Email marketing can be a pain. You spend time and money on great campaigns, only to see them end up in spam folders—or worse, never delivered at all. Most of the time, the problem’s your list: old addresses, typos, spam traps, and dead domains are like anchors weighing down your deliverability. If you want your emails to hit inboxes (and actually get read), you need to clean your list. Here’s the no-nonsense guide to doing it right with Emailable.
This guide is for anyone running email campaigns—marketers, founders, agencies, or frankly, anyone tired of burning their sender reputation. We’ll walk through exactly how to verify your list in Emailable, what the results mean, and what you should (and shouldn’t) do next.
Why verify your email list anyway?
Let’s get real: sending to bad emails doesn’t just get you a few bounces—it can get your domain blacklisted, kill your open rates, and make future emails even less likely to reach real people. Email service providers look for high bounce and complaint rates as warning signs of spam. If you keep emailing dead or risky addresses, you’re basically telling Gmail to send your future emails straight to the junk pile.
Verifying your list means: - Fewer hard bounces (addresses that don’t exist) - Less chance of hitting spam traps (emails set up just to catch spammers) - Better sender reputation and inbox placement - Accurate list metrics (so you know your real reach)
Most email platforms will not clean your list for you. Even if they promise some filtering, they’re not built for deep verification. That’s where third-party tools like Emailable come in.
Step 1: Prep your list (Don’t skip this)
Before you even log into Emailable, get your list in order. This saves you time and money, and makes the results cleaner.
Do this: - Export your list from your ESP, CRM, or wherever you keep it. - Make sure it’s a CSV or Excel file. Emailable supports both, but CSV is less likely to have weird formatting issues. - Remove columns you don’t need. Keep it simple: Email, First Name, Last Name, Company, whatever matters to you. - Double-check for obvious typos, accidental spaces, or blank rows. The fewer errors, the smoother the import.
Pro tip: If your file is gigantic (think 100,000+ contacts), break it into smaller chunks. It’s just faster and easier to troubleshoot if something goes wrong.
Step 2: Create your Emailable account and log in
If you haven’t already, sign up for an Emailable account. No, there’s no way around this step (unless you like living dangerously and skipping verification altogether).
- Head to Emailable and create an account.
- Confirm your email if asked.
- Log in and land on the dashboard.
Emailable isn’t free, but they offer a pay-as-you-go pricing model. You pay per email checked, which is fair—just double-check their pricing before uploading your whole database. If you’re just testing or have a small list, they sometimes offer free credits.
Step 3: Upload your list
Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Click “Verify List” or “Upload List” (the button text sometimes changes).
- Drag and drop your CSV/XLSX file, or select it from your computer.
- Name your list something you’ll remember (“March Webinar Signups” is better than “untitled1.csv”).
- Map any extra columns if prompted (e.g., first name, company). Emailable usually auto-detects the email column, but double-check it.
- Start the import.
Heads up: If your list has a ton of rows or weird formatting, Emailable might flag some issues. Watch for warnings about invalid formats or duplicates—they’re usually worth fixing before running the check, but you can skip and clean up later if you’re in a hurry.
Step 4: Run the verification
With your list uploaded, you’ll see an option to “Start Verification” (or similar). Click it.
What’s happening behind the scenes: - Emailable pings each email’s domain to check if the mailbox exists. - It looks for syntax errors, disposable emails, role-based addresses (like info@ or sales@), and spam traps. - It won’t actually send anything to the address—so people on your list won’t know you’re checking.
How long does it take? - Small lists (a few thousand) are usually done in minutes. - Large lists (50,000+) can take half an hour or more. You don’t need to watch it—Emailable will email you when it’s done.
Step 5: Review your results (and don’t overthink them)
Once verification is done, you’ll get a report breaking down your list into several categories:
- Valid: Good to go. These should land in inboxes.
- Accept All: The domain accepts all email, but there’s no way to confirm if the mailbox exists. These are risky—some will bounce.
- Invalid: Bad addresses—typos, dead domains, or non-existent mailboxes. These will bounce.
- Disposable: Temporary emails like mailinator.com. Ditch them.
- Role-based: info@, support@, admin@, etc. Not always bad, but higher risk for spam complaints.
- Unknown: Couldn’t verify. Usually due to strict mail servers or timeouts. Use your judgment.
What actually matters: - Delete all Invalid and Disposable emails. No debate here. - Accept All and Unknown addresses are a gray area. If you’re risk-averse or your sender reputation is already shaky, remove them. If you’re emailing a small, engaged audience, you might keep some. - Role-based emails: If your content is B2B and relevant, you might keep them. For most marketing, they’re not worth the risk.
Pro tip: Download only the “Valid” results and use that for your next campaign. Save the rest in a separate file in case you want to revisit them later. Don’t just overwrite your master list—always keep a backup.
Step 6: Import your clean list back into your email platform
Now bring your cleaned list back where it belongs.
- Download the “Valid” emails (and any other categories you’re keeping) as a CSV.
- Import into your ESP or CRM using their standard import process.
- If your ESP lets you, tag or segment the imported contacts as “Cleaned” or similar, so you know which ones have been verified.
Don’t:
- Re-upload the junk emails, even if they “might” work.
- Email people who unsubscribed, just because they passed verification.
Step 7: Set up a regular cleaning schedule
One-off cleaning is a start, but email lists decay fast. People change jobs, abandon inboxes, or domains go dark every month.
- Clean your list every 3–6 months if you’re sending regularly.
- Clean before every big campaign, especially if it’s been a while since your last send.
- If you’re collecting new leads daily, consider integrating Emailable’s API to check emails in real time (but that’s a separate guide).
Ignore:
- Anyone who says you only need to clean your list once a year. Experience says otherwise.
What Emailable actually gets right (and where it doesn’t)
Works well: - Catches most invalid and disposable emails, fast. - Simple, no-frills interface. You don’t need a manual. - Pay-as-you-go pricing. No pricey subscriptions if you only need to clean once in a while.
Limitations: - “Accept All” domains are an industry-wide blind spot. No tool can perfectly verify these—don’t believe anyone who says otherwise. - Won’t tell you if an email is engaged (opens, clicks, etc.)—just if the address is deliverable. - Doesn’t catch people who mark you as spam. That’s on you and your content.
Bottom line: Emailable is a solid, straightforward tool. It won’t solve every deliverability problem, but it knocks out the basics very well.
Keep it simple—and keep going
Verifying your list isn’t glamorous, but it’s about the highest-impact thing you can do for email deliverability. Don’t get bogged down by analysis paralysis. Clean your list, cut the dead weight, and hit send. If you’re new to this, start small, see what changes, and build from there.
The best way to land in more inboxes is to keep your list healthy and your process simple. No secret hacks—just regular maintenance and a little common sense. Good luck out there.