EXM message engagement plan. Invalid Address state - how it works?

Question

By default, EXM creates an engagement plan for each message being created. There is a specific state "Invalid Address".

Currently we have quite a few contacts in there and I just want to ask, what are the rules for this state? How EXM qualifies that this or that email address is invalid? From what I can see all emails specified have valid format. Does EXM verify if that email exists or something?

Answer 1

During dispatch, EXM validates the email address of each contact. If the email address is determined to be invalid, the contact is enrolled in the "Invalid Address" state.

EXM uses a regular expression to validate the address. You'll find the setting in the /App_Config/Include/EmailExperience/Sitecore.EmailExperience.Core.config file.

For EXM 3.3:

<setting name="EmailValidation" value="^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+(?:\.[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)*@(?:[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]*[a-zA-Z0-9])?\.)+[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]*[a-zA-Z0-9])?$" />

For EXM 3.4:

<setting name="EmailValidation" value="^[a-zA-Z0-9\+\-_]+(?:\.[a-zA-Z0-9\+\-_\']+)*@[a-z\-]+(?:\.[a-z]+)+$" />

For EXM 3.4 update 1:

<setting name="EmailValidation" value="^[\p{L}0-9\+\-_\!\$\%\&amp;\*\?]+(?:\.[\p{L}0-9\+\-_\'\!\$\%\&amp;\*\?]+)*@(([\p{L}0-9\-]+(?:\.[\p{L}0-9]+)+)|(\[\d{1,3}(\.\d{1,3}){3}\]))$" />

I suggest you use the EXM 3.4 update 1 expression.