#180 · the new 2026 ai automation service you can sell today
I don’t verify on the first campaign—I just rely on the verification column in tools like Apollo or Vain. Once I’ve figured out which campaigns, audiences, and offers work, I then use a dedicated third‑party email verifier on the second campaign to clean the list and maximize results.
Using raw Apollo scraped emails hurts deliverability, so it’s risky. I still do it sometimes to get campaigns up quickly, but I mitigate risk by using a cheap done‑for‑you mailbox provider (~$3.50 per mailbox). I launch campaigns fast, verify they work on the first send, turn off bounce‑rate pausing, and only start verifying email lists after I’ve confirmed initial interest. My first approach is always run‑and‑gun.
There are a couple of free email-validation alternatives, but they're not great — Lumbrid is one, though it's overly aggressive and flags a lot of good emails as bad. Depending on which Apollo/Apify scraper you're using, I'd recommend two things: pull personal emails alongside business ones (I weave both in and actually get a higher reply rate from personal addresses, and it lifts overall deliverability too), and either run an email verifier or just turn off the feature that auto-pauses your campaign at a bounce-rate threshold — Instantly will warn you it hurts deliverability, but on the campaign from my “watch me start and sell an AI service in 10 hours” video, I raw-dogged the Apify/Apollo export with zero validation and I'm still sitting at a 4% reply rate with healthy mailboxes. So you can just raw-dog it like I did.
He confirms that Instantly has a built‑in provider matching feature that automatically detects the lead’s inbox type and routes the email accordingly, so you don’t need separate campaigns.
I use several email verification tools, but I don’t rely on them exclusively. Deliverability isn’t black‑and‑white; it’s a gradient where strong copy can offset a higher bounce rate. When I launch a campaign I prioritize volume and strong copy over upfront verification—great copy pushes results forward, while invalid emails pull them back. I also weigh the trade‑off of including links (which hurt deliverability) against adding customized assets that provide value; the latter often outweighs the former, which is why I recommend asset‑based outreach combined with strong copy. For high bounce‑rate pauses, I simply turn off strict verification and accept a higher bounce rate because my copy is strong enough to balance it. This isn’t optimal, but I favor speed and agility—getting campaigns live quickly—then later add validation (e.g., Mails.so, NeverBounce) once the offer is proven. Maker School offers 250,000 free verification credits for completing an application, which is worth checking out.