Creating temporary emails (or disposable) email is a practice whereby a person creates an email account that is deleted after a certain period of time, making it impossible to trace.
This type of email causes a lot of damage to those who run email marketing campaigns, since the disposable email becomes a hard bounce (invalid email) after a short period of time, leading to blocks and damaging deliverability rates, click-through rates, conversion rates and, consequently, ROI.
It’s very easy to create temporary emails through platforms and applications that offer this service. One of the largest platforms for creating temporary emails alone registers around 7 million hits every month.
Let’s take a closer look at what bounce means and why creating temporary emails hurts email marketers so much.
Table of contents
What bounce means in an email list
On a mailing list, there are always messages that fail to be delivered. This happens for reasons that can be temporary or permanent.
Temporary reasons, known as soft bounces, are those that invalidate the email for a certain period. For example, if the server goes down temporarily and then comes back up, the message will reach its destination.
The same happens if the recipient’s inbox is full, among other failures that can be reversed.
Permanent reasons, known as hard bounces, are those that invalidate the email without the possibility of reversing it. In other words, a hard bounce cannot be fixed.
A hard bounce is an invalid email in a mailing list. And this is serious because lists containing at least 3% bounces are blocked by ISPs.
As a result, the sender’s reputation is damaged and communication with leads is interrupted.
The sequence of these events leads to the failure of investments, because the IP and domain of the sender who is labeled a spammer will be included in international blacklists.
Creating a temporary email detonates your registration forms
One of the main objectives of email marketing is to generate leads. And this happens through registration forms linked to landing pages.
To build a healthy email base, professionals need to collect the “opt-in”, which is the recipients’ permission to receive communications from the company.
This permission is part of the form, which offers the prospect access to some rich material, such as an ebook, PDF, webinar, etc. In return, the user grants permission to receive the emails. This is how a lead is born.
However, creating disposable emails is a practice of many users, and this makes it common for there to be many bounces on lists that originate from forms.
The only way to avoid the damage caused by false leads is to use a real-time verification API.
By integrating the API with data collection services, emails are automatically corrected (e.g. Gamil instead of Gmail), and temporary emails are recognized immediately.
In other words, if the user creates a temporary email and types it in, the API identifies it and asks them to enter a valid email.
Creating temporary emails is harmful to lists: conclusion
The creation of temporary emails represents a threat to lead generation, and professionals need to take protective measures for their email lists.
To guarantee a high deliverability rate and, consequently, a good ROI, any and all bounces must be removed from the bases, and only list verification can provide this security for those who use email marketing as a communication channel.
FAQ
Why do temporary emails bounce off lists?
Temporary (also called disposable) emails have a very short lifespan. After they expire, they become bounces, i.e. invalid emails on mailing lists. And bases containing 3% of them are blocked by ISPs.
What’s the difference between soft bounce and hard bounce?
Soft bounces are temporary delivery failures that can be reversed. For example: problems with the recipient’s server, a full box, etc. Hard bounces, on the other hand, are emails with permanent failures, i.e. which cannot be fixed, and so the message cannot be delivered.
Why do temporary emails damage registration forms?
Temporary emails are false leads, as they become bounces after they expire. Thus, a list originating from a form needs a real-time email verification API so that professionals have access to real leads.
How to prevent corporate emails from becoming temporary?
There’s no avoiding it. Turnover, changes of position and location give rise to temporary emails. It is recommended to use email validation frequently to remove these harmful emails and thus ensure a healthy list free of bounces.
