basically, validation focuses on everything to the right of the at sign and verification on the left. This is why the tools are hiding in plain sight. Most email verification companies are confused.

Email verification software can either reside on a server or on your desktop. 90% of all validation software is server based where you upload a file online while the other 10% is for your desktop where you have full control over the software application. Verification is different because if you are doing SMTP handshakes, a desktop program most likely will use the IP’s and domains you enter or worse, rely on the IP of your computer which will not work. Most large ISP’s have a threshold of how many emails per IP they will accept every 24 hours. If you try to verify any more than 10,000 from one IP, they get really suspicious if they do not recognize (whit list) you.

An email verify tool, if found correctly, must do both validation and verification, however finding something like this is tough. In example, some verification companies overlook the actual fixing part of the email addresses. Emails sometimes are entered incorrectly or have spaces in them and/or have too many periods. Emails also can two at signs which has to be fixed before the emailer marketer can hit the send button. Validation before verification is a must to fix the emails, match against traps, litigators & complainers, remove strings of swear words and more. Verification is the last step verifying if the user is real or not.

A closer look at email validation services

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If you’re looking for email validation services, you’ve come to the right place. Verify550 does that first and then verification. We have written many articles about free email list validation, the consequences and the reason you get what you pay for. This article will focus a little deeper on email validation and why it is so important.

Verification only does the handshake. The SMTP questions are what the mail administrator wants to know about you. This is where the email becomes verified. But before that, don’t you think it’s important to fix or remove an email that would waste time and money by verifying it first before you remove errors?

For example, email validation services can view the name field and see if the email matches up. If the name is Melinda and the email says Mike@ then validation would be perfect to actually remove the bad email before it goes through the verification phase. Another example of email validation would be to remove spaces in an email. Does this look right? Example:

jeffbaker @domain 123.net

Any keen eye can spot that there are two spaces in this email email validation does a good job removing these spaces by fixing the email. Validation also fixes email like this:

jeffbaker@@domain123.net

As you can see, there are two at signs in this email. What about this example:

jeffbaker@domain123.net.net

There seems to be an extra .net in there and that needs to be fixed. The list of validation features goes on and on. A good email validation service removes all types of these error issues including removing emails that have latin code/characters or unicode characters that happen when email lists are traded between operating systems and apps like this:

JEFFBÁKER@DOMÁIN123.NET

Email validation basically fixes the emails before they get verified. Verification is very expensive and you must perform these tasks before spending the monies on domains and IPs verifying emails.

5 Common mistakes while email list cleaning

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There are 5 common mistakes emailers do when email list cleaning. Cleaning and maintaining your list is so important and beginners have to learn the hard way, unfortunately. The smart ones find articles like mine 😉

Delimiters

Large databases with multi-columns have all kinds of data. Sometimes, inside one cell is an address with a comma added to separate an apartment number or whatever the case is. Using commas as delimiters is the preferred, but how can you make sure you don’t drag your cells to the right when you have extra delimiters? Even a semi-colon is added to separate certain data types so there really is no way to find the perfect delimiter. Most hygiene companies use delimiter and semi-colon as their denominator so the trick is to open up and scan your file to fix these mistakes before you upload your data and ruin your perfect format.

Size of the list

The larger the list, the more mistakes. When a code goes from algorithm to completeness, some programmers do not take into effect of the extreme amount of data that goes through the databases. Matching against all different types of parameters within milliseconds can slow down the program if the machines can’t keep up. Many programmers will create ghost scripts that either skips certain parameters or bypass less needed processes in order to speed things up. Unless you are a program manager and can see what they are doing, you are at the mercy of the engineers if you are impatient.

Two email columns

Sometimes data comes with an extra email field. Unless the schematics incorporated the likelihood of this, it could break the script and cause false positives and/or confuse the process altogether. It’s best to never have any other emails in other cells besides one column. This is an easy fix.

Formatting

Any time you come into possession of a list, you really should open it up to find formatting errors and the above to fix the list properly before scrubbing it. Engineers may have programmed their email list cleaning system to recognize certain file formatting as in DOS, Unicode or TXT. Unless the system can recognize all formatting, you should dumb down the list so it is recognized by all server operating systems.

Price

In the email list cleaner free world, you truly get what you pay for. The more you spend, the better the quality and you should be prepared for that.

Buying from a salesman instead of quality

Just because you think the salesperson is a good guy and fun to hang out with doesn’t mean he or she represents a good product. Be wise and smart and not conned. Especially if they ask you for email list cleaning free.

No such thing as email list cleaning free

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We have written several articles about email list cleaning free and the dangers of uploading your list into such programs. The fact to the matter is, there is no such thing as free. And we need to write again about this important topic. Your data is important and no one should own or have a copy of it – period. Unless you are a spammer and do not care about the rules, then the data you upload likely means nothing to you, however, most in this industry really do care about the rules and we are definitely one of them.

Email list cleaning takes time and effort. Any service that offers to do it for nothing will not place a lot of empathy into the process. They may just give you a glimpse of removal but not go all the way as they should. The whole point to a free service is for you to give them something they do not have and that is your list. Examine everything before you place such trust in the process. In fact, make sure they have a phone number and someone you can talk to for accountability and for goodness sakes, place a seed inside the list.

What is a seed? An unlisted and non-distributed email that no one has access to other than yourself for the purpose of finding out if anyone has mailed to the list you placed it in. Many people use seeding to monitor and track how many times they think their list was sold. This can be also used for legality purposes if you can prove you never gave that email to anyone and that you can prove it was planted by you in that list. Seeding lists is a common practice and should be used by any and all list owners.

Free email list validation can be used as a free service because it doesn’t cost a lot to do. But free email list verification will never be in existence unless you can figure out how to do smtp handshakes at small cost, which is unheard of. Email marketing average cost per 1 million emails is around $250. Unless the cleaning company can get good lists (opens and clicks) from you for their use afterwards, good luck finding free email list verification.