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How to Validate Emails

Sending to invalid addresses causes bounces, and bounces damage your sending reputation faster than almost anything else. Validate before you send.

Where to find it

Click Lead Validation in the left sidebar.

Validation results

Status

What it means

Safe to send?

Valid

The mailbox exists and accepts mail

Yes

Invalid

The mailbox doesn't exist

No — remove it

Catch-All

The domain accepts all mail, so the specific mailbox can't be confirmed

Use with caution

Unknown

The server didn't give a definitive answer

Use with caution

Disposable

A temporary or throwaway address

No — remove it

Spam Trap

An address used specifically to catch senders with poor list hygiene

Never send — remove immediately

⚠️ Spam traps

A spam trap is the most damaging result you can get. These addresses exist purely to identify senders who don't clean their lists, and hitting one can get your domain blacklisted.

Always remove spam traps before sending. No amount of warm-up will undo a blacklisting.

Catch-all domains

Catch-all domains accept mail for any address, so validation can't confirm whether a specific mailbox exists. Many legitimate companies use catch-all configurations. Send to them, but keep them in a separate segment and watch the bounce rate.

Keeping your bounce rate healthy

  • Validate every list before adding it to a campaign, especially purchased or scraped lists.

  • Keep your bounce rate under 3%. Above 5% and providers start treating you as a spammer.

  • Re-validate older lists. Around 2% of B2B email addresses go stale every month as people change jobs.

  • Leads enriched through Lead Explorer are already verified — validation matters most for imported data.

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