Posted by Most companies believe that email is their main platform for communications, and why not?It’s convenient, easy, and works all the time. Besides that- 72% of consumers love to use email while contacting a business, and that’s truly a considerable fact. Here, I’ll show you how to catch all emails.
Despite the presence of several modern communication platforms such as Messenger, chatbots, and instant messaging apps, email proves to be reliable, powerful, and most importantly, effective.
Marketers and businesses employ various means to ensure that they’re able to communicate with their customers.
One of the most appreciated strategies is “using a catch-all email service.”
What is a catch-all email server?
Well, defining a catch-all email server causes a lot of confusion. Sometimes it’s called accept-all, and this is actually what it does.
Any email you deliver to a catch-all server is going to be accepted no matter if it exists or not. Here, a question arises. Why should they even bother you?
Honestly saying, several businesses set their servers as a catch-all to receive every single email sent to them. Just imagine if an honest mistake like this one – someone has purchased something at your store and desires to modify it. They are supposed to shoot you an email with clarification, but unfortunately and unwantedly)… they made a typo. In case your company accepts all emails sent to your domain, there’s no chance of losing a client, and all the correspondence will pass through.
On the flip side, some of these email addresses don’t even exist, and in case you attempt to reach out to them, they’ll simply bounce back, increasing your bounce rate and simultaneously damaging your sender score. It’s truly a squander of time and money, and that’s never good for any business.
Another issue with catch-all emails is a very low open rate as the messages shot to a non-existent mailbox won’t be ever be read. Finally, your mail server may end up being blacklisted or even getting suspended.
Why do catch-all emails exist?
The prevention of the instance of emails getting lost was the core reason for the webmasters to use catch-all servers.
Erroneous addresses were redirected to a general “catch-all” mailbox. One can review this mailbox to ensure that no crucial messages went missing.
Spammers love catch-all servers, as they can conveniently bombard a domain with unsolicited messages. Due to that reason, catch-all mailboxes nowadays tend to be overloaded with spam. Now, that makes them functionally useless and even vulnerable to be over quota.
How to validate catch-all emails
It’s extremely difficult to identify catch-all emails, and there are high chances of the traditional methods failing. Shooting an email just to check whether it bounces back isn’t a good option either, as it increases a potential ultimatum to your sender score.
On the flip side, no engagement could cost you your clients as a huge portion of such addresses is valid. So what to do now?
Only advanced services like email validation by MyEmailVerifier can detect catch-all configurations. Our tool can check whether a mail server is set up for such catch-all emails or not.
However, not all sorts of businesses should be clearing out of catch-all email addresses. Evaluating the threat of having them on your email list is crucial. If you, for example, purchased an email list, then it’s certainly better to remove all the catch-all emails. If you sell services/products and a high conversion rate is your ultimate target, the list should be evaluated. Finally, if you use a third-party ESP, you should take extra caution.
What are the risks related with catch-all emails?
Low open rates
Companies using a catch-all server don’t generally properly monitor their email accounts. Unless configured, the majority of the email platforms will automatically strike out emails to invalid mailboxes or non-existent.
High bounce rates
A catch-all server is amazing for businesses to communicate with their clients, but it often poses an issue to digital marketers trying to outreach to these businesses. Generally, it increases their bounce rates, which further decreases the sender’s reputation score.
An email message that returns to the sender’s email address is called a hard bounce because the receiving address either doesn’t exist or is invalid.
But isn’t a catch-all email server meant to accept all? Well, technically, yes, but it can reject an email and send it back to the sender. The only contrast is that a catch-all server initially accepts the email and rejects it at a later time.
Higher spam rates
As mentioned above, a catch-all email server is meant to ensure that no email is rejected. It’s supposed to accept all emails, no matter where they come from, who sent them, and whether that email address is invalid.
Senders just need to know the domain name. Further, they’re free to send emails as per desire. This makes a catch-all email account very susceptible to spam.
Now, as your emails get rejected repeatedly by a company that uses a catch-all email account, it increases hard bounces, and your open rate simply falls down. Further, your recipient’s ESP (which takes full responsibility to protect their client’s inbox) will recognize you as a potential threat. If this happens, your emails will be recognized as “spam,” and consequently, you’ll be blocked from shooting any message to that address from that time onward.
Unopened Messages
Generally, catch-all email folders aren’t monitored regularly, and these can even be configured to delete messages on their own to non-existent mailboxes. You can expect your open rate to be recorded lower than average.
Spam Trap
These email addresses are unsafe to send in bulk, and these are either not associated with a real person or a known complainer.
Email Service Providers
Several email service providers show very low tolerance for bounces. Hence, if you use an ESP, you need to be very cautious with catch-all emails, most importantly if they are from an unknown source if you don’t want to see your account getting suspended.
Evaluating the Risk for Your Campaigns
Being an email marketer, your main worry isn’t getting your emails rejected but even more, getting marked as a spammer and affecting your reputation score.
It can be tough to figure out whether you’re communicating with a catch-all email address or not. An email verification service like MyEmailVerifier, however, can help you recognize which addresses are valid and which aren’t. By assessing your mailing list’s quality, you can design a much better strategy for your upcoming campaigns.
When analyzing the risk for your email campaigns, see if they’re your leads or customers. You also need to focus on your marketing targets and the mailing platform you’re using. In the end, check whether your list is purchased, opt-in, or double opt-in. For instance, if your list is double-opt-in, there are high chances that such a mailbox is in use.