What You Can Do with Your Catch-all Emails

So, you cleaned your list and some of your results turned out to be catch-all emails. What should you do? Keep emailing them while nervously waiting to see how many will bounce? You could, but why take the risk? Instead, you could score those catch-all emails  – the feedback you get will help you decide what the next step should be.

What are catch-all emails?

Catch-all or accept-all emails are email accounts designed to receive all messages sent to a certain domain – even to addresses that are incorrect. Sometimes, organizations set them up to ensure they receive all email directed toward their domain.

You’d think accept-all emails are great for marketing and sales purposes. It doesn’t matter if the email address you’re trying to reach is accurate, your message will still get across, right? Well, yes and no.

Why do catch-all emails bounce?

While some of your emails will find their way to that particular domain, others will never reach that inbox. Companies can set up their servers to receive all email for a specific period of time. Later on, they may disable this feature and that will cause your emails to bounce.

As you know, bounces tarnish your sender reputation very easily. A bounce rate that exceeds the industry standard of 2% is a red flag to email and internet service providers. It tells them you’re not keeping good email hygiene, so you may not be a legitimate sender. As a result, you can end up in people’s spam folder, even when you follow email marketing best practices and have the best intentions.

So, what should you do with the accept-all emails in your list? It seems like many of you are dealing with this issue.

A.I. email scoring: how it helps

First, we thank you all so much for the kind reviews you’ve left on Capterra!

You’re just as big of a part of ZeroBounce as we are. Only by getting your constant feedback can we help make your business better.

We read and respond to every single one of your comments, and there was something we noticed in the past few weeks. There was a larger than usual number of reviews in which you were telling us you wished there was a solution for your catch-all emails.

Well, there is! It’s called ZeroBounce A.I. and it’s been helping many of our customers since we launched it.  Below you’ll see how and why you should make the most of it, too.

Let’s detele all those catch-all emails! But wait…

When you run your list though our email verifier, a percentage of your results end up being catch-all emails. Other services mark them as “risky,” which leaves you wondering what you should do next.

Delete them all from your list?
“Yeah, but I worked so hard to grow my list. What if some of those catch-all emails are actually valid?”

Continue to email them nonetheless?
“Yeah, but if some of them bounce, that hurts my sender reputation and deliverability.”

We knew this dilemma needed a solution, so we created one!

Find out how risky these emails are

Yes, catch-all emails are risky. But ZeroBounce A.I. tells you how risky they are, so you can decide which ones are to keep. That’s important, because some email lists get a high catch-all result. Imagine having to throw away 30% or 40% of your contacts!

This is where ZeroBounce A.I. makes a difference. It analyzes every email address in your list and returns a quality score for each. The higher the score (it ranges from 0 to 10), the more confident you can be about emailing those catch-all emails.

Can I use ZeroBounce A.I. to score my entire list?

Absolutely! ZeroBounce A.I. is an excellent catch-all email validator. At the same time, it works just as efficiently when it comes to scoring other email addresses. By detecting an account’s activity levels, the system gives you feedback on its reachability and potential recipient interaction.

If an email address gets a score of 4, you know you can’t count on that recipient to engage with your emails too often. It’s best to remove it from your list. But if it gets a score of 9, it’s clear that you’ve got a good lead!

“ZeroBounce A.I. works whether you need to validate catch-all emails, or get in-depth analysis of your data quality. We wanted our customers to gain an edge over their competitors and create more powerful email marketing programs,” says ZeroBounce CEO Liviu Tanase.

The benefits of email scoring

There are many benefits to email scoring. Once you get to try it, you’ll come to rely on it before sending out your marketing campaigns.

With its predictive quality score, ZeroBounce A.I. allows you to:

• find out which ones of your catch-all emails are valid, depending on the quality score you get
• remove useless and risky contacts from your database and save money
• learn which ones of your subscribers are more likely to engage with your emails.
• segment your list and send better targeted campaigns to specific leads
• increase your conversions by sending the right messages to the right people.

The system is easy to use: just log into your account and make sure you upload your list in the “ZeroBounce A.I.” area. If you need guidance, reach out to our support team – we’re here for you 24/7!

This article was updated in May 2020.