What You Need To Know About Email Deliverability with Nicolas Toper

Andy Splichal [00:00:00]:

Welcome to the make each Click Count podcast. This is your host, Andy Splichal, and we are happy to welcome today's guest to discuss today's topic, which is what you need to know about email deliverability. Today's guest is the co-founder of Inboxbooster, an online software that helps businesses avoid spam folders. A big welcome to Nicholas Toper. Hi Nicholas.

Nicolas Toper [00:00:22]:

Hi.

Andy Splichal [00:00:23]:

Hey.

Nicolas Toper [00:00:24]:

Hi Andy.

Andy Splichal [00:00:25]:

So I got to be honest, I can't think of a much more boring subject than email deliverability. But tell me, what has made you passionate about this and why is it so important for businesses?

Nicolas Toper [00:00:38]:

First of all, it is boring. You're totally right. There is no question about it. Because why would it start something people care about? They do care, but it's kind of the thing that when it doesn't work, you care about it. And once it's working, you want to hear about it. And the way we compare ourselves is more like plumbers where you have a clogged pipe, then you call us and we fix it. That's really what we do. And from that point of view, you're right, it is kind of boring. Now, it's actually very important from two level. One, if you're an email sender, like you're sending a newsletter or you have an ecommerce website, if your email is in spam, nobody intermediate. Even if your email is promotion, most people will have trouble opening it. So it's already in that kind of zone where it's problematic. And the second thing is, if you really step back just from the individual sender, it's actually a real problem because email is really the only completely open transfer communication channel. Like you can email the president of the USA if you want, and he's going to read that email or someone of his team will. And email deliverability is really pushing a barrier on that. So it's really closing that open network. And the problem is that you have a check and balance that it will be closed. The problem is it's a black box. So if you shed light into that black box, then actually you maintain this openness and you understand the rules. And that's kind of what we're trying to do.

Andy Splichal [00:02:09]:

Now, when do companies realize they have a problem with deliverability? Because I assume nobody's contacting you when they don't know they have a problem. So what's that trigger that?

Nicolas Toper [00:02:25]:

First of all, just before answering your question, everybody in their life will have a deliverability problem. I guarantee you that. Because everybody will send at some point a newsletter in their life. Like, we have customers, they're sending wedding invitations whose wedding invitations are ending up in spam or promotion. We have customers who are actually just sending normal business emails. It happens. So it happens for everybody. So when they realize it, there is two ways. Either you're sending normal emails and you have people telling you, oh yeah, your email ended up in spam. And this happens more than let's say once per month. This means usually you have a problem. Kind of like when you see a cockroach in your home, usually there is probably ten times as many somewhere else and two the same. Or when you see your open rate drops. So when you see something in your business process like Sunday newsletter and you see your email open rate drops or click rate drops, this is usually a sign of a problem.

Andy Splichal [00:03:22]:

So email, I mean, it's one of the most profitable marketing channels out there still. It's probably the most profitable. I mean, everybody goes to Social, they go to Paid, but I mean, email remains just the king. But how many companies spend any time making sure emails are getting to their inbox? I mean, do you have a lot of customers that when they come to you, it's the first time they've ever even looked into email deliverability or I mean, how does that work?

Nicolas Toper [00:03:50]:

I'm curious, I'm not sure I understand. You mean when they join, when they want to work with well, yeah, I.

Andy Splichal [00:03:56]:

Mean, are these people that have spent time before working on email deliverability or is usually the first time they've even.

Nicolas Toper [00:04:04]:

So usually they notice they have a problem, they go online and they type it on Google. And actually there is somewhat of a cottage industry to fix that problem. There are a lot of providers, but basically it's about like, give me money and maybe we'll be able to figure out your problems. And here is a list of ten things you can do. So you have to type these two approaches. Ours is very different, but we're not as good as in marketing as the others because we're just starting. So usually they have tested some other solutions, they didn't work and they've come to us. Got it.

Andy Splichal [00:04:37]:

How do you do it? How do you fix those emails?

Nicolas Toper [00:04:40]:

So the thing about deliverability is most of our competitions, what they're really trying to do, they're trying to evade the spam filter, so they're trying to outsmart Google, which is not necessarily winning battle, or they managed to get some of the win, but it's not a good long term proposition. What we do that's very different is we're really explaining you how it's working. So what we do is we're going to test your email and we're going to tell you, hey, your email is and we're going to test to ask at each step to Google or to Outlook, why did you put that email in? So I've invented a specific way to do that, which is really try to understand how an AI works or like, hey, why did you put that email? Is this because of your domain repetition? Is it because of the content? It's because of something else you don't like. And we've added some of the stuff we knew about emails because I'm coming from that industry. So that's how we're and at the end we're going to get a step to by step guide on how to fix.

