Salesforce Email Verification Made Simple: Boost Accuracy, Compliance, and ROI

Introduction

Have you ever hit “send” on an important email campaign only to discover half of your emails bounced back? It’s frustrating, costly, and damaging to your reputation.

That’s what most businesses are dealing with. Research shows that 1 out of 6 marketing emails remains undelivered. Thus, email deliverability has been a matter of concern for marketers. 

Low email deliverability can result from unverified email lists. Thus, verified email addresses of prospects result in higher email deliverability and better ROI.  

If you are using Salesforce Flow builder for launching a marketing campaign, you might want to hit emails to accurate email addresses. So, how do you verify emails on Salesforce? 

In this blog, we’ll give you a detailed step-by-step guide on how to verify emails on Salesforce and how to work with the Flow builder for higher email deliverability.

What is Email Verification?

Email verification is the process of confirming the authenticity and validity of an email address before using it for communication. It ensures that the email is deliverable and belongs to a legitimate domain or user. 

The process involves several checks:

1. Syntax validation – Ensuring the address follows proper email formatting (e.g., name@domain.com).
2. Domain/MX record verification – Confirming the domain exists and has valid mail exchange (MX) records.
3. Disposable/role-based detection – Identifying temporary emails (e.g., from Mailinator) or generic ones (e.g., info@, support@).
4. Mailbox existence – Testing whether the specific mailbox is active and capable of receiving messages.

Importance of Email Verification in Salesforce

Salesforce collects various types of data, including social profiles, email addresses, and other information. However, the quality of data can largely impact the business outcomes. 

That’s why email verification should be an integral part of any lead process.

1. Improved Deliverability

When invalid or inactive email addresses exist in your Salesforce database, every email you send carries a higher risk of bouncing back. High bounce rates trigger red flags with Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who then begin to see your organization as a potential spammer. 

This damages your sender’s reputation, which is notoriously difficult to repair. Even legitimate emails to valid customers can then be filtered into spam folders, effectively shutting down your communication pipeline. 

By verifying emails within Salesforce, you can proactively prevent these issues and build a reputation as a trusted sender.

2. Accurate Reporting and Analytics

Salesforce is a powerful engine for tracking campaign performance, from open rates and click-through rates to conversions. However, if a significant portion of your emails is undeliverable, your reports will show inflated bounce numbers and skewed engagement metrics. 

For example, a campaign might appear to have a low open rate not because your subject line was weak, but because many recipients never received the email in the first place. 

With verified email addresses, the data you see in Salesforce is a reflection of audience behavior. This gives marketers and sales leaders confidence to make strategic adjustments based on facts, not flawed numbers.

3. Cost Efficiency

Every record in Salesforce represents a cost. Whether it’s storage fees, data enrichment efforts, or the expense of pushing records into third-party email marketing platforms, invalid emails consume resources without offering any return.

Many marketing automation tools charge based on the number of contacts or emails sent, meaning that sending to fake or invalid addresses directly drains the budget. 

Organizations can dramatically reduce waste, streamline lists, and ensure that every dollar spent on campaigns targets a valid, reachable recipient. 

4. Enhanced Customer Experience

Email verification ensures that your messages actually arrive in your customers’ inboxes, which is the first step in building meaningful engagement. Imagine sending an exclusive offer or critical account update that never reaches the intended recipient. That’s a lost opportunity and a negative brand impression. 

Verification helps guarantee that communications are reliable, timely, and relevant. This, in turn, strengthens trust, demonstrates professionalism, and creates a smoother customer journey from the very first touchpoint.

5. Regulatory Compliance

With global data regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and CAN-SPAM, organizations are under increasing pressure to ensure the accuracy and integrity of their customer data. Sending to invalid or non-permission-based emails isn’t just bad practice. 

It can lead to legal consequences, fines, and reputational damage. Email verification adds an essential compliance layer by weeding out addresses that may be risky, fraudulent, or unverified. 

For Salesforce users, this means they can confidently run campaigns knowing that they align with regulatory requirements, reducing risk while safeguarding brand integrity.

How does Salesforce help with Email Verification?

Salesforce provides several mechanisms, both native and extendable, that support email verification. While some features address only the basics, others can be expanded through automation or third-party solutions. 

