Verification Emails

Email validation scares entrepreneurs away since it sounds like a thing that needs extraordinary technical skills. That is not entirely true. Even though it is a complex mechanism that includes a series of sophisticated tests and algorithms, it is straightforward within most platforms.
Validating email offers many significant advantages for your brand and marketing. It saves you from penalties and, most importantly, from invalid users in your mailing list. According to recent studies, those who ignore sending verification emails to their newcomers end up with 20% of garbage on the subscription list. This results in high hard and soft bounce rates and a significant spam complaint level that entirely ruin the sender’s reputation.
To make matters worse, you cannot avoid this since people make mistakes all the time: typos happen 2 times in 10, plus almost 20% of users do not leave their real email addresses on purpose. The new email address in your subscription list isn’t necessarily a real subscriber. You need the extra layer of security that email validation provides.
A step-by-step guide to Verification Emails
Verification emails are an essential part of the user registration process for websites and apps. They ensure that the email address provided by the user is valid and belongs to the user. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to set up and send verification emails.
- Plan your verification email workflow: a. Decide when to send the verification email (e.g., immediately after user registration, before accessing certain features, etc.). b. Determine the expiration time for the verification link (e.g., 24 hours). c. Set up a system to track the status of email verification (e.g., verified, unverified, pending, expired).
- Choose an email service provider: a. Research and select an email service provider (ESP) that suits your needs (e.g., SendGrid, Mailchimp, Amazon SES). b. Sign up for an account with the ESP and set up your domain for sending emails. c. Get your API key or SMTP credentials from the ESP to integrate it with your application.
- Design your verification email template: a. Create an email template with a clear subject line, such as “Please verify your email address.” b. Include a concise message in the email body explaining the purpose of the email and how to complete the verification process. c. Design the email with a clear call-to-action button or link for the user to click and verify their email address. d. Include the expiration time for the verification link in the email.
- Generate a unique verification link: a. When a user registers, create a unique token for each user that will be used for email verification. b. Save the token in your database along with the user’s email address and the expiration time. c. Create a verification link by combining the token with your verification endpoint URL.
- Send the verification email: a. Integrate your application with the ESP using their API or SMTP credentials. b. When a user registers, send the verification email to the user’s email address with the unique verification link.
- Verify the user’s email address: a. When the user clicks on the verification link, your application should verify the token and check if it’s still valid (not expired). b. If the token is valid, update the user’s email verification status in your database and show a success message to the user. c. If the token is invalid or expired, display an error message and prompt the user to request a new verification email.
- Handle unverified users: a. Regularly check your database for unverified email addresses and send reminder emails to users who haven’t verified their email addresses. b. Implement restrictions for unverified users, such as limited access to certain features or temporary account suspension.
- Monitor and optimize your verification email process: a. Track the performance of your verification emails, such as open rates, click-through rates, and verification completion rates. b. Make improvements to your email template, subject line, and sending frequency to increase the effectiveness of your verification emails. c. Stay up-to-date with email deliverability best practices to ensure your verification emails land in the user’s inbox.
Conclusion
Only five years ago, people were hostile to verification emails. Today, when the web is teeming with spammers, all sorts of frauds and privacy leakage scandals happen all the time, more and more people start to believe that lack of validation on the platform is very alarming. If the platform deals with payments, this alarm increases exponentially, making people believe that this website is not worth their trust.
Indeed, people have changed their attitudes toward email validation. A verification email is warmly welcome today and sees one of the highest open rates. So, do not neglect it. More so, it offers many bonuses for your company.
Even though initially verification emails were designed with just one mission in mind (that is, ask users to verify their email addresses), modern email marketing proves to everyone that this newsletter can be used for achieving different goals, even those that help to convert users into leads, generate extra traffic and increase profit. Indeed, it comes in handy in numerous scenarios, not only in double registration. Therefore, it should be an integral element of the customer’s journey.
The important thing to remember about verification email in order to make the most out of it is that even though it is a confirmation email generated automatically and triggered by a specific user’s action still, it should not be boring or primitive.
At a minimum, it should be personal and brand-related. It should provide a great user and visual experience producing a strong first impression. Whatever overall marketing strategy you employ, it should be aligned with it. Also, it should speak on behalf of your brand, and most importantly, it should be tailored to your target market’s needs.
Therefore, follow the best practices featured in our guide; always remember to make verification email (whatever small and compact it can be) responsive, mobile-friendly and accessible. Finally, when in doubt whether it works fine or not for your audience, perform A/B tests.
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