Andy Splichal [00:05:36]:

So are you using AI?

Nicolas Toper [00:05:38]:

There is a lot of AI involved, yes. Not as much. Because if you really think what spam filter is, it's a very sophisticated AI. It's probably more sophisticated than actually chat GPT in some ways because it needs to retrain all the time. So people will try to find ways to circumvent the spam filter. And the spam filter needs to adjust. They're going to retrain based on the new emails all the time. But what it's really doing in the end, it is really trying to figure out do that email wants to be seen by people. So if you email people who wants to receive what you have to tell them, they're going to want to read that, then it's going to be fine. If they actually couldn't hear about it, they just delete the email without reading it. You'll have a problem whatever you do. So we're just sheding light on that process. And yes, we use AI to figure it out because the rules that the spam filter use evolves all the time. So it's not sometimes a specific word can send your mail to promotion, but two weeks after that this will not be the case.

Andy Splichal [00:06:40]:

Interesting, I'm sure it's all over the board, but what typically is the reason? I mean, is it the headline? Is it the content? Is it emails that have been put into your list that you're sending to it? I guess, rank of the top three, what are the three most common reasons?

Nicolas Toper [00:07:02]:

I feel there are two. The first one is you're sending emails to people who don't want to receive to receive them. And that's it. And it's not an opt in question. Like it's not even a regulation question. When you send your email, are your recipients deleting that email without opening it or are they engaging with it? For instance, if you're an ecommerce website, are you going to read this email? Oh yeah, that's cool. I'm going to read it and maybe I'm not going to click, I'm not going to buy. But actually I'm actually going to engage a little bit with it. That's the first reason. And that is surprisingly hard to track because it's kind of not obvious because what you do as a marketer is you're looking at everybody's opening your email, engaging with your mail, but you don't really care about the proportion of people not liking your email, actively disliking your email. So that's what we're helping. So that's the first reason. And the second reason is collateral damage. It's you being picked up by the spam filter for somebody else having that behavior. So for instance, for instance, we fixed the newsletter of Y Combinator who ended up in promotion and spam on Gmail. And one of the reasons they ended up in spam is because they had imported the template of their mailing tool. And that template was sending them by default in promotion and spam. So we identified the precise HTML tag that were from there and they told us that it was coming from the main template and they just removed it and it was working.

Andy Splichal [00:08:33]:

That's interesting. I always thought that the reason is spam folder is a certain percentage of recipients hit spam and so they put it in the spam folder. But you're saying that it's not just that. I mean, I'm sure that does it too, but if people aren't opening it, just deleting it right away, then that also the email, Gmail or whatever will start putting it in spam because of that.

Nicolas Toper [00:08:59]:

Yes. Google says that they're using a thousand signals. The market spam is what to determine if your email is spam. The mark ASPAM is obviously one of the very strong ones. The hitting subscribe button is another one. So there is really looking at everything all over the user experience to figure out if it's a wanted or not wanted.

Andy Splichal [00:09:19]:

So how do you fix that?

Nicolas Toper [00:09:21]:

If it's collateral damage, we actually pinpoint why where it's coming from, saying hey, just change the stats and you'll be fine. And if it's something else, then we have to dig a little bit more with the customers and we have to explain them. So either we send them links from our blogs to explain them where it's coming from and what to do, or we look into their database and explain them and we looked at their whole process to explain them. What to fix. You can do it yourself if you want or we can help you, but it's totally fixable. And in a way it's kind of a good thing to do because nobody really likes to receive spam, but we're getting paid basically to help people, not to spam, which is really what we do in the end.

Andy Splichal [00:10:03]:

Does the ESP that you use, the email service provider, does it matter?

