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Verify your Campaign Monitor list before you send

Integration Sending and campaigns

Campaign Monitor email verification in three steps: export your list, verify the file in PricklyMails, then delete and suppress the addresses to remove.

There is no native Campaign Monitor connector: you export the list, PricklyMails verifies it, and you bring the result back into Campaign Monitor. New addresses can go through the API before they ever reach Campaign Monitor.

Verify for free

Step by step

Clean your list in three steps

  1. In Campaign Monitor

    Export your subscriber list from Campaign Monitor

    Before you start

    Exporting a list requires the lists and subscribers permission.

    1. Click Lists & subscribers and select the list to verify.
    2. Click the overflow menu (3 dots) at the top right of the list details page, then Export list.
    3. In the Export menu, select Active Subscribers: campaigns only go to active subscribers.
    4. Choose CSV as the file type.
    5. Leave out the subscriber fields you don't need: PricklyMails only reads the email address.
    6. Click Export subscribers to download the file.

    Tip

    Each list downloads as a separate file: with several lists, export each one the same way.

    SourceCampaign Monitor's official help center
  2. In PricklyMails

    Verify the file in PricklyMails

    1. In the dashboard, open Batches and click New batch.
    2. Drop the file you exported from Campaign Monitor: a .csv or .txt with one address per line, no header row and no quotes. A header row would count as an address in the estimate, though it is never billed, and a quoted address would not be verified: the report lists both as malformed. You can also paste the list.
    3. The dashboard counts the addresses and shows the estimated cost in tokens before anything is sent, then you click Submit batch. A batch holds at least 20 addresses, and your plan sets the largest list it can hold.
    4. The list is verified in the background. Once the batch is done, open it and click Download report: you get a CSV with a row for each address of your file, giving its verdict, its reason, its score and its recommendation, with the dashboard's labels.

    Note

    Download the report from the browser that sent the list: that browser is what keeps the addresses, for the 16 most recent batches at most. Our servers, in Germany, only keep a one-way fingerprint of each one.
    What the report says

    Every address gets a recommendation: the action to take. The report writes it with the dashboard's label; the API returns a short form of it.

    Send
    The address is valid, or hosted by a large provider that accepts every address without confirming any. Send as usual.
    Review
    A domain that accepts any address (catch-all), a generic address such as contact@, a full mailbox, or a server that never answered, or refused to. Take a look before you send.
    Remove
    The address does not exist, its domain cannot receive mail, or it is disposable, mistyped or malformed. Take it out.

    Note

    A malformed address is never verified: the batch counts it under "Malformed addresses", and the report still lists it, with the verdict "Invalid", the reason "Malformed address" and the recommendation "Remove", so you take it out of Campaign Monitor with the others. A duplicate, counted under "Duplicates removed", appears only once.

    Behind each recommendation sit a verdict (Valid, Risky, Invalid or Not verifiable), a reason and a score from 0 to 100, each in its own column of the report. When a server never answers, the address comes back "Not verifiable" and the checks that got no answer are refunded.

  3. In Campaign Monitor

    Bring the result back into Campaign Monitor

    Open the report in a spreadsheet and filter the Recommendation column.

    Remove

    They get deleted from all your lists, then added to the suppression list, which keeps them from being imported again.

    Campaign Monitor suggests deleting the subscribers you choose to remove, and keeping unsubscribe for those who asked. A deleted address does not go to the suppression list on its own, so you add it there.

    1. Click Lists & subscribers, then the list you verified.
    2. Click the overflow menu (3 dots) at the top left of the page, then Bulk remove subscribers.
    3. On the Remove subscribers page, select Delete from all lists in the drop-down menu.
    4. Paste the addresses to remove into the text box, one per line, up to 50,000 at a time.
    5. Click Remove subscribers.
    6. Back in Lists & subscribers, click Suppressions in the left menu.
    7. Click Add to suppression list, at the top right.
    8. Choose Enter email addresses, paste the same addresses, one per line, and follow the instructions.
    Review

    They deserve a look before your next campaign.

    Send

    They stay on your list: nothing to do.

    Tip

    Suppressed an address by mistake? Select its checkbox in the suppression list and click Remove from suppression list, then set its status back to Active on the list it was on.

    SourceCampaign Monitor's official help center

Verify each address before it reaches Campaign Monitor

Does your signup form or sync script add subscribers to a Campaign Monitor list through its API, with the Adding a subscriber (opens in a new tab) call? Ask PricklyMails first. If the recommendation is remove, don't add the subscriber.

One call starts the verification and already flags a likely typo, a second one reads the verdict. Depending on your plan, a signed webhook can also send it to you as soon as it's ready.

Request
curl -s https://api.pricklymails.com/api/verify \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pm_live_9f3a..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "email": "ana.silva@gmail.con" }' \
  | jq '{job_uuid, suggestion}'
Response
{
  "job_uuid": "8f1c2a9e-4b7d-4e2a-9c61-3d5f0b7a2e18",
  "suggestion": "ana.silva@gmail.com"
}
Request
curl -s https://api.pricklymails.com/api/verify/$JOB_UUID \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pm_live_9f3a..." \
  | jq '.verifications[0] | {status, reason, score, recommendation}'
Response
{
  "status": "invalid",
  "reason": "no_mx_records",
  "score": 0,
  "recommendation": "remove"
}
Read the API docs

Frequently asked questions

Campaign Monitor already removes hard bounces, so why verify first?

Campaign Monitor's help center says it removes a hard bounced address from your list and adds it to the suppression list: by then the email has gone out and the bounce has counted. It expects a well maintained, permission-based list to see bounce rates of 2% or less per campaign, and abnormally high bounce rates can trigger an approval, which holds your campaign until it is complete. Its migration checklist even suggests running your lists through an email data validation service.

SourceCampaign Monitor's official help center

Should I delete or unsubscribe the addresses to remove?

Delete them. Campaign Monitor's help center suggests unsubscribing the people who asked to be removed and deleting the ones you choose to remove, so you can tell them apart later; either way, the address stops receiving campaigns. A deleted address goes back to Active if it subscribes again, and does not go to the suppression list on its own: adding it there keeps it from being imported by mistake. To erase every trace of a subscriber, reporting data included, the bulk removal also offers Erase permanently from this account.

SourceCampaign Monitor's official help center

Do suppressed addresses count toward my Campaign Monitor bill?

No, unless they are also active on one of your lists. Only active subscribers count toward your subscriber total for billing, across all your lists: deleting the addresses to remove takes them out of that total, and adding them to the suppression list does not put them back in.

SourceCampaign Monitor's official help center

Can a suppressed address come back onto a list?

Yes, one list at a time. The help center lists three ways past the suppression list: the person signs up again through a signup form, your code adds or updates them through the API with Resubscribe set to true, or someone sets their status back to Active. The address stays on the suppression list, which still keeps it out of your other lists. If your signup script sets Resubscribe to true, verify the address before the call.

SourceCampaign Monitor's official help center

Does PricklyMails connect to Campaign Monitor directly?

No, there is no native connector: you go through a file export, as above. You can also call the PricklyMails API from your own code before an address reaches Campaign Monitor.

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Check your list before your next send.

1,000 tokens free when you sign up, no credit card. After that, you only pay for answers.

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