Leads
Email validation
Understand our tiered email validation system and how to interpret results.
Why validate emails?
Email validation helps you maintain a clean contact list and improve deliverability. Sending to invalid emails can hurt your sender reputation and waste resources.
Validation tiers
Our email validation system has three tiers, each providing progressively deeper verification:
Tier 1: Format validation
- Checks email syntax and format
- Validates against RFC 5322 standard
- Catches typos and obvious errors
- Fastest tier (instant)
Tier 2: MX record verification
- Includes all Tier 1 checks
- Verifies the domain has valid MX records
- Confirms the domain can receive email
- Detects non-existent domains
Tier 3: Advanced checks
- Includes all Tier 1 and 2 checks
- Bounce prediction
- Spam trap detection
- Disposable email detection
- Role-based email detection (e.g., info@, support@)
Validation status
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Not yet validated |
| Validating | Validation in progress (async mode) |
| Valid | Email passed validation checks |
| Invalid | Email failed validation |
| Flagged | Passed, but with warnings (see the flags below) |
| Skipped | No email to validate, or validation is turned off |
Validation flags
Results may include flags for additional context:
| Flag | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Disposable | Temporary email service |
| Role-based | Generic email (info@, support@) |
| Catch-all | Domain accepts all emails |
| Spam trap | Known spam trap address |
Running validation
Single lead
Click the validate button on any lead to validate its email address.
Bulk validation
- Select multiple leads
- Click "Validate Emails"
- Validation runs in the background
- Results update automatically
Automatic validation
Configure per-source to automatically validate emails when leads are scraped:
- Sync mode: Validates immediately (slower scraping)
- Async mode: Queues for background validation
Best practices
- Always validate before sending outreach emails
- Remove or archive leads with invalid emails
- Pay attention to flags like "spam trap" and "role-based"
- Re-validate old leads before using them