What is an Email Bounce Checker and How Do You Choose the Best One?

What Does an Email Bouncing Back Mean?

By definition, an email bouncing back is an automated message notifying the sender that the message delivery was unsuccessful. Your recipient’s mail server has either not accepted the message, or there may be another underlying issue preventing the delivery (follow our guide on how to test email deliverability.)

Here’s what it really means:

Bouncing emails are a problem if you rely on email marketing as part of your strategy. When your emails are undelivered, your recipients cannot receive your message. The result could be lower conversions, fewer sales, less revenue, and most importantly, less time to build valuable connections with your prospects.

The Benefits of an Email Bounce Checker

One way to combat the effects of an email bounce rate is to send your list through an email bounce checker tool. Here’s why you shouldn’t skip this step:

Lower Email Marketing Costs

Sending messages isn’t “free,” per say. True, you’re not spending money on postage, but you are putting your time and effort into every email and maintaining your list. Plus, if you’re using an email platform like AWeber or Mailchimp, you’re having to pay for that technology.

You can lower your cost per message when more of your emails are delivered. A bounce rate checker tool ensures you’re only sending to valid recipients and not spending money on emails that will never result in sales.

If you are looking for a free solution for your marketing campaign, check out our top picks of the best free email list cleaners.

Improved Sender Reputation

Everyone who sends emails has a digital sender reputation. This reputation is how mail servers determine whether to send your message into the user’s inbox, their spam folder, or bounce your message altogether. The higher your reputation, the more likely you are to end up in the inbox.

Things can harm your sender reputation, however. For example, if you have a high email bounce rate, your sender reputation is likely to suffer.

Using an email checker tool can help you keep your bounce rate to a minimum and preserve your sender reputation. This ensures you can continue delivering to valid addresses without the risk of winding up in spam (check out our guide on how to check if an email address is valid.)

Better Quality Leads

No one wants to waste time, money, and effort on emailing bad leads. Those leads will never convert. Instead, verifying your email list can free up your time to focus only on valid leads.

Higher Accuracy in Email Stats

Every time you send a message, you have a number of stats that track your progress (e.g. open rates, click-throughs, conversions, etc.). Your bounce rate can skew these numbers, though. When this happens, it’s hard to assess the true results of your marketing campaign.

Cleaning your list prior to sending can give you a more realistic picture of how well your email performed. From there, you can use this data to make more informed decisions about how to improve your next email campaign.

Our Top Picks: Free Email Bounce Checkers

One or two bouncing emails here and there is nothing to be concerned about. But bouncing back emails can be a problem if left unaddressed. Using a free email bounce checker tool is a great way to ward off the effects of a dirty mailing list. Here are some of our favorites:

1. Mailfloss

If you have a large mailing list you need to verify in bulk, Mailfloss is a favorite tool among professionals. They’re an automated email bounce back checker so you don’t have to manage the process.

You can get a 7-day free trial for Mailfloss, along with two free months when you opt for an annual subscription.

2. EmailListVerify

A top-rated bounce rate checker tool, EmailListVerify looks for syntax errors, inactive and nonexistent domains, and spam traps that might prevent your message from going through. This tool is used by some of the top names in email marketing, including Mailchimp and Shopify.

You can verify 1,000 addresses for free, then opt for pay-as-you-go credits or a monthly subscription service.

3. Clearout

Clearout lives up to its name by clearing bad mail addresses with a variety of signals. It identifies emails with spam traps, emails from blacklisted domains, and emails with a history of hard bounces. Put Clearout to the test with 500 addresses for free, then you can pay as you go based on your list size.

Final Thoughts

The integrity of your mailing list is too important to leave to chance. After all the hard work you put into building a list and crafting your messages, don’t forget to spend a few extra minutes to ensure your messages will reach the right people. Even if you don’t send many emails, an email list bounce checker will quickly become a must-have tool in your marketing suite.

For more insights on what email validation is and how to validate an email address, head back to our blog.