Zombie email is a neither inactive nor active email.

Inactive emails will be immediately marked as bounced by email marketing services such as KIRIM.EMAIL. It indicates that we can no longer send emails to an address.

You can learn about bounce email here.

The inactive email could be due to two things: The email has become technically expired (automatically turned off by Gmail after a while of inactivity). The second possibility is that the user may no longer use an email address because they have a new email address.

Later this email will be full of capacity, and then bounce, or will not be sent by email marketing services such as KIRIM.EMAIL.

It happened in small numbers of the email address. The marketers don’t need to worry. There’s a bigger source of Zombie Email: Gmail.

The Danger of Zombie Email

The origin of the outbreak Zombie Email started from Gmail.

Gmail was the first free email service to provide up to 1GB of storage. Several years later, Gmail increased the storage capacity to 15GB, merging with Google Drive.

Even the email address is not accessed, it won’t be called as an inactive email. It’ll still receive emails every day. When the storage of an email isn’t running out, it means the email won’t bounce.

So, what happens to the email blasts that keep being sent to these Zombie Email addresses? Some of it will go to SPAM. The number of emails that go to SPAM will continue to increase because there is no interaction from Zombie Email.

Disadvantages Caused by Zombie Email

The direct disadvantage of Zombie Email is increased email marketing costs. Zombie Email will make the number of your email database swell. The number of Zombie Emails depends on your email database.

The indirect disadvantages are the Lower open rate.

In the past, my average open rate was 16-17%. After I disposed of those thousands of zombie emails, the open rate immediately jumped more than 33%.
It means that I misjudged my email database. I made mistakes in judging the effectiveness of my email marketing campaign due to this Zombie Email.
And all this Zombie Email activity is going to lead to the worst possible point: Increasing SPAM.

Super Zombie Email

The most devastating type of Zombie Email is Super Zombie Email. Super Zombie Email is modified by a spam filtration company. To attack by infiltrating their email list. It is also called the Spam Trap.

Its have the same behavior as regular Zombie Email, but Super Zombie Email can be much more devastating. If accidentally, the email is sent to this Spam Trap, then the person may not be able to send an email blast at all.

Zombie Email Solution

Currently, no system can 100% determine which is a Zombie Email, and not. If someone managed to destroy his Zombie Email today, maybe tomorrow it will come in again. Therefore, regular cleaning should be done within a certain period. The best solution is to let them go.

There are two fastest ways to destroy Zombie Emails:

  1. The first way: Zombie Email Removal at KIRIM.EMAIL
    This feature will automatically delete Zombie Emails stored in your email database.
  2. Second way: Using a Verifier email service:
    This app will verify an active email, inactive email, or zombie email. It’ll delete it from your database.
    If the database you have is large enough, a service it’ll increase the cost. But from my experience, the results are good and fast.

Prevent Zombie Emails From Coming in Again

  1. Use double opt-in or magic opt-in

Double opt-in is the person who registered their email address to your form must verify their email by clicking the link.

Meanwhile, simple opt-in is a feature in KIRIM.EMAIL. You can send gifts (commonly called lead magnets) while they confirm the email.
You can learn more here.

  1. Resend Confirmation

It could be someone that registered their email but hasn’t confirmed yet. You can resend the confirmation email so they can reconfirm.

Learn more here.

Let Them Go

In the end, it is according to you as the owner of the email database.

No matter how good Zombie Email Removal is, it will be no benefit if the marketer can’t let their email database go and decrease for the higher quality database.

Zombie email will infect other email databases and reduce the ability to send a promotional email blast from a business. It will increase the chances of promotional emails getting SPAM. There is no reason for someone to keep this Zombie Email in their database list. Let it go.

Even if the owner of this Zombie Email wants to be your email database again, there is a possibility they used a new email. Let Zombie Email go from your database, keep your database clean, without any contamination.