How to Avoid a List of Spam Trap Email Addresses

July 17, 2024

List of spam trap email addresses, there are many things that can affect your deliverability rates. One of the most serious is being hit with a list of spam trap email addresses. Spam traps are inactive or invalid email addresses that do not belong to actual users, and if you send to them it can have devastating effects on your sending reputation. The good news is that you can protect your reputation by taking a few precautions to ensure that your email lists are free of traps.

Pristine traps are a type of spam trap that ISPs and anti-spam organizations create to identify senders who do not use proper email list acquisition processes. They are embedded on public websites and can be found when people scrape the web for email addresses or buy contact lists. Since these aren’t real email addresses, they tell inbox providers that you weren’t careful when collecting your contacts. Pristine trap hits can cause your IP address or domain to be list-denied, which damages your reputation and hurts your delivery rates.

Verify Email in Bulk: Efficient Methods for Large Lists

Recycled traps are email addresses that were used by real users at some point, but became abandoned or unused. Over time, inbox providers convert these old email addresses into traps to catch irresponsible senders. They show up in new signups or in your oldest inactive segments of your list, and are a big reason why you should always run email validation tools on your contacts and use a double opt-in process when subscribers join your list.