How ZeroBounce Helps You Find Valid Emails 

In this interview, we delve into the entrepreneurial journey of Liviu Tanase, the founder and CEO of ZeroBounce, an email validation and deliverability platform. With a passion for innovative technology and a keen eye for market needs, Liviu has steered ZeroBounce to the forefront of email marketing solutions.

Join us as we explore the insights and experiences of this tech visionary, uncovering the challenges, triumphs, and wisdom he has gathered along the way in the ever-evolving world of digital communication.

Bio: Liviu Tanase is the founder and CEO of ZeroBounce, an email validation, deliverability, and email-finding company. As a serial entrepreneur, Tanase has founded five companies and is always working on the next innovative B2B tech product. 

His company ZeroBounce is a multiple honoree of Inc. 5,000, the list of the fastest-growing businesses in America. ZeroBounce is also a recipient of Inc.’s Power Partner Award, highlighting the best B2B companies in the world. 

An email marketing thought leader, Liviu Tanase is a contributor to Inc., Entrepreneur, and other publications. Forbes magazine included Tanase on the prestigious Forbes Next 1,000 list of “entrepreneurial heroes redefining the American dream.”

About ZeroBounce

ZeroBounce is an award-winning email verification, deliverability, and email-finding platform helping 300,000+ customers achieve email success.

Its 99% accurate email validation service removes obsolete and risky email addresses to help senders prevent bounces and maintain a good reputation. ZeroBounce’s email deliverability toolkit — including inbox testing and DMARC monitoring — further supports companies in their quest to reach the inbox. Activity Data, one of ZeroBounce’s most popular features, offers subscriber activity insights, allowing marketers to target their most active audiences. Email Finder is ZeroBounce’s latest tool that provides professionals with valid business email addresses to enhance their email outreach efforts.

ZeroBounce has validated 24+ billion emails and serves companies of all sizes, from solo business owners to Amazon, Disney, Netflix, and Sephora. The platform ensures military-grade security and is GDPR, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO-27001-certified, and India DPDP-ready.

In 2022, ZeroBounce founded Email Day (April 23), now an international holiday honoring email inventor Ray Tomlinson. 

Inspiration Behind ZeroBounce

SBS – What inspired you to start ZeroBounce, and what gap did you identify in the market?

Liviu – I’m a serial entrepreneur in tech, and one of my other businesses revolves around email marketing. Having been in the industry for years, I was aware of how much goes into building a successful email marketing program. A critical aspect is the ability to reach your customers. With spam filters becoming increasingly smart, hitting send on an email doesn’t mean that it goes to the inbox. 

There were a number of email validation services on the market, but my approach with everything is: Can I improve this? I can’t leave “good enough” alone. So I wondered, how can we be more confident about the validity of an email address? Email marketing works, but the first step to boosting revenue with email is where people can see you — in the inbox.

If you send a lot of emails that bounce, inbox providers will perceive you as a spammer. As a result, your campaigns will go to the spam folder. So, I started to examine the concept of email validation to determine how we could improve its accuracy. I wanted to build a service that considered all the multifaceted factors that determine where emails go — the inbox, the junk folder, or nowhere. We considered getting “zero” bounces as the ultimate goal — and ZeroBounce was born.

Initial Challenges

SBS – What were the biggest challenges you faced in the early stages of developing ZeroBounce, and how did you overcome them?

Liviu – The biggest challenge was building a stable, fast, and secure platform able to respond to the demand we had from the very beginning. It sounds like a great problem to have, and I’m not complaining. But I wanted us to offer an outstanding product, and that required so much effort.

Thankfully, I managed to attract great talent, and to this day, we have some of the top industry experts on the team. Their expertise helped push ZeroBounce to the forefront of our space in a short period. Building a solid product will also solve the trust and credibility challenges you face as a newcomer. Word of mouth is powerful, so make sure you leave a great impression. It carries a lot of weight.

Business Evolution

SBS – How has ZeroBounce evolved since its inception in terms of services offered and technology used?

Liviu – Everyone in business needs to check the validity of their email addresses. Whether you send marketing or just transactional emails, you want to be sure you communicate with real people.

But after a while, more and more customers started asking us for help in solving other issues. For instance, they wanted to know whether there’s a way to know where your email is going to land — before you send it. So, we started developing our inbox tester. This tool lets you test the email you’re about to send to see if it will land in the inbox of popular providers like Gmail or Yahoo.

We also looked at other ways we could improve our email validation results, so we added different features to enhance these results. For example, an email can be valid, but is it active? Or are you reaching out to someone who isn’t even checking that email anymore?

