Four ways to block damaging disposable email addresses
Guest blog by Barley Laing, the UK Managing Director at Melissa
Email is critical to business growth. It is a standout communications channel because of its ability to quickly and cost effectively deliver personalised communications. This in turn supports the selling of products and services, along with building profitable ongoing relationships with customers.
Proliferation of disposable emails
However, the growing popularity of disposable email addresses, driven by evolving technology, is rapidly damaging the usefulness of email as part of the sales and marking mix, as an increasing number of people set up inboxes that are live for ten minutes to up to a few days.
Consumers are embracing throwaway email addresses to safeguard their privacy, avoid having their email data shared and to dodge marketing communications. A number are even attracted by the opportunity for trial offer abuse!
In some cases it’s been estimated that 30 – 40 per cent of website signups are using disposable email addresses. This is backed up by a report from HTF Market Intelligence that predicts the global disposable email tool market will grow by 14.6 per cent a year, reaching a market size of $1.02 billion by 2033.
What throwaway emails cost business
Disposable emails are costly to any organisation, mainly because they cause poor customer email data quality, resulting in a wasted marketing budget due to the amount invested in lead conversion, storing data and marketing activity targeted at customers.
Also, business intelligence can be distorted with fake signups skewing signup and purchase funnel metrics, as well as A/B test results, leading to flawed decision-making.
Trial abuse is another big and costly issue with an estimated 20 per cent of ‘new’ signups to promotional campaigns returning customers using disposable emails to take advantage of first time user discounts.
Furthermore, with no knowledge of the real identity behind those with a throwaway email it can be used as a cover for fraud, with email addresses created just days before a transaction thought to be 25 times more likely to be fraudulent.
One of the most significant issues caused by disposable email addresses are bounce rates which can destroy the sender’s reputation. High email bounce rates are penalised via internet and email service providers like Gmail and Yahoo. If bounce rates hit five per cent then emails from the sender are likely to go straight to spam folders, or even blocked.
A four layer defence system is recommended
To protect against disposable email addresses and better understand the data being submitted implement a four-layer defence system.
- Stop bad data at the door. To this end implement a real time email verification process with a global reach that validates email syntax, domain activity and disposable risk in milliseconds at the onboarding stage. It must be able to reject known email address throwaways instantly, and flag privacy relay and alias emails for monitoring before a purchase or signup information is accepted. It’s a cost effective way to prevent disposable emails from entering your systems, and is far more effective than relying on manual checks or static blocklists for email verification. Not only is a manual approach more costly, time consuming and liable to human error, but it can’t keep up with evolving threats.
- Clean existing customer email address data, because most organisations will already have disposable or expired emails in their databases. Therefore, undertake bulk email verification across CRM and marketing lists to source invalid, risky and disposable addresses in real time. There’s often a dramatic reduction in email bounce rates once these have been identified, isolated and removed.
- Apply friction to the signup process without damaging the user experience. For example, the delivery of double opt-in confirmation emails sent after the initial sign-up process. This way genuine users with be distinguished from those using disposable email addresses that will expire before verification can be completed.
- With contact data quality on customer databases deteriorating at around 25 per cent a year maintaining ongoing email data hygiene is essential. Therefore, schedule regular reverification of emails, proactively monitor engagement and suppress those email addresses that consistently fail to open or click across multiple campaigns.
In summary
To combat fast evolving email abuse tactics organisations should take the four steps outlined above. This way they can they ensure that email remains a trusted, high performing growth channel, while minimising the costly operational and financial damage disposable email addresses can cause.
This guest blog was written by Barley Laing, the UK Managing Director at Melissa. To learn more about Melissa please visit their LinkedIn page.
Cyber Resilience Programme activities
techUK brings together key players across the cyber security sector to promote leading-edge UK capabilities, build networks and grow the sector. techUK members have the opportunity to network, share ideas and collaborate, enabling the industry as a whole to address common challenges and opportunities together. Visit the programme page here.
