Using the Email address / Phone number validation data service

January 24, 2024 22:58

Validating Contact Information

To ensure your contact database is accurate, we recommend using the ActiveDEMAND data Validation data services. This data service reviews email addresses and/or phone numbers and classifies the email address/phone number based on the usability/validity of the attribute. Sending to an invalid email address will immediately unsubscribe the contact record. The validation service will use data enrichment credits on the attributes it processes. There is a per attribute charge for validation.

You have several options to perform contact information validation.

Validate Bulk Contact action: on the all contact screen you can choose multiple contacts and perform a bulk edit action.
Validate Workflow Action: Insert the Validate Contact Information workflow action into any workflow. This will perform the configured validation actions on the configured email/phone attributes (and perform the appropriate actions)
Validate Schedule Hygiene Task: Contact Validation is an option in the Contact Data Hygiene Scheduler
Validate Form Element

Email Address Validation

It is important to ensure your email addresses are good before you send emails. Bounces will have a negative impact on your sending reputation. An email address, once validated, will have a validation icon applied to the email address.

An email address will be classified as either:

Valid
Risky
Invalid

Score: This number from 0 to 1 represents the likelihood the email address is valid, expressed as a percentage. So for instance, a score of 0.96 could be interpreted as a 96% likelihood the email is valid.
Verdict: This field will contain one of three categories: “Valid”, “Risky”, or “Invalid”. These are generic classifications based off of the detailed results.

Attributes

has_valid_address_syntax - If true, then the address is a properly formatted email address (e.g. it has an @ sign and a top level domain). If false, then it’s a malformed address.
has_mx_or_a_record - If true, the domain on the address has all the necessary DNS records to deliver a message somewhere. If false, the domain is missing the required DNS records and will result in a bounce if delivered to.
is_suspected_disposable_address - If true, the domain part of the email address appears to be from a disposable email address service, in which the addresses are only good for a short period of time.
is_suspected_role_address - If true, the local part of the email address (before the @ sign) appears to be a group email address such as “hr” or “admin”.
has_known_bounces - If true, the email address has previously been sent to through your account

Valid:

Emails that have a classification of valid will have a high Score and hence a high probability of validity and deliverability.

Risky Emails

These email addresses will have a lower score and have suspected bounces and hence may have a negative impact on your sending reputation.

Invalid Emails

The email addresses will bounce and may have a negative impact on your sending reputation. The probability of a hard bounce is very high with these email addresses

Configuring Email Validation Actions

If you use the Form Field email validation option, there are no options. If the email is invalid, the user is asked to enter a valid email address. There is no data enrichment cred charge for form field validation.

For all other email validation activities, there are options you can have automatically performed on invalid or risky email addresses.

Phone Number Validation

For all countries, except Canada, phone validation will not only determine the validity of a phone number, it will also determine what type a number it is. If the number is a mobile number, it will support receiving text messages. Phone validation is a data service that will use enrichment credits to perform the action. The only exception is if you use the Form Field validation option. Form field validation does not cost data credits.

Valid:

Is valid
Phone type: type of mobile will accept text messages

Invalid:

Configuring Phone Validation Actions

Similar to Email validation, there are actions that can be taken on invalid phone numbers.

Validation Queries

There are several validation related queries for contacts that can be used.

Dynamic Terms

You can reference an in process contact's validation information using dynamic terms:

%CONTACT.EMAIL.VALIDATION.VERDICT%
%CONTACT.PHONE.VALIDATION.VERDICT%

Data Service Costs

Record validation is priced on a per email address validated and/or per phone number validated basis. The exception to this is record validation using the form field option (explained below). All in platform validation (using bulk edit, workflow actions, hygiene tasks) does use data tokens.

An validation records stays in the account permanently, even if you delete the email address, phone number or contact. Thus if the record is added back at a later date, the validation record will still apply to that phone number/email address.

If you try to validate a contact that has a validation record associated with an email address or phone number, the email address/phone number will not be re-validated unless the existing validation record is older than 6 months. Thus you can run contacts through validation as many times as you want, the only time you use a data credit is if the existing validation record is older than 6 months.