A personalization token that renders wrong — “Dear VP of Sales” to someone who has been SVP for eight months — is not a minor issue. It tells the recipient you are working from stale data, which is the opposite of the impression you want on a first touch.
The deliverability risk rating and bounce estimate give the campaign manager a single number to act on before scheduling. And the company-level flag is the output that changes behaviour beyond this campaign: when several contacts at the same account all show title changes, that is an org restructure, and it means the rest of your records for that company are probably stale too.
Repeated hard bounces damage sender reputation, and that damage outlasts the campaign that caused it. Validating costs 1 credit per 25 contacts. A damaged sending domain costs considerably more.
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FAQ
How do I check a contact list before sending a campaign?
Validate three things per row: whether the person is still at the company, whether the email address is still deliverable, and whether the title still matches any personalization token you are using. The third is the one people skip, and it is the one that produces a technically successful send that reads as obviously stale to the recipient.
How many credits does validating a contact list cost?
1 credit per batch of up to 25 contacts, so a 200-contact list is 8. Re-revealing a corrected email costs 1 credit per contact, and only for rows that need correcting. On a healthy list that is a small share of the total, which is why validating before every send is affordable rather than something to save for large campaigns.
Does UPDATE FIRST mean I have to delay the campaign?
No, it means fixing a field before the send rather than after the reply. UPDATE FIRST is a token problem, not a deliverability problem — the email will arrive, it will just address someone by a title they left behind. Update the field in your sending tool and schedule as planned.
What if 20% or more of my list is DO NOT SEND?
Treat it as a list problem rather than a row problem. A fifth of contacts departed usually means the list is old enough that the remaining 80% is also drifting — titles stale, companies restructured, seniority wrong. Rebuild from current data rather than sending to the survivors, and check whether the source that produced this list is still worth using.
What counts as a title change that breaks personalization?
Anything that changes what the token renders. VP to SVP breaks {{title}}. A scope expansion — VP RevOps to SVP covering AR and RevOps — breaks it twice over, because the title is wrong and the remit reference in your copy is now too narrow. A lateral move within the same title does not break the token but may change whether the person is still the right recipient.
Why do several contacts at the same company all show title changes?
That is usually a restructure rather than a coincidence, and it is worth acting on beyond this campaign. If three contacts at one account all changed titles in the same window, the account has reorganized, which means your other records there are likely stale and there may be new decision-makers who are not on your list at all. Re-map the account before the next campaign rather than patching row by row.