Here’s a deeper look:

1. Validation Rules

Admins can set up validation rules to check email syntax before a record is saved. For example, a rule can ensure that every email contains an “@” symbol, a domain, and a valid extension like “.com” or “.org.” 

This prevents obvious errors such as “john.doe@@company” or “user@domain” from slipping through.

While validation rules can’t confirm whether the mailbox actually exists, they help enforce data discipline at the point of entry.

2. Flows and Process Automation

Salesforce Flow Builder allows businesses to automate more sophisticated email verification processes. For instance, whenever a new lead or contact is added, a flow can be triggered to call an external verification service through an API. 

The response from that service (e.g., valid, invalid, disposable, or role-based) can be written back to a custom field in Salesforce, giving teams immediate visibility into the quality of the data.

Flows can also be used for batch updates. An administrator might schedule a flow to run nightly or weekly, checking unverified records and tagging them for review or automatic cleanup.

3. AppExchange Solutions

While Salesforce provides the tools, many organizations prefer turnkey solutions. AppExchange, Salesforce’s marketplace, offers numerous apps built specifically for email verification. These solutions plug directly into Salesforce, enabling real-time checks at the point of entry and large-scale verification of existing databases.

4. APIs and External Integrations

Salesforce allows developers to connect with external email verification services through REST or SOAP APIs. These integrations can be embedded into flows, ensuring that every email entered into the system is verified automatically.

Developers can create custom Apex classes or flows that send email addresses from Salesforce to a verification service and retrieve the results in real time.

This approach is useful for businesses that already have a preferred verification vendor or need to meet industry-specific requirements.

The Problem with Salesforce Email Verification

Users can manually set up the email verification in Salesforce. However, this becomes tough for bulk users. 

In fact, after the Salesforce Summer’24 edition, various organizations have reported the issue where emails generated through Salesforce were being blocked for users who had a reply-to email address set up under User Settings.

And, this isn’t the only challenge with the email verifier. There are certain challenges that users may face when verifying Salesforce email: 

Email Deliverability Issues

Verification emails sometimes never reach users and land in spam/junk folders or are blocked by corporate firewalls. 

Organizations with strict email security (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) can see higher bounce or rejection rates. This leads to delays in user onboarding and frustration when users assume Salesforce itself is unreliable.

Certain organizations have faced incomplete email delivery because of DMARC, resulting in a bounce rate of 10-20%. 

Link Expiration & Reliability

The verification links Salesforce sends expire quickly, frustrating users who don’t act immediately. Some users report links not working at all, particularly in branded/custom domains for Salesforce Communities (Experience Cloud). This forces admins to resend links multiple times, creating inefficiency and confusion.

Admin & Support Overhead

Resending or resetting verification is not always straightforward for admins. Support teams have to manually verify email addresses or troubleshoot domain/DNS setups. This repetitive workload adds to admin fatigue and distracts from more strategic Salesforce management tasks.

Inconsistent Behavior Across Releases

Seasonal Salesforce updates (e.g., Winter or Summer releases) sometimes change verification requirements. For example, some updates enforce stricter verification before notifications or login, causing mixed experiences across orgs. These unexpected shifts force admins to re-test and adjust user flows each release cycle.

Shared & Corporate Domains

For companies using shared inboxes or strict internal domains, verification can fail or be bypassed. This complicates rollout for large organizations with non-standard email setups. It also undermines trust in the verification process when users find inconsistent results based on domain type.

Thus, using a third-party email validation tool, such as MassMailer, allows organizations to seamlessly verify their emails in real-time.

Using MassMailer with Salesforce Email Verification

MassMailer is a native Salesforce app that offers a built-in email verifier system. It allows users to verify the email list in a campaign or with the Salesforce Flow. 

Salesforce Appexchange MassMailer Listing Page View

It offers features such as automated verification, customizable verification options, real-time status updates, and automated suppression.

Here are some of the main features of email verification in MassMailer:

• MassMailer lets you verify emails for any standard or custom objects using the Salesforce Process Builder or Flow Builder.
• The platform allows you to track the verification status at the object level in a custom related field.
• You can also auto-suppress Invalid, Abuse, Spam Traps, and Do-Not-Email status.

