mailchimp omnivore warning

Omnivore Warning from MailChimp? See How Email Validation Can Help

Are you using MailChimp to send your marketing emails? Learn how email validation can help when you receive an Omnivore warning from your email service provider.

Great email deliverability is every marketer’s goal, and it’s not the easiest thing to achieve. The more your email list grows, the greater the chances are that your campaigns encounter obstacles on their way to your subscribers’ inboxes.

We know getting an Omnivore warning can be a nuisance. So we’ll explain why MailChimp’s filter is necessary and what you can do if your email list doesn’t pass the test.

What is the Mailchimp Omnivore warning?

It is an automated abuse-prevention system designed “to predict a bounce, complaint, or spam trap rate which will exceed industry limits,” MailChimp explains. In other words, you having too many invalid, abuse and spam trap emails in your list will set off Omnivore and red flag your emailing activity.

What happens next?

As a precautionary measure, MailChimp will not send to those addresses until you remove all potential threats from your email list. It will also send you an Omnivore warning to let you know something’s wrong with your database.

Why did I get an Omnivore warning?

MailChimp reveals there are three types of email addresses that Omnivore’s artificial intelligence system scans:

  • Newly imported, thus unfamiliar email addresses
  • Stale email addresses
  • Spam traps

If your list has just expanded and now includes addresses to which you’ve never sent a campaign before, Omnivore gets to work. It scans to see how many of those addresses are likely to be abuse emails, spam traps, or to generate hard bounces.

Similarly to the ZeroBounce A.I. system, Omnivore’s algorithm can tell whether an email address is valid and safe to send. Also, it knows if it’s going to affect the sender’s reputation – not only MailChimp’s, but yours, too.

So, look at your Omnivore warning as a positive signal. It’s there to make sure you’re keeping the right kind of contacts in your database. You don’t want to be sending campaigns to risky recipients or dead ends – such as abandoned email accounts.

Omnivore not only maintains the health of MailChimp’s delivery system, but also tells you a lot about your own email hygiene.


How serious is the Omnivore warning?

Very serious. The first time they suspend you, MailChimp will reach out to you and try to determine what the red flags in your list are. If they suspended you three times within a period of six months, MailChimp will permanently close your account.


What should I do?

If you receive an Omnivore warning, it’s a clear sign your email list is in bad shape. It may contain stale and invalid addresses, spam traps, and abuse emails, all of which need to be removed. A good email checker will scrub your list in no time and allow you to continue your marketing campaigns.

Wondering what ZeroBounce can do for you?

  • It identifies invalid, fake, or abandoned email addresses and it tells you when an email is going to bounce.
  • It removes spam traps and known email complainers (abuse emails).
  • Toxic and catch-all domains? Gone!

Furthermore, our email validation system gives you missing information about your subscribers – their first and last name, location and the age of their email address. Also, if you supply the registration IP, ZeroBounce will tell you the country/region in which the email address was registered.

Curious to see how it works? Your account with ZeroBounce offers you 100 free email verification credits, which means you can check 100 addresses for free.