Upcoming events
Latest news and insights
Learn more and get involved
Cyber Resilience updates
Sign-up to get the latest updates and opportunities from our Cyber Resilience programme.
Meet the team
Jill Broom
Head of Cyber Resilience, techUK
Jill leads the techUK Cyber Resilience programme, having originally joined techUK in October 2020 as a Programme Manager for the Cyber and Central Government programmes. She is responsible for managing techUK's work across the cyber security ecosystem, bringing industry together with key stakeholders across the public and private sectors. Jill also provides the industry secretariat for the Cyber Growth Partnership, the industry and government conduit for supporting the growth of the sector. A key focus of her work is to strengthen the public–private partnership across cyber to support further development of UK cyber security and resilience policy.
Before joining techUK, Jill worked as a Senior Caseworker for an MP, advocating for local communities, businesses and individuals, so she is particularly committed to techUK’s vision of harnessing the power of technology to improve people’s lives. Jill is also an experienced editorial professional and has delivered copyediting and writing services for public-body and SME clients as well as publishers.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Website:
- www.techuk.org/
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jill-broom-19aa824
Read lessmore
Annie Collings
Senior Programme Manager, Cyber Resilience, techUK
Annie is the Programme Manager for Cyber Resilience at techUK. She first joined as the Programme Manager for Cyber Security and Central Government in September 2023.
In her role, Annie supports the Cyber Security SME Forum, engaging regularly with key government and industry stakeholders to advance the growth and development of SMEs in the cyber sector. Annie also coordinates events, engages with policy makers and represents techUK at a number of cyber security events.
Before joining techUK, Annie was an Account Manager at a specialist healthcare agency, where she provided public affairs support to a wide range of medical technology clients. She also gained experience as an intern in both an MP’s constituency office and with the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed. Annie holds a degree in International Relations from Nottingham Trent University.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Twitter:
- anniecollings24
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-collings-270150158/
Read lessmore
Olivia Staples
Junior Programme Manager - Cyber Resilience, techUK
Olivia Staples joined techUK in May 2025 as a Junior Programme Manager in the Cyber Resilience team.
She supports the programs mission to promote cyber resilience by engaging key commercial and government stakeholders to shape the cyber resilience policy towards increased security and industry growth. Olivia assists in member engagement, event facilitation and communications support.
Before joining techUK, Olivia gained experience in research, advocacy, and strategic communications across several international organisations. At the Munich Security Conference, she supported stakeholder engagement and contributed to strategic communications. She also worked closely with local and national government stakeholders in Spain and Italy, where she was involved in policy monitoring and advocacy for both public and private sector clients.
Olivia holds an MSc in Political Science (Comparative Politics and Conflict Studies) from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a BA in Spanish and Latin American Studies from University College London (UCL).
Outside of tech, Olivia enjoys volunteering with local charities and learning Norwegian.
- Email:
- [email protected]
Read lessmore
Authors
Barley Laing
UK Managing Director, Melissa
Barley Laing established and leads the UK office of US-headquartered global data quality and ID verification business, Melissa.
As Managing Director, with 28 years of technology and data industry experience, his role is focused on meeting the data quality, address and ID/compliance needs for organisations in the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, and worldwide.
The team that Barley heads up provides data consultancy, sales and technical support across their wide range of market leading web services, apps, SaaS and on-premise software solutions. These help organisations to deliver efficient multichannel customer engagement; onboarding; build customer loyalty; optimise organisational efficiency; and deliver data management and ID verification to meet Know your Customer (KYC), Know your Business (KYB) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements.
Under his leadership Melissa’s UK office has achieved sustained double digit growth over the last six years, including 20% growth in 2022, 25% in 2023, and 25% again in 2024. During this time Barley has significantly grown the UK client base, which includes: ASOS; BBC; Citi; Creditsafe; Family Fund; the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA); the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office; GCHQ; GSK; Lambeth Council; Mars; P&G and Visa.
Read lessmore