How to Verify Emails Using MassMailer?

Now that you understand the importance of email verification, let’s read the steps for verifying emails in Salesforce with MassMailer.

Step 1:Verify Emails from the List View

Verifying emails directly from Salesforce’s List View is a breeze with MassMailer. Here’s how you do it:

1. Navigate to the List View: Launch Salesforce and navigate to the list view of the object (Contacts, Leads, or any custom object) where you want to check emails.

2. Select the Records: Select the records you want to verify. You can choose to include all records in the view or just a select few, based on what you need.

3. Click MassMailer Verify: In the MassMailer app, click on the “MassMailer Verify” button.

4. Select the Email Field: Select the email field you wish to validate (for example, primary email).

5. Set Verification Parameters: Use the date filter to exclude emails that have already undergone verification within a specified timeframe, focusing on new or unverified emails.

6. Submit: Click “Submit” to begin the email verification process. MassMailer will efficiently validate all selected emails in bulk.

Step 2: Verify Emails from Campaigns

MassMailer allows you to verify email addresses in Salesforce campaigns, ensuring that your messages only go to valid recipients:

1. Open the Campaign: In Salesforce, head over to the campaign you want to verify.

2 . Select MassMailer Verify: Click the “MassMailer Verify” button in the MassMailer app. MassMailer will refresh the campaign members’ records to reflect their verification status, indicating which emails are valid or invalid.

Step 3: Automate Email Verification for New Leads

Salesforce shines with its automation capabilities, and MassMailer takes full advantage of this by offering automatic email verification. 

Here’s how to set up automation in MassMailer for the new leads: 

1. Set Up a Salesforce Flow or Process Builder: Use Salesforce’s automation tools to create a process that kicks in when a new lead comes in.
2. Invoke MassMailer’s Apex Action: MassMailer offers a unique Apex action that you can incorporate into your process or flow. This action automatically initiates email verification as soon as the lead enters your system.
3. Monitor the Verification Status: As soon as a new lead is created, MassMailer will seamlessly verify the email and refresh the status on the lead record.

Conclusion

Email remains one of the most powerful communication channels for businesses, but its success depends heavily on data quality. In Salesforce, where email is central to lead nurturing, customer engagement, and campaign management, ensuring valid addresses is non-negotiable.

MassMailer stands out as a top-notch email validation platform for Salesforce that integrates directly with the CRM to bulk verify emails. Its automation capabilities help with automated emails from the Salesforce process builder. 

Above all, its out-of-the-box reports make it a worthy pick for marketers for analyzing their email campaigns. 

Read to deliver the emails to the right place and keep your bounce rates in check? Sign up for MassMailer for 15-days to try the email verifier. 

FAQs on Email Verification in Salesforce

1. Does Salesforce verify emails automatically?

No, Salesforce does not provide full email verification out of the box. It can validate basic syntax through its Email field type and validation rules, but for advanced verification (like checking if a mailbox exists), you’ll need to integrate third-party services or use apps from the AppExchange.

2. How can I set up basic email verification in Salesforce?

You can start by creating validation rules that check for proper formatting (e.g., presence of “@” and “.com”) and use Salesforce’s standard Email field type. For more advanced needs, you can configure Flows or Process Builder to trigger external verification services.

3. What happens if I send emails to invalid addresses from Salesforce?

Sending to invalid emails increases bounce rates, damages sender reputation, and can lead to your emails being flagged as spam. This reduces deliverability and weakens the impact of marketing or sales campaigns.

4. Can Salesforce Flow Builder handle email verification?

Yes, but only as part of an integrated process. Flow Builder can trigger verification steps by connecting to external APIs or AppExchange apps. On its own, Flow Builder cannot check mailbox existence; it simply orchestrates automation.

5. How often should I verify emails in Salesforce?

The best practice is to verify emails at the point of entry (when leads or contacts are created) and run regular batch verifications of your existing database. This ensures that new data is clean and older records remain up to date, as people frequently change or abandon email addresses.

6. Does email verification help with compliance?

Yes. Verifying emails helps organizations stay compliant with data privacy and communication laws (GDPR, CAN-SPAM, CCPA). It reduces the risk of contacting fake, unconsented, or fraudulent addresses, which could expose businesses to penalties.