Nicolas Toper [00:10:09]:

It shouldn't. Let me put that it shouldn't. Sometimes it does, but when it does, it's because there is a problem. Most of them are actually using behind the scenes. They're using SparkPost or AWS SDS, which are kind of big email SMTP Relay or Sungrid, so it doesn't matter. Like Flavio, for instance, for a long time they use Sungrid. Now they're using their own system, so it doesn't matter. Let me put like that, let me take a step back. Just one thing. What matters is those span filters. They work very well if you're sending like say 10,000 emails per month, or actually if you send a couple of million email per month, these systems will work very well. Like the automated system of Gmail or Adobe will work very well. And if you don't, you usually have the budget to hire consultant to look into that. What we do is work with we work with 99% of those people who are not those type of people. It's 99% of the internet and they are not sending 10 million email per month and they are not able to spend two k per month for a deliverability consultant who is going to help with them to that. So built a lot of automations to kind of deliver the same service for those people who are sending a couple of thousands or a couple of million students. Got it.

Andy Splichal [00:11:27]:

Now do you have a favorite success story of one of your clients that you could share?

Nicolas Toper [00:11:30]:

I think we can talk about white combinator. It's actually a good example. There are a couple of others but the white combinator is interesting because I mentioned the first step which is really tagging the part of the content creating the problem. But after that they went into inbox and they moved back to spam. And the reason is because they were actually sending to people who didn't want to receive that email and they had to remove them. And this was very easy because it was actually a setting on their ESP software. So just had to activate it but they didn't know that it was creating the problem. And there is two key elements here. The first one is there is somewhat of an iterative process here. You fix the problem first time, then the problem reoccurs. You have to fix it a couple of times until it's really you've addressed really the root cause or a couple of different issues. And the second thing I want to highlight is because you don't know what the problem is, it's very hard to fix. Once you've actually figured out what the problem is, it's usually very easy and the tooling is already there.

Andy Splichal [00:12:30]:

Now what are some of the challenges with I mean you had mentioned just trying to identify it. Are there any other challenges that you struggle with getting results?

Nicolas Toper [00:12:40]:

What do you mean? Like to fixing sprout.

Andy Splichal [00:12:42]:

For real? Yeah, fixing it. What are some of the main challenges?

Nicolas Toper [00:12:47]:

Yes, some customers are so usually we tell them like there is not much we can do for them. But for some customers if they basically Craig List on the internet and they send emails to people who don't care, then they're always going to have a problem and they basically are trying to find a way to evade the span filters. There's more an attitude problem. So in this case we cannot do too much. If on the other hand they're actually careful and they're respectful of the recipient's time, then usually we can find a solution. I don't think we have a single instance when it didn't work. Now on the other hand, when they didn't really want to do their homework yet sometimes in this case it's not working, but in this case we pay them back and we don't really want.

Andy Splichal [00:13:28]:

To work with them right now. How do you think email is going to change over the next twelve to 18 months? Especially with AI becoming more prevalent do you see any changes coming?

Nicolas Toper [00:13:39]:

We have seen already changes. So for instance a lot of the tooling which is cool like mail warm up and all that stopped working because of these AI explosions. And a lot of times now ax have become a lot more restrictive and it's a lot more content based than before. So it's already there because everybody's sending a lot of contents now and they're generating because generating an email is cost less now. So it's very before it used to be unlike the template that you're sending now, they're a lot more careful and because of that there are a lot more false positives with actual normal people like just you and me sending a business email. This would be one problem. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is what I think is people will send less email because the time of the newsletter or you would blast a newsletter to a million people, it's kind of dumb. Now what I've seen happen is this is merging. So people are like big founders are sending less emails and they're sending a lot more personalized emails and on the individual sander side they're sending a lot more newsletters. So those kind of things, those two categories are merging like from the two extreme, from the individual senders, sending more email, a newsletter. I don't know if you have a newsletter, but even if you don't you probably will have one. And if you have one you're going to be a little bit more active. Everybody has kind of a substac or something going on. So everybody's going to have an email or a couple of thousands or a couple of hundred people. So we see that a lot more. And conversely, people sending billions email of me emails now they're really sending very tailored content. So in the end, everybody's merging towards the right to this. A lot of small newsletters, a small volume newsletter. Does that make sense? Does that make sense?

Andy Splichal [00:15:28]:

Yeah, absolutely. Now what are some steps that a listener could take to boost their deliverability? Or are there any or do they need to typically hire a deliverability consultant or firm like your own?

Nicolas Toper [00:15:43]:

So before boosting your deliverability you need to know if you have a problem. And as you mentioned initially, this is kind of the first point. The way you do it is you can use our test on Inboxbooster, it's free and we're going to tell you if you're in spam or not. And even if you do, you'll get the first analysis for free. Pay as you want.

