In this article, you'll learn about email verification statuses, what each status means, and how it affects your email deliverability.
Snov.io verifies email addresses using several tests to provide a clear status, helping you determine their safety for sending emails and possible deliverability risks.
Why email verification status matters:
The email statuses indicate if an email address is deliverable and can receive your emails without issues. Checking email status is crucial for making informed decisions about who to contact in your campaigns.
Where to find the email's status
Go to your Prospect list. The statuses are displayed in the Emails column. Each email address has a color indicator. Hover over the circle icon to see a brief description of the status.
In the top right corner, you'll find the count of emails for each status. Click on the status you want to see to display the corresponding emails.
Email statuses after verification
Understanding the different verification results will help you know how likely your emails are to be delivered.
Let's dig into the different email verification statuses and what they mean:
Valid address (green)
The email address is active and can receive emails. It has passed all the verification checks.
Valid emails are safe to use in campaigns.
Deliverability risk: Minimal; delivery errors are only possible for reasons not related to email’s status.
Unverifiable address (yellow)
Emails in this category may still accept emails, but their status (valid or not) cannot be confirmed with 100% certainty due to the domain settings.
The deliverability risk depends on the specific email status. Try adding them to campaigns gradually and watch for bounce-backs to safeguard your sender reputation.
Let's take a closer look at the email statuses in the Unverifiable category so you can understand the risks when sending to such addresses.
#1 Catch-all
These emails originate from an email server with a catch-all configuration, making it impossible to accurately verify their authenticity.
It means the domain accepts all emails, even if the recipient's mailbox doesn't exist or is inactive.
Deliverability risk: When you send an email to a catch-all address, there's a chance it might be forwarded to a default mailbox and not be viewed.
#2 Auto-generated
These emails appear to be valid, but there's a chance that they were generated automatically due to the inclusion of random or inappropriate words.
These email addresses may not be suitable for regular business communication.
Deliverability risk: Your email will likely be delivered, but it's a better idea to use a more personal email address if you want to reach a specific person within the company.
#3 Greylisted
Emails from the domain that uses greylisting technology block our attempts to verify the email.
Snov.io’s verification process is designed to work around this, but we still couldn't receive a response from the email server, even when using bypass methods.
More on how Snov.io bypasses greylisting →
Deliverability risk: The email address is likely deliverable, but the email server uses greylisting, which requires retrying the sending process. Most email providers are configured to retry sending after an initial delivery failure.
#4 Unverifiable
The email address appears to be correct, but we cannot receive a response from the recipient's email server, or an error occurs during verification.
Deliverability risk: The email address is likely deliverable; however, there is a risk of bounces if technical issues occur on the recipient’s side at the time of sending.
Invalid address (red)
The email address doesn't exist or cannot receive emails (inactive at the time of verification).
Deliverability risk: High; To protect your sender reputation, Snov.io automatically excludes any emails marked as invalid from your campaigns.
Email without a status (grey)
Emails that haven't been verified by Snov.io are labeled as Unverified. Click Verify emails at the top toolbar to check unverified emails in your prospect list.