What should you do?

Of its 4.5 million email accounts, Verizon has stated that approximately 2.3 million are active, meaning they have been accessed in the last 30 days. There is no current estimate of how many users will opt to migrate to AOL, retaining their “verizon.net” addresses, versus switching providers or simply being deleted.

Senders can choose to see this shift as an opportunity to reengage with leads, prospects, and clients. By assessing your databases for Verizon contacts, you can prompt users to update their information in preparation for the upcoming changes, minimizing any disconnections or data loss when Verizon finalizes the email closures. This type of engagement management ensures high deliverability to ISPs, especially those with high customer churn (due to users changing providers).

Since no marketer wants to see bounce rates rise, list hygiene is also essential. For Alterian Email Manager clients, our default health scoring options will automatically handle this. Otherwise, examine your bounce logs for Verizon hard bounces and be sure to remove these from your email list to avoid penalties from your provider.

Keep calm and keep marketing

While Verizon hasn’t provided a hard and fast timeline for this migration, adaptive marketers can proactively reconnect with contacts and ensure a smooth transition by simply reaching out to contacts and maintaining tidy lists. So, go forth and email!