BriteVerify sorts emails into different categories, where emails marked as “Valid” are not risky at all and “Invalid” emails should obviously be remove from your list.

The remaining categories are a bit more nuanced.

“Accept All” emails are associated with domains that accept everything that comes in – at first. These catch-all domains may have a firewall or other spam tool that could remove or bounce your email later.

“Unknown” emails are associated with a domain that isn’t responding. This may very well be a temporary issue, but it still creates uncertainty.

Since “Accept All” and “Unknown” emails are risky, it’s wise to proceed with caution. If a large majority of the list consists of Invalid, Accept All and Unknown emails, consider the age and source of the data to make the decision to utilize them at all.

In addition, BriteVerify also scans for and identifies two more potentially risky types of emails: role-based addresses and temporary addresses.

Role-based addresses are usually set up to manage an organization’s generic inquiries or issues. Examples include addresses starting with sales@, support@, or info@. These emails may be managed by several people across different departments. In general, sending email to such addresses results in a high complaint rate.

Temporary or disposable addresses are created by users in lieu of using their primary address. Users may want to conceal their identity or simply be wary of joining another email list. Temporary addresses are valid and active for a short period – in fact, users may share them with multiple organizations. However, by design, these emails are set to expire after some time and will not remain valid. Because of their temporary nature, they are identified as risky emails and should not be included.

BriteVerify identifies these emails so assessing the risk is easier and empowers you to determine if it exceeds your threshold. Since every list is different, the final output depends a lot on how familiar you are with the list and ultimately how you wish to manage it.