How to integrate Truemail with Salesforce for seamless email validation

If you’ve ever dealt with bad email addresses clogging up Salesforce, you know the pain: bounced emails, annoyed sales reps, and a CRM full of junk. This guide is for admins, ops folks, or anyone who’s tired of guessing whether that email actually works. I’ll walk you through connecting Truemail to Salesforce without the fluff, so you can get cleaner data and keep your team happy.

Let’s get real: integrating external tools with Salesforce can be a headache. But email validation is one of those things that pays for itself if you do it right. Here’s how to set it up—and what to watch out for.

Why bother validating emails in Salesforce?

You might be thinking: “Can’t I just trust people to enter good emails?” Sure, in a perfect world. But in reality:

Bounces hurt your sender reputation. You don’t want Salesforce triggering campaigns that end up in spam or bounce back.
Wasted effort. Sales reps waste time chasing ghosts.
Dirty data spreads. Garbage in, garbage out—bad emails mess up your reports and automation.

Truemail’s whole pitch is checking if an email address is real before you try to use it. That’s worth your time.

What you’ll need before you start

Admin access to Salesforce. You’ll need to set up API connections and maybe tweak validation rules.
A Truemail account with API access (paid plans only).
Basic comfort with Salesforce Setup. If you can create custom fields and flows, you’ll be fine.
Patience. This isn’t rocket science, but you’ll be clicking around a bit.

Step 1: Get your Truemail API credentials

First, log in to your Truemail dashboard. Head to the API section and generate an API key (sometimes called a token). Copy it somewhere safe—you’ll need it for Salesforce.

Pro tip: Don’t share your API key in public docs or with people you don’t trust. If it leaks, anyone could use up your credits.

Step 2: Decide when to validate emails

You’ve got options here, and it’s worth thinking about what fits your workflow:

On record creation: Validate every time a new Lead or Contact is added.
On update: Check emails whenever someone changes an address.
Bulk jobs: Clean up all your existing emails with a batch process.

Most teams start with real-time validation (on create or update) and run a periodic bulk cleanse for old records. Don’t overthink it—pick what solves your immediate pain.

Step 3: Set up a Named Credential in Salesforce

You don’t want to hardcode API keys into flows or Apex code. Salesforce has a feature called “Named Credentials” that handles authentication securely.

Go to Setup > search for “Named Credentials” in the Quick Find box.
Click New Named Credential.
Enter a friendly name (like Truemail_API).
Set the URL to https://api.truemail.io (double-check the docs if Truemail changes their endpoint).
For Authentication, pick “Named Principal.”
Enter your API key in the appropriate field (it might be in the header or as a parameter—check Truemail’s API docs).
Save.

Heads up: Truemail’s API uses API keys, not OAuth. Make sure you follow their latest docs on how to authenticate—sometimes it’s a custom header.

Step 4: Create a Flow for real-time email validation

Salesforce Flow is your friend here. It lets you automate the call to Truemail when a Lead or Contact is created or updated.

Here’s the broad outline:

Go to Setup > Flows. Click “New Flow.”
Choose Record-Triggered Flow.
Select the object (Lead, Contact, or both).
Set the trigger: “A record is created or updated.”
Add a Get Records step (optional): Fetch the email address field.
Add a Callout (HTTP Callout) Action: This is where you’ll call the Truemail API.
Use the Named Credential you created.
Pass the email address as a parameter in the call.
Add a Decision step: Decide what to do based on Truemail’s response (e.g., “valid,” “invalid,” “unknown”).
Update the record (e.g., mark as “Email Verified” or flag if bad).
Save and activate the flow.

Pro tip: Start small. Just update a custom field with the Truemail response at first. Once you know it works, you can get fancy (e.g., block creation of bad emails, trigger alerts).

Step 5: Handle the response (the right way)

Truemail will send back a response—usually JSON—telling you if the email is valid, invalid, or risky. Don’t just trust “valid/invalid” at face value. Some emails might be “catch-all” domains or “unknown.” Decide what you want to do with those.

Valid: Mark as verified.
Invalid: Flag for cleanup, or block the record if you’re feeling strict.
Risky/Unknown: Maybe let them through, but alert someone.

Don’t get too aggressive: If you block every “unknown,” you’ll frustrate people. Not every domain responds to validation requests, but the email could still be real.

Step 6: (Optional) Bulk clean your existing data

If your Salesforce org is already full of emails, you’ll want to clean them up. Here’s a pragmatic approach:

Export Leads and Contacts (just IDs and emails).
Use Truemail’s bulk validation API or the dashboard upload feature.
Get the results file back.
Update records in Salesforce using Data Loader or your favorite import tool.
Map the results into a “Verified” or “Email Status” custom field.

Warning: Don’t overwrite existing data unless you’re sure. Always back up before running big imports.

Step 7: Show results in Salesforce (make it obvious)

There’s no point validating emails if nobody sees the results. Add a custom field to Leads/Contacts, like “Email Validation Status,” and stick it on the page layout. That way, sales reps know what’s going on.

You can also create reports and dashboards to spot trends or flag records with invalid emails.

Step 8: Automate cleanup (if you dare)

Once you trust the validation, you might want to:

Auto-convert or delete records with bad emails.
Trigger alerts to reps or admins.
Pause marketing campaigns for unverified emails.

Be careful: Automation is powerful, but mistakes can snowball. Test in a sandbox first.

What works (and what doesn’t)

What works:

Catching obvious junk: Typos, fake emails, and dead domains get flagged right away.
Keeping your team honest: Reps quickly learn not to enter garbage emails.
Up-to-date data: You stop wasting time on dead leads.

What doesn’t:

100% accuracy: No validation tool is perfect. Some legit emails will come back as “unknown.”
Solving deeper data issues: If your team is copying and pasting emails from bad sources, validation only puts a Band-Aid on the problem.

Ignore:

Anyone promising “perfect” data. That’s not a thing.
Overly complex automations. Start simple, see what breaks, and improve.

Wrapping up: keep it simple, improve as you go

Integrating Truemail with Salesforce isn’t magic, but it’s a solid way to clean up your data and stop chasing bad leads. Don’t aim for perfection on day one—make sure the basics work, then tweak your flows and rules as you see what’s actually happening in your org. If something seems like more trouble than it’s worth, it probably is.

Email validation should make your life easier, not more complicated. Start with what matters, and iterate from there.