Why the statuses matter
Mailbox providers grade your domain on every campaign. Cross roughly a 2% bounce rate and deliverability starts decaying — first the promotions tab, then spam, then silent discards. Unverified lists routinely bounce 10–30%. Verification sorts every address into a status before you spend reputation on it.
The six verdicts
| Status | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| ok | The mailbox exists and accepts mail. | Send. This is your primary segment. |
| catch_all | The domain accepts mail for any address, so this specific mailbox can’t be confirmed. | Separate segment: lower volume, warmer copy, or corroborate the address first (e.g. LinkedIn match). |
| disposable | Temporary/throwaway provider (10-minute mail and friends). | Drop from outreach. For signup lists, treat as a fraud signal. |
| role | Shared inbox — info@, sales@, support@ — a function, not a person. | Exclude from personalized sequences; re-enrich for a named contact instead. |
| invalid | The mailbox does not exist. Guaranteed bounce. | Never send. Keep the record, drop the address, re-enrich later. |
| unknown | The server couldn’t be checked (timeouts, greylisting). | Retry later; if persistently unknown, treat like catch_all. |
The workflow that keeps bounce rates near zero
- Verify at the last responsible moment. Addresses decay — verify right before a campaign, not the quarter before.
- Verify inside the enrichment flow. If you enrich an address in one tool and verify in another, the export/import gap is where staleness creeps in. In Liquid Rows, verification is a column beside the one that found the address.
- Filter to a “safe to send” view. ok everywhere; catch_all only if you accept the risk profile; nothing else. Save the filter so it’s a living segment, not a one-off export.
- Route by status. ok → sequence; catch_all → low-volume track; invalid → re-enrichment queue. Every status has a next action; none of them is “ignore.”
Frequently asked questions
What does catch-all mean?
The domain accepts mail for any address, so the specific mailbox can’t be confirmed. Treat as a lower-confidence segment: smaller volumes, or corroborate the address first.
Is it safe to email role addresses (info@, sales@)?
They reach shared inboxes, convert poorly in cold outreach, and carry spam-trap risk. Replace them with a named contact for personalized sequences.
What bounce rate is dangerous?
Treat 2% as the ceiling, under 1% as the target. Unverified lists routinely bounce 10–30% — enough to damage a domain in a couple of campaigns.
Delete invalid emails or keep them?
Keep the record, drop the address. Re-enrich later for a fresh address, or apply a did-you-mean fix. Deleting the row throws away the account.