Verify Your Customer List Before a Price Increase or Policy Change Notice
Before a price increase or policy notice, verify the customer list and reach the customers whose addresses are dead by another route. A promotion that lands in a dead inbox costs a sale. A notice that lands there can cost more: the customer pays a new price they were never told about, or keeps using a service under terms that have changed.
Why this email is different
Most of your email is optional for the reader. This one is not. You need it delivered, and you may need to show that you sent it. Two things follow:
- Aim for the highest delivery you can get, which means removing addresses you know will fail before the send.
- Have a plan for the people who will not receive it, which you only have if you find them first.
Step 1: Export the customers who will get the notice
Pull the list from your billing system or CRM: everyone affected by the change, with the email on the account, a second contact if you hold one, and the plan or product they are on. Stripe customers, Shopify and HubSpot all export to CSV.
Keep a customer ID in the file. You will need it to match results back to accounts.
Step 2: Verify every address
First see what is on the list: the email list send tier splitter sorts addresses by shape and shows the rows with syntax errors or typo domains that need a fix before any check. Then upload the file on the verify page. You get valid, risky or invalid for every address, with a reason. Then split the file three ways:
| Result | Meaning | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Valid | A mailbox exists | Send the notice |
| Risky | Could not be confirmed, often a company domain that accepts all mail | Send, and watch for bounces; add a second route if the customer matters |
| Invalid | No mailbox or no mail server | The notice will not arrive. Reach them another way |
Match the results back to your accounts with the customer ID. Merging verification results back into your lead sheet shows how.
Step 3: Deal with the invalid rows, not just suppress them
For marketing mail you suppress an invalid address and move on. For a notice, the customer behind that address is the one you have to reach. For each one:
- Another email on the account. A billing contact, a team address or an owner's second address.
- An in-app or in-account notice. A banner on login that has to be acknowledged, if your product has a login.
- A phone call or text where you hold a number and have the right to use it.
- Post, for customers where nothing else works.
- Ask on the next contact. Support tickets and payments are chances to update the address.
Record what you did for each account. If a customer says later that they were not told, that record is your answer.
Step 4: Check the typos you can fix
Many invalid rows are typos made when the customer signed up: gmial.com, hotmial.com, a missing letter. Finding typo domains in an email list shows how to spot them. If the correction is obvious, fix it and check it again. If it is not obvious, do not guess an address for a customer you must reach; a notice sent to the wrong person is its own problem.
Step 5: Send, and watch what comes back
Send the notice from the address your customers know. Then, for a few days:
- Read the bounces. Any new hard bounce is a customer who has still not been told. Remove bounced emails from a list covers handling them.
- Watch replies and support tickets. Questions about a change you announced mean the message arrived and was read; silence from an important account means check.
- Keep the evidence: the send date, the list size and the follow-up for each undeliverable address.
Keep it separate from marketing
Do not put promotions in the notice, and do not send the notice through the same stream that carries your marketing if you can avoid it. A bounce on one should not hurt the other. Do Gmail's sender rules apply to transactional email? explains how large mailbox providers see the difference.
What verification cannot do
It cannot confirm that the person at the address is the person who needs to see it. A mailbox can exist and belong to someone who left the customer's company years ago. For important accounts, a named contact and a second route are worth more than a green tick.
It also cannot decide how much notice you owe, in what form, or for how long before a change. That depends on your terms and the rules where your customers are. Read those before you plan the timing.
A simple timeline
- Eight weeks out: export and verify the list.
- Six weeks out: contact the accounts with invalid addresses by another route.
- Four weeks out: send the notice to everyone with a working address.
- Three weeks out: read bounces and replies, and chase any account still unreached.
- Change date: confirm every account has been reached or has a record of the attempt.
Adjust the gaps to what your terms and local rules require; the order is what matters.
Check the list
Upload the customer list on the verify page well before the notice date: 100 free checks, Google sign-in, no card.
Common questions
Why verify a list before a price increase notice?
Because a notice that never arrives can become a dispute. If you know in advance which addresses are dead, you can reach those customers another way before the change takes effect.
Should I remove invalid addresses from a customer list?
Suppress them for email, but keep the customer record. They are still customers who need the notice, so find another contact for them.
Is this a transactional email?
It depends on the content and the rules that apply to you. Many senders treat a notice about the terms of an existing service differently from marketing. Do not rely on that without checking your own terms and local rules.
How early should I verify?
Early enough to act on the result: at least a few weeks before the notice goes out, so there is time to contact the customers whose addresses are dead.
Check your list before you send
Real mailbox checks over SMTP, and nothing is sent to the address. Sign in with Google and your first 100 email checks are free, no card. Plans for bigger lists are on the pricing page.