At a glance
The count of customers in the BC database whose email address has not been verified. Email verification status is the highest-leverage data hygiene KPI for any merchant whose growth depends on email marketing: unverified emails fail at 5-15x the rate of verified emails, damage sender reputation, and bias retention metrics downward. BigCommerce’s customer-record schema separately tracks registered customers (account holders) and guests (one-off checkout customers); guest emails are typically unverified by definition because there’s no account-creation step. This card surfaces both populations and lets you triage the cleanup.
| What it counts | COUNT(customers WHERE email_verified = false OR email_verification_status IN ('pending', 'failed', 'unconfirmed')). Aggregated as raw count and as a percentage of total customer base. |
| VAT / tax treatment | n/a, this is a customer-quality metric. |
| Shipping | n/a. |
| Discounts | n/a. |
| Refunds | n/a. |
| Cancelled / voided orders | n/a. |
| Currency | n/a. |
| Channels / sources | All channels aggregate. POS-acquired customers are typically unverified (the cashier didn’t verify the email address); web-acquired registered customers should be verified if double-opt-in is enabled. |
| Verification definition | ”Verified” means the email address received and clicked a confirmation link (double opt-in). “Unverified” includes both never-asked (single opt-in or guest checkout) and asked-but-not-confirmed (verification email sent, click never received). The card defaults to combining both into a single unverified count; toggle to separate them. |
| Why this matters | Sending email marketing to unverified addresses generates: (1) 5-15x higher bounce rate, (2) 3-8x higher spam complaint rate, (3) sender-reputation damage that affects deliverability for verified addresses too, (4) wasted send budget on Klaviyo / Mailchimp tier pricing, (5) GDPR / CAN-SPAM compliance risk if the unverified addresses didn’t actually consent. The cost of sending to one unverified address compounds across the whole list. |
| Guest checkout reality | If 60% of your orders are guest checkouts, expect 50-70% of customer records to be unverified by definition. This is structural, not necessarily a problem, but it does mean the verified subset (which is your actionable email audience) is much smaller than total customer count. |
| Time window | RT (real-time, refreshed each customer-record sync; typically every 15-30 minutes). |
| Alert trigger | >10% of base. Above 10% unverified suggests systemic verification gaps; fix the verification flow rather than scrubbing data. |
| Sentiment key | unverified_email |
| Roles | owner, marketing |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your BigCommerce data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US apparel brand on BigCommerce, snapshot 13 May 26. Customer base of 28,400 records.| Customer cohort | Total | Verified | Unverified | Verified % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Registered (account-creating) | 9,200 | 8,500 | 700 | 92.4% |
| Guest checkouts | 18,500 | 4,200 | 14,300 | 22.7% |
| POS in-store customers | 700 | 50 | 650 | 7.1% |
| Blended | 28,400 | 12,750 | 15,650 | 44.9% |
- Blended verified at 44.9% means 55% of your customer database is unverifiable for email marketing. This is the typical pattern for a guest-heavy DTC store. Don’t try to send marketing to all 28,400; you’ll have 55% bouncing or spam-complaining.
- Registered cohort at 92.4% is healthy. Double opt-in is working; the 700 unverified registered customers are mostly stale (account created, verification email never opened). Trigger a one-time re-verification campaign; expect 30-40% to verify.
- Guest 22.7% verified is the secret asset. These are guests who later subscribed to the newsletter or interacted with verification (often via post-purchase email confirmation that triggers verification flow). Convert more guests by promoting newsletter signup at the post-purchase moment (offer 10% off next order for verified email).
- POS at 7.1% is the worst. In-store cashiers don’t have time to verify each email; the cashier types the email and moves on. Most POS emails are typos, abandoned addresses, or speculative entries. Quarterly cleanup recommended; don’t include POS emails in primary marketing flows.
- Marketing-actionable list size is 12,750 (verified across all cohorts). This is the number to optimise; total customer count is misleading.
- Trigger a re-verification campaign to the 700 unverified registered customers. Send a one-time “confirm your email” with an incentive (10% off, free shipping, exclusive content).
- Promote post-purchase newsletter signup to convert guests to verified. Lift verified % from 22% to 35% by adding a single post-purchase email with double opt-in.
- Audit POS data quality. Train cashiers on email entry; consider a customer-facing tablet for self-entry to reduce typos.
- Clean up the never-engaged unverified. Customer records older than 12 months with no verification and no order should be excluded from email marketing automatically.
- Pair with Email Health for the comprehensive email-quality view (verification, bounces, spam complaints, engagement).
