Spent $400 on a list of C-suite emails that bounced like crazy

Bought a targeted B2B contact list from a data broker last quarter and almost 60% of the emails bounced within a week. Has anyone else had better luck with a specific provider or just building lists in-house from scratch?

3 comments

3 Comments

elizabeth_ramirez1h ago

@the_blair is right that 60% bounce rate is rough, but I gotta push back on the idea that Sales Navigator exports are always cleaner. LinkedIn scrapes are still based on people's self-reported job titles, and those lists get stale fast too. I've had plenty of Sales Nav exports where the email addresses turned out to be wrong because people changed jobs or the tool guessed wrong. The real trick is using a service like ZoomInfo or Lusha that actually verifies contacts in real time, not just a static list from a data broker. Even then, you should still plan on 10-15% bounce rate because that's just how B2B data works. Building in-house from scratch is slower but way more reliable, especially if you validate each email before you send.

the_blair2h ago

60% bounce rate is brutal, I'd be livid over $400 down the drain like that. Data brokers are a gamble at best, they scrape outdated info and sell it as fresh. Building a list from scratch is slower but at least you know the contacts are real people who actually exist.

kim_martin1h ago

Yeah, skip the brokers and build lists from LinkedIn Sales Navigator exports instead.