Andy Splichal [00:16:02]:

So you can pay what's the name.

Nicolas Toper [00:16:04]:

Of that site inboxbooster.com okay. You can send your creative here and send a test email and it will tell you if you're in spam or not. And that cannot tell you how big of a problem you have already. That's what I would recommend, but I'm slightly biased of course. But if you want to do it yourself and to create yourself a test account on Gmail and send an email of that. The hard part is Gmail Pub filter is very smart. So if you're sending, say, five times your own newsletter or your mail there, it will understand that you want to receive it on this test account. So you need to rotate those test accounts very often, which is what we're doing for you for free.

Andy Splichal [00:16:46]:

So who is the perfect client for your guys'service? Is it b to B? B to C? All of the above. What your usual clients?

Nicolas Toper [00:16:54]:

So it's actually interesting because so far we haven't been able to identify that because our revenue really is split in three parts and it's roughly equal. The first part is normal business email because some people are sending like really important emails and if they're actually rejected, it's a huge problem for them. So you can think about bonkers email, like MNA type of emails. When their emails are in spam or not received, they're going to cold email people for selling a business, for instance. But they're not going to be very low amount, low volume, but very high value target, and definitely the people receiving that wants to read that. So this is a painful friend. So this is what I would call normal business email. The second type of email we're going to be to have is cold average people. So either sales or recruiters, it's almost the same category, except they sell a lot more email, like probably a couple of hundreds per day. And they don't really care at the individual level, but they care if you aggregate. All of them are in spam or not. Right. And the third segment is new there like marketing.

Andy Splichal [00:18:02]:

So how does your fee structure work?

Nicolas Toper [00:18:05]:

So right now, the first test is free. All of the tests are free. Actually, we don't have an API. You can integrate with us for free. Where we charge is only for the resolution past a certain number. Like if you're a normal, I would say non volume based user. So you're going to use our resolution a couple of times per month. It's totally free. You can give us money if you want. At the end of the process, we're going to give you you will have a pop up asking us for money, but you don't have to pay. You can pay film. We appreciate it, but you don't have to. And now for some of our customers, which are usually 10% of them, they usually have either bigger problems or recurring problems. In that case, they want to pay us and the pricing is on our website. And so we charge a subscription for that. It's a month to month subscription and we help them until they don't need us. So it's either $300 per month or $1,500 for high volume Saunders per month. And usually it's a couple of months and then they switch back portals and if you're kind of this part of for whom email is critical for you, usually people stay on this $300 plan so we can high compile them on the long term and we can help them, but we don't force anything. Our goal is really to help everybody fit that problem and kind of get it under control. And we notice that by doing that, this kind of helps us do good business, so we don't really need to push anything.

Andy Splichal [00:19:35]:

And how can an interested listener learn more about working with you?

Nicolas Toper [00:19:40]:

They go on inboxfuture.com and they use our tool and they can test it. They can start from there. Great. And then they can email me directly, or they can even book a meeting with me on this website.

Andy Splichal [00:19:49]:

Okay, well, it's been fantastic. I've learned a lot. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up today?

Nicolas Toper [00:19:56]:

There is one thing that actually I actually deeply care about is if you have a newsletter or if you're sending like even an email to 50 people, you absolutely need to test it on Inboxbooster or one of the by yourself before and after your campaign. You absolutely need to do that. Otherwise you'll be in trouble because bam. Filters again, they don't really work for small founders, and we're here to really make it work for you. But even if you don't want to work with us, you absolutely to test. This is very important.

Andy Splichal [00:20:27]:

Well, that's great. You know what? I'm going to test mine. This should you should.

Nicolas Toper [00:20:31]:

And if you have a problem, hit me up and I'll succeed for you.

Andy Splichal [00:20:36]:

Well, hey, thanks for joining us today, Nicholas.

Nicolas Toper [00:20:38]:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Andy Splichal [00:20:41]:

For listeners, remember, if you like this episode, please go to Apple podcasts and leave us an honest review. And if you're looking for more information regarding Nicholas or Inboxboosters, I'm going to put the links in the show notes below. In addition, if you're looking for more information on growing your business, check out our all new podcast resource center available at www.makeeachclickcount.com. We've compiled all of our different past guests by show topic. Include each of the contact information in case you would like more information on any of the services I've discussed during previous episodes. Well, that's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy, and happy marketing. I'll talk to you in the next episode.