Email Radar: Chrome’s New “Email Verification Protocol”

Validity is committed to leveraging our research, data, and MBP partnerships to keep the marketing ecosystem informed. 

The headline: 

Google is piloting a new browser-level feature called Email Verification Protocol (EVP), which may have big implications for email marketing. 

What’s happening? 

Until now, confirming a subscriber’s  email address has almost always meant sending them a confirmation email and waiting for a click—the process known as “double opt-in” (DOI).  

Under EVP, the user’s browser verifies ownership of the address with the user’s email provider in real time.  

Gmail is participating as a launch partner, but in the long term, this is proposed as an open protocol that any email provider can implement, not just Google. This is one of the most significant authentication developments in years, especially because it will help address the subscriber drop-off that is considered the biggest shortcoming of DOI. 

What you should know

Let’s be clear—EVP is not email verification (i.e., confirming an address exists and won’t bounce). As we mentioned, DOI is the gold standard that ensures better deliverability, higher engagement, and greater revenue. But it also carries the risk of being a conversion killer, because the extra steps to leave the site and click a link (especially if the DOI email fails to deliver to the inbox) create friction and alienate subscribers.  

This is especially important in many European countries (subject to GDPR), where the click provides unequivocal proof of consent. If a credible, browser-based alternative to that click-through step gains real adoption, it will have big implications for how permission and proof-of-ownership get collected in the future. 

What’s the commercial impact? 

Marketing leaders should be very interested in EVP. DOI methods loses an average 20–35 percent of signups at the confirmation step, so less friction will mean fewer abandoned sign-ups.  

Average subscriber lifetime value is estimated at ~$53, so saving these lost sign-ups (using the 27.5 percent midpoint) will create an additional $14.5M of future value per million signups (DMA). 

So, while there’s no need to secure a budget line just yet, EVP is a topic that every marketing leader should keep a close eye on.