You’re about to launch a campaign and wondering if should you activate catch-all or not.
Catch-all will allow you to get more suggested emails but at a risk of increased bounce rates.
Want to know how to make the right decision? Let's get down to business with Adrien
Table of contents :
What is a catch-all email?
To understand what catch-all is, let’s rewind back to how professional email enrichment work using LGM: When leads enrichment is enabled in your campaign, your identity will visit the lead and extract information necessary to test emails, namely :
First Name
Last Name
Current Company URL
Current Company website
Since we now know the full name of the lead and the company he’s working for, La Growth Machine will then proceed to test a lot of different permutations of the first name, last name, and company domain. For example, we’ll test :
{{first.letter.of.firstname}}{{lastname}}@{{companydomain.com}}
And so on…
But wait, does it mean we’re sending emails to these to test? Not.
We ping the server to request “Does this email exist within your database”. And the server will reply yes or no. There is a catch! If it doesn't always work. It depends on the server’s configuration :
Catch-all Server: if the server is configured in “Catch-all”, it will catch everything, meaning it will always reply “Yes this email exists”.
This means that if the server is in catch-all, we won’t be able to verify the email.
By default, La Growth Machine will never provide an email that we haven’t been able to verify, so whenever a server is in catch-all, we will not provide the email.
Should you want to have Catch-All suggested emails, you can activate them in your campaign settings.
Non-Catch-All Server: when the server is NOT in catch-all, it will only reply to the truth. Either “Yes it exists” or “No it doesn’t”.
This means that whenever it’s NOT in catch-all, we will test out dozen of permutations until it finally matches with an email existing in their data
Our GDPR-compliant partner DropContact realizes all of our professional email enrichment.
TLDR: catch-all is a server configuration that doesn’t allow us to verify the emails.
What’s the risk of using catch-all emails?
Now that you know allowing for catch-all emails means we will be providing you with unverified emails, you probably came up to the logical conclusion yourself: we will be providing you with suggested emails, based on publicly identified patterns and guesses.
For example :
For many companies, patterns are well-known so, even though we won’t be able to verify them, we know their pattern and will provide you with emails
Big corporate companies tend to have a {{firstname}}.{{lastname}}@{{companydomain.com}} pattern. Using LinkedIn’s data, LGM will automatically match the company size with the preferable pattern.
Small companies tend to have {{firstname}}@{{companydomain.com}} patterns, and so forth
But all of these emails won’t be verified, and they will be errors, leading to a bounce. As you know by now, having read our guidelines on bounces, bounce is the enemy!
A bounce rate that is too high may damage your domain’s reputation.
Too high a bounce rate for prolonged periods may lead your email to end up in spam.
What’s too high? Anything above 8-12%.
Of course, volume is also a factor. It’s ok if it’s for dozens of emails per week.
But if you’re sending hundreds of emails per week, then you can’t afford to have a high bounce rate.
What’s the reward of using catch-all emails?
Simple: more enriched emails. You’ll probably reach 60%-70% enriched emails.
Why not 100%? Because if we have no available data to provide you with intelligible suggestions, we’re not going to provide you with an email. That would be too risky.
When should I use catch-all emails?
High risk, high reward. Now that you know everything, when should you risk it?
Again, common sense applies :
What’s your current enrichment rate?
If you already have 40-50% verified emails not using catch-all, adding catch-all emails doesn’t make sense.
It won’t be yielding a lot more emails while exposing you to a greater bounce rate.
If your enrichment rate is below 40%, you may start thinking about leveraging catch-all emails
Is your target go-to-market email dependent?
Using La Growth Machine, you can engage a prospect on many channels. Are you engaging leads using LinkedIn or Email first? Don’t know, you should probably read our article about which channel should I use first.
If you’re emailing first, because you believe your leads are more likely to reply via Email instead of LinkedIn, and your enrichment rate is subpar, then activate catch-all emails.
Do you have a higher reply rate on Email than on LinkedIn? You might be more dependent on emails than you think too
Is your target account big corporates?
Big corporations tend to have their email server set up as a catch-all. But their patterns are also well-known. It’s not such a high risk to activate catch-all emails!
How to activate catch-all emails?
By default, La Growth Machine will never provide an email that we haven’t been able to verify, so whenever a server is in catch-all, we will not provide the email.
Should you want to have catch-all-suggested emails, you can activate them in your campaign settings.
Don't forget to check Business Emails also (otherwise we will not be allowed to send pro emails)
Click on the gear
Activate the "Send email to Catch all Emails"
