10,000 sent. 800 bounced. Now what?You hit send on a campaign to ten thousand addresses. Three days later, eight hundred bounces. Some were fake. Some were dead. Some were domains that never existed. Here's the thing: you could have caught almost all of that before you ever pressed send. That's email validation.
⬡ talking-stat, big "800 bounces", then a rewind arrow flips it to "caught before send"Email validation is a series of checks that run on an address to predict whether mail sent to it will actually reach a real mailbox. Think of it as a quality test on your list before you use it, not after it's blown up in your face.
⬡ title-card, "Validation = a quality test, before you send"The checks run in layers. First, syntax. Does the address even follow the rules? captain@tidalmail.com passes. captain@tidalmail, no dot, no real domain, fails on the spot. This one's just pattern-matching, it never touches a mail server.
⬡ dissect, label the address parts, green check on the valid one, red on the broken oneNext, the domain. The tool asks DNS, the internet's phone book, does tidalmail.com actually exist and have mail servers running? Those are called MX records. No MX records, no mailbox to deliver to. Dead on arrival.
⬡ terminal, dig MX tidalmail.com returns a mail server, keep it calm and visualLast, the deep check. The tool opens a limited conversation with the receiving server, the same language your mail app speaks, called SMTP, and asks, does this exact mailbox exist? It never actually sends a message. It just listens for the answer.
⬡ journey-flow, validator knocks on the server, a speech bubble returns "mailbox exists?"You get back one of three labels. Valid: good syntax, live domain, mailbox that accepts. Invalid: fails a check somewhere. Or risky: passes most checks but has patterns that smell like a typo or a trap. That risky bucket is where the real judgment lives.
⬡ record-cards, three cards: Valid (green) · Invalid (red) · Risky (amber)If this is clearing it up, subscribe, we're answering every email question in the Almanac, one at a time.
⬡ title-card, "Subscribe, the whole deliverability series"You can validate at signup, catching a bad address the moment someone types it, or in bulk on your whole existing list, cleaning what you already have. Either way, you're keeping broken addresses off your send, which is exactly what protects your bounce rate and your domain reputation.
⬡ split-compare, LEFT "At signup: one address, instant" vs RIGHT "In bulk: whole list at once"So validation isn't magic and it isn't a guarantee. It's a layered check, syntax, domain, mailbox, that sorts your list by risk so you're not sending blind. Catch the bounces before they cost you.
⬡ title-card, "Syntax, domain, mailbox. Sort by risk."Next up: why this matters so much for your reputation, and how fast a bad send can catch up with you. Subscribe and it's the next thing you'll watch.
⬡ end-card, Subscribe + Next: "Why email validation matters" (005.003.002)What is email validation? It's a layered set of checks that predict whether an address will actually reach a real mailbox, run before you send instead of after you get the bounces. In this video: the three layers (syntax check, domain and MX lookup, and a limited SMTP conversation to test the mailbox), what the valid, invalid, and risky labels mean, and when to validate at signup versus in bulk on your whole list.
0:00 800 bounces you could have caught
0:20 What validation actually is
0:40 Layer 1, syntax
1:05 Layer 2, domain and MX
1:30 Layer 3, the SMTP mailbox check
2:00 Valid, invalid, risky
2:40 Signup vs bulk
Concepts in this video: syntax check, MX record, SMTP, catch-all/risky addresses.
If your whole list feels shaky, we clean them for you (hi ;)) → reviewmyemails.com/done-for-you
Next: Why email validation matters → [link 005.003.002]
Full written guide → reviewmyemails.com/emailalmanac/list-hygiene/validation/what-is-email-validation
#email #deliverability #emaillist