• Verification results: States and reasons
• Deliverable
• Undeliverable
• Risky
• Unknown
• What are Risky emails?
• Should I send emails to addresses marked as “Risky”?

Verification results: States and reasons

Deliverable

• We can determine with a high level of confidence that the email address is associated with a valid account.

Possible reasons for Deliverable emails:

Accepted Email

• The email address exists and is deliverable.

Undeliverable

- We can determine with a high level of confidence that the email address is not associated with a valid account.

Possible reasons for Undeliverable emails:

Invalid Email

• The email address does not pass syntax validations.

Invalid Domain

• The email address domain does not exist, is not valid, or should not be mailed to.

Rejected Email

• The email address was rejected by the mail server because it does not exist.

Invalid SMTP

• The mail server returned an unexpected or invalid response.

Risky

- Emails seem to be deliverable but should be used with caution due to low quality or deliverability.

Possible reasons for Risky emails:

Low Quality

• The email address has quality issues that may make it a risky or low value address.

Low Deliverability

• The email address appears to be deliverable, but deliverability cannot be guaranteed.

Unknown

- The domain associated with the email address is not responding, meaning we cannot determine the validity of the email account.

Possible reasons for Unknown emails:

No Connect

• Could not connect to mail server.

Timeout

• Mail server session or DNS query timed out.

Unavailable SMTP

• The mail server was unavailable to process our request at this time.

Unexpected Error

• An unexpected error occurred.

It's important to note that some Unknown emails are the result of greylisting. These will be retried automatically, usually within a few minutes, and the results will be updated when possible.

Duplicate

- The list contains more than one of the same email.

What are Risky emails?

“Risky” email addresses are those that have low quality or low deliverability. They may exist but are currently facing technical issues that show very low engagement in that mailbox. We classify them as “risky” because they may cause quality issues for your campaigns.

Should I send emails to addresses marked as “Risky”?

Although this category may include emails that are technically still deliverable, we recommend you use caution when emailing any address marked as “Risky” as it may be an Accept All, a Disposable, or a Role address. If you are unfamiliar with any of these terms, read on.

Accept-All

• Addresses that will initially accept mail for any address, but may not reach an actual inbox. This can also cause a bounce (a failed delivery notification, which gets returned to the sender).

Disposable

• Created often by users who do not wish to give their primary address. These are defined as “Risky” because they are temporary and will only be valid for a short period of time.

Role

• These generally define a responsibility rather than a person (i.e. support@ or info@) and often are managed by several people. These emails are often associated with more bounces, more unsubscribes, and decreased engagement rates.

Every list is different, and every company’s threshold for emailing addresses that cannot be specifically defined as “Deliverable” is different.

We recommend you consider the age and source of the data to help you make a more informed decision regarding keeping or removing emails we categorize as “Risky”.