I’m sorry sir, your card’s been declined.
What do you mean? Run it again.
Yes sir, I’ve already run this three times. It’s—it’s not going through.
That’s impossible. This is a Platinum card with a $50,000 limit. Let me use your phone, I’m calling my bank.
Awkward, isn’t it? As you may have guessed, Evan did not walk out of the store with his new Gucci loafers. Now what happened here?
Evan makes $250,000 a year, owns a home, and a beautiful Porsche. He’s got plenty of savings, but he’s a bit flighty. You see, Evan has always played things by the book—paying bills on time, never carrying over a large credit balance, religiously maintaining his 401K. However, about a year ago, Evan started having some personal troubles that spilled over and affected his do-gooder habits. Between a few missed payments on a charged vacation and completely dropping the ball on the small business loan he took out, Evan and his credit score are in trouble.
Evan is an importer and purchases goods from overseas to sell at home in the U.S. He does this through the use of his credit card, which used to be in great standing. Problem is, his negligence has affected his credit score and in turn, his ability to purchase goods with credit. This is a major problem as these are large sums of money that, when added up, Evan cannot afford to float without the use of credit. He’s shot himself in the foot and has just made his life 10 times more difficult.
Let’s pause. What does this have to do with your sender reputation as an email marketer? Glad you asked. You see, a sender reputation is much like a credit score. Your sender reputation is everything as an email marketer. High score equals high inbox placement rates. Low score equals spam folder central—that marketing campaign you just spent $20,000 on? No one ever saw it.
You can play it by the book from Day 1 and all it takes is a few bad moves or moments of desperation, (*cough* list purchasing *cough*), to undo the culmination of all your best practices.
What do I mean? Validating what you collect, regularly maintaining the integrity of that data, and not abusing it are excellent best practices to follow. However, all that hard work can be lost by taking shortcuts (*cough* list purchasing *cough*). Email verification is not about knowing which emails are valid—it is about which emails are potentially harmful and can jeopardize the integrity and inbox placement rates of your good emails.
Most people keep themselves in the dark about the quality of their email lists, thinking that everything’s fine and that they have valid data. I’ve come across countless examples. I’m told, “We’re all set,” or “No thanks, the data we’re working with is all good.” And much like Evan who was in the dark about his actual credit score versus his perceived credit score, if you feel like you are in good standing, why wouldn’t you check to make sure? I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself, much like every other email marketer that I’ve encountered, No, my data is fine and we have our own in-house validation methodology. Well, my response to that would be, would you rather think you’re right, or know you’re right?
Be strict, dare I say borderline obsessive, about maintaining the integrity of your data through regular validation. If you don’t, you can kiss those Gucci loafers goodbye.
Have you ever made a big purchase before that requires financing? I ask you, did you go in blind or did you check your credit score for free online? Why should email validation be any different? It’s not. Give our email verification solution a try.
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