Now you can find out — our Activity Data feature tells you if that particular email has been used recently. This increases your chances of starting a conversation, which can eventually lead to a sale.
Using a valid email list is a surefire way to boost your email deliverability, which means landing in the inbox. But getting there and having your emails consistently reach your customers entails more than that. That’s why we expanded our offerings. All of our tools work together so that your emails have the best chance of going to the most desirable place — the inbox. If you’re not in the inbox, you’re nowhere.

Last year, we added a different product to our suite. We saw a growing demand from people who needed to find email addresses, so we launched an email finder. The best part is that we already had an accurate email verifier, so once it finds an email, our software automatically validates it. That allows us to provide people with only real, valid email addresses.

ZeroBounce also launched a DMARC monitor a few years ago. DMARC (domain-based message authentication, reporting, and conformance) is an email authentication protocol. It helps verify your identity as a sender so that you can pass spam filters and land in the inbox. Large inbox providers like Google and Yahoo have encouraged email authentication for years, but now they’re enforcing it.

Since February 1, 2024, mass senders must authenticate their emails to reach their recipients’ inboxes. For our customers — many of whom send thousands of emails daily — it’s a great relief that they can get help from us with DMARC.

Key Milestones

SBS – Can you share some key milestones and achievements of ZeroBounce since its launch?

Liviu – Every time we added a new product to our platform, we knew our business was about to change for the better — and so were we. You learn so much from always pushing yourself to improve.

Another milestone was taking number 40 on the Inc. 5,000 list of the fastest-growing companies in America. This happened only three years after we launched, and we were elated to get that validation from the public and such a prestigious magazine. ZeroBounce has been on the list three more times since then and has received several awards.

Competitive Edge

SBS – What sets ZeroBounce apart from other email validation and list management services?

Liviu – Three things set us apart from the beginning.

#1. The accuracy of our email validation software. There is no email validation service with 100% accuracy, but we wanted to get as close to perfection as possible. Our customers get 99% accurate results — and we have a money-back guarantee.

#2. Platform security. To the best of our knowledge, ZeroBounce is the most secure platform of its kind. We’ve worked hard to obtain our security certifications and keep our customers’ data safe. 

#3. Excellent customer support. When we launched, none of the email validation companies offered 24/7 live customer support. The fact that we did really helped us stand out. We have teams across the US and Europe happy to answer any questions day and night, 365 days a year.

Future Vision

SBS – Where do you see ZeroBounce in the next five years, and are there any new features or services in the pipeline?

Liviu – My biggest goal is to continue building ZeroBounce into a place where businesses can find everything they need to succeed with email communication. In five years, we’ll have more services on the platform — one of which will be launching soon!

Email users around the world have only grown through the years. More than half of our planet uses email now. We’re honored to be a part of this growing industry and make our contribution. 

Effective List Management

SBS – Based on your expertise, what are the most effective strategies for managing and maintaining a healthy email list?

Liviu – The most effective strategy for managing and maintaining a list is to avoid complacency. Most people focus so much on growing their email lists that they forget — or are not aware — that they also need to maintain them. 

We did a study at ZeroBounce and analyzed more than six billion emails our software verified. It was astonishing to see that only 57% of all those email addresses were valid and safe to use. About a quarter of the average email database decays in a year. You have to prune out that bad data consistently. 

Don’t get hung up on things like how big your list is. You can have a smaller list that gets more engagement because it’s real and healthy. Quality over quality is a smart strategy for email list maintenance. It’s also easy — you just upload your list and get it back clean in minutes. 

Aside from validating your email list a few times a year, also pay attention to the new email addresses you’re adding to it. Many of them can be invalid or risky from the beginning. 

If your list is growing slowly, you can easily validate each contact manually — at no cost. For example, ZeroBounce offers all customers and users 100 free email verifications every month. If you get a lot of new sign-ups, a real-time email verification API can check them before they get added to your list. 

Also, a few extra tips:

• Please use double opt-in, where people get an automatic email with a link they need to click to confirm their subscription
• Remove unengaged subscribers. They may have abandoned their email addresses and could start bouncing. Also, the fact that they never engage is hurting your overall metrics and email deliverability

We always tell people to focus on following best practices. It may seem oversimplified, but it comes down to following the rules. If you stray from the rules, like the Google and Yahoo guidelines, you’ll suffer as a result.

Avoiding Spam Filters

SBS – What are some common mistakes businesses make that lead their emails to be marked as spam, and how can they avoid them?

Liviu – A common mistake we see is that they focus so much on the creative side of email marketing and sometimes completely ignore the technical aspects. 

Sending emails randomly to email lists that were either purchased or built without consent will end up harming you. The quality of those email lists is dubious, and those emails often bounce. When your bounce rate is higher than 2%, your campaigns and newsletters are at risk of going to the junk folder. Also, those people have never heard of you, so they can report your emails as spam. More than one spam report for every 1,000 emails is damaging, as well — especially in light of Yahoo and Google’s new sending guidelines. 