- Cross-reference with Klaviyo profile counts. If Klaviyo is your email backbone, only sync verified customers; don’t pollute Klaviyo’s profile-tier with unverified records.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Unverified Emails |
|---|---|
| Email Health | Comprehensive email-quality KPI (verification + bounces + spam + engagement). |
| BC Guest vs Registered | Customer-type breakdown. Guests structurally drive most unverified emails. |
| Customer Count | Total customer base. Pair to compute verification rate. |
| Repeat Rate | Unverified emails inflate the customer denominator and depress repeat rate. |
| Customer Trend | New-customer cohorts; track verification quality over time. |
| BC Top Customers | High-value customers should always be verified; cross-check. |
| Klaviyo Active Profiles | Cross-connector. Klaviyo’s tier-pricing depends on profile count; unverified profiles waste budget. |
| BC New Customers | New customer acquisition pipeline. Verification flow at signup affects this. |
| BC Customer Segments | Segments are only marketable to the verified subset. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in BigCommerce’s own dashboard: BC doesn’t expose an email-verification rollup natively. The closest tools:- Customer list: BC Control Panel → Customers → View Customers. The customer detail page shows verification status per customer; the list view doesn’t filter by verification status without custom filters.
- Customer export: Settings → Data Solutions → Export → Customers. The CSV includes the email verification column; pivot in spreadsheet.
- Klaviyo or Mailchimp dashboard: Email tools track bounce rate and engagement; high bounce rate is the symptom of unverified emails.
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Verification definition | Either | We treat double-opt-in confirmation as verified; some BC integrations consider single-opt-in as verified. |
| Guest treatment | Either | We include guests in the unverified count; some views exclude guests from customer-base counts entirely. |
| Sync lag | Trivial | Customer-record sync every 15-30 minutes. |
| Inactive customers | Either | We include all customer records; BC may filter to active. |
| Card | Expected relationship | Notes |
|---|---|---|
klaviyo.klaviyo_unsubscribed_count | Different concept but related | Klaviyo unsubscribed = explicit opt-out; this card’s unverified = never confirmed opt-in. Both reduce marketable list. |
klaviyo.klaviyo_bounce_rate | Should track | High bounce rate = many unverified addresses sending to dead inboxes. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Why is my unverified count so high? Likely because most of your customers are guest checkouts (no verification step) or your store doesn’t enforce double-opt-in for registered customers. Both are common; both are fixable. Should I delete unverified customer records? Not delete; segment. Move them to a separate list / tag, exclude from primary marketing flows, run a one-time re-engagement campaign. Customer records are still useful for analytics; you just can’t email them safely. My Klaviyo bounce rate is 8%, is that connected to this card? Almost certainly. 8% bounce rate is high (good lists run 1-3%); the cause is sending to unverified addresses where the inbox no longer exists. Audit your Klaviyo profile sync; only send to BC-verified addresses. How do I switch BC to double opt-in? Settings → Email Settings → Customer Account Settings → enable “Email verification required”. Customers who create accounts must click a confirmation link before being marked verified. Existing customers won’t be re-verified automatically; trigger a one-time re-verification flow. What’s a “verified” customer in BC’s data model? A customer who: (1) created an account (registered), and (2) clicked the verification link in the welcome email (double opt-in). Guest customers are never verified by definition because they didn’t create an account. Why is my POS verification rate so low? Cashiers prioritise speed over accuracy. POS email entry is typo-prone (missing dots, wrong domains, throwaway entries liketest@test.com). Customer-facing email entry (tablet at the counter, phone signup at receipt) typically lifts POS verification rate by 20-40pp.
Should I worry about GDPR / CAN-SPAM compliance?
Yes. Sending marketing email to unverified addresses without explicit consent risks compliance violations. Specifically: (1) GDPR requires explicit opt-in (verified is one form), (2) CAN-SPAM requires honoring unsubscribe but doesn’t strictly require opt-in, (3) state laws (CCPA, CPRA) add further requirements. Treat verification as a compliance hedge.
Can I trigger re-verification campaigns from BC?
Yes via BC’s email-verification flow. Trigger by: editing the customer record (force re-verify), or via a Customer Group migration that requires verification. Klaviyo can also drive a re-verification flow with a custom email template.
My registered customer count went up but verified count didn’t, why?
New registrations didn’t complete verification. Two causes: (1) verification email landed in spam folder, (2) customer registered but never opened the email. Send the verification email from a domain with proper SPF/DKIM/DMARC; aim for 90%+ verification rate within 7 days of registration.
Why does Klaviyo show more profiles than BC shows customers?
Klaviyo accumulates profiles from multiple sources (BC sync, popup signups, abandoned cart flows). Some Klaviyo profiles never made a purchase. The two counts shouldn’t match exactly; the verified BC customer count should be the minimum of Klaviyo’s marketable list.
Should I send a discount code to the unverified to encourage verification?
Tested approach with mixed results. A 10-15% discount typically gets 25-40% of unverified customers to verify; the rest don’t engage at any price. Do this once a year as a list-cleanup campaign, not as standard practice.
Does this include unsubscribed customers?
No. Unsubscribed = explicitly opted out (different state). Unverified = never confirmed opt-in. Both reduce your marketable list but for different reasons.
Can I see which email domains are most often unverified?
Yes via Ask Viq: “show unverified email distribution by domain”. Most stores see Yahoo and Hotmail dominating; corporate domains (companies’ own email systems) typically have higher verification rates than consumer domains.
What’s an acceptable unverified rate for my marketing list?
For your marketing list (the subset you actually send to), <5% unverified is target. For your full customer database, expect 30-60% unverified depending on guest-checkout rate. Don’t conflate the two; the marketing list is a clean subset.