Businesses that build their own email databases and ask for permission to reach out have higher engagement rates and lower spam complaint rates. Sure, it takes more time and effort to build your email list than to buy one, but it’s the right approach, and it will yield better results. 

Email Personalization Trends

SBS – How important is personalization in email marketing today, and what are some cutting-edge ways to achieve it?

Liviu – We can’t talk about successful email marketing without personalization. Sending blanket mass messages to your entire email list shows you haven’t taken the time to know your audience. There was a time when people may have overlooked this amateur tactic, but in this day and age — with the incredible technology available — spraying and praying is a quick way to lose customer trust and loyalty. 

As consumers, we’ve become accustomed to such refined personalization that we’re irritated when it doesn’t happen. Your customers feel the same. They want a meaningful experience with your brand, and the only way to create that is to be thoughtful in your messaging. 

Thankfully, brands can automate such a big part of email personalization. Filters like customer behavior, purchase history, or geolocation allow you to segment your email database and then create emails uniquely targeted to those specific customers. CRM and email marketing platforms let you segment your database easily. Next, it all depends on the effort you invest in these personalized messages. The ones I see performing best talk specifically about those customers’ needs and desires. Also, they use a warm, human tone that establishes a sense of immediate connection. 

AI in Email Marketing

SBS – How do you see AI impacting email marketing strategies, and what are some practical ways businesses can leverage AI?

Liviu – AI is disrupting all industries, and email marketing is no exception. While some worry about the impact of AI in the workplace, I hope we can come to see it as an opportunity to be more productive and precise in our approaches. 

For instance, AI helps marketers better understand customer preferences, behaviors, and demographics — and thus generate more effective content. AI automation tools can also improve various aspects of email marketing almost instantly. It can help you A/B test, adjust your content, and predict the best send times and frequency. 

AI can also point out things you would have never thought about. With so many moving parts, email marketing can feel overwhelming. AI may bring some clarity and allow you to explore new tactics. 

Not everything AI generates will be usable, but AI tools can save time, provide better structure, and help businesses get more out of the emails they send.

Integration of Email Platforms

SBS – What are the benefits of integrating email validation services with other marketing tools, and how does ZeroBounce facilitate this?

Liviu – Integrations have been instrumental in our customers’ workflows. For a busy marketer, being able to validate a single email address or an entire email list in just a few clicks is a game-changer. 

ZeroBounce integrates with all the popular platforms marketers and sales pros use, from email marketing services to LinkedIn, Salesforce, and ChatGPT. These integrations allow people to validate emails right inside the platform they’re using and pursue a lead with more confidence, knowing it’s real and valid. 

Customers can also export an entire email list from, let’s say, Mailchimp, validate it with ZeroBounce, and then export it right back into their Mailchimp account. We’re all looking to be more efficient, and integrations make that possible.  

Email Scoring

SBS – Can you elaborate on the concept of email scoring provided by ZeroBounce A.I. and how businesses can use it to enhance their email marketing strategies?

Liviu – ZeroBounce A.I. is a tool that predicts how likely an email prospect is to engage with your email. Using AI to gather email activity data, this tool provides a quality score from 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest confidence indicator.

Our customers love ZeroBounce A.I. for its ability to further validate catch-all emails. Some email verification services simply mark these types of emails as “risky,” so the customer is left wondering what they should do next. Our scoring tool investigates the potential validity of these emails, thus giving customers more information about the quality of their leads. 

Advice for Emerging Email Marketers

SBS – What advice would you give to new businesses or marketers who are just starting to explore email marketing?

Liviu – I’d say: Get started today. Pick a reputable email marketing platform and set up your account. Start even if you think your email list is small. I know businesses that make millions sending emails to so-called “small” email lists. 

In email marketing, like in other aspects of business and life, quality trumps quantity. Focus on the value you’re offering your audience — and your email list will grow. By the way, build it yourself and remove bounces regularly. Also, remember you may not see a high ROI right away. Be consistent and show up with the best content you can make. That’s how you earn people’s trust — and if you earn their trust, you earn their business.

Finally, if you’re a beginner, know there’s a way to solve any problem you may encounter. For instance, we discovered that some businesses had email deliverability issues, but they weren’t aware of them. They were suffering as a result of using bad data, but they didn’t even know it. 

My team and I wanted to help increase awareness in every way we could — and that continues to this day. On our blog and in publications around the world, we share as much information about email health and deliverability as we can. We’re a big part of the discussion, and that’s expanding through webinars, podcasts, and in-person conferences. We hope to see you at our next event!