1440 Achieves a ~100% Inbox Placement Rate for a High-Growth, High-Volume Email Program with Validity.
The challenge:
Maintaining strong email deliverability as a high-volume, high-frequency sender.
Digital media publication 1440 began in 2017, with an email sent to 78 people.
In the years since, 1440 has grown their small subscriber list into a loyal, diverse audience that spans the entire United States and multiple demographics.
Amid this rapid growth, email remains the company’s primary communication channel. “In many ways, email is our product,” said Andrew Steigerwald, 1440’s Co-Founder. “We deliberately chose an email-first business model because it’s easier to scale.”
Ninety-nine percent of 1440’s revenue comes from their email program. However, as a news outlet, this revenue (and 1440’s success as a business) hinges on subscribers receiving their daily emails in a reliable, timely manner.
As 1440 grew, they noticed their inbox placement rate fluctuating, often by up to ten percentage points.
While their email service provider (ESP) provided some delivery analytics, 1440 couldn’t always pinpoint if their emails were landing in subscribers’ inboxes, their spam folders, or getting blocked at mailbox providers’ gateways. This led to negative feedback from subscribers who received their news updates late in the day, disrupting 1440’s commitment to sending timely news.
After migrating to a new ESP that could better accommodate their growth, 1440 knew it was time to adjust their approach and build a stronger foundation for their email program.
The solution:
Validity’s suite of email deliverability tools and expert support.
After carefully vetting their options, Steigerwald and his team implemented Validity’s market-leading email deliverability solution, Everest.
“One of our outside advisors brought up Validity as a best-in-class solution for deliverability and performance monitoring, and it was clear that this was the best option for us,” said Steigerwald.
With Validity Everest, 1440 gained complete visibility of their email performance, including inbox and spam placement with individual mailbox providers. Layered with the analytics provided by their ESP, 1440 can now pinpoint any problem areas and troubleshoot quickly.
“The folks at Validity will even get on the phone with our ESP to help problem-solve, which means we don’t have to be the middlemen asking questions we don’t understand,” said Mitchell Kapoor, 1440’s Vice President of Product and Growth.
Everest also helps 1440 keep their email list limited to active, engaged contacts.
“With the level of growth 1440 has experienced, it’s common to see more churn and low-quality subscribers sneaking onto email lists,” said Kapoor. To prevent these contacts from damaging their sender reputation, the team at 1440 uses Everest’s List Validation feature to flag invalid, inactive, or otherwise risky contacts before sending to them.
With their email performance on firmer footing, 1440 successfully applied for Validity’s exclusive Sender Certification program, which gives them preferential status with key mailbox providers like Microsoft and Yahoo.
According to Kapoor, getting approved for Validity Sender Certification was a fast and straightforward process. Once enrolled in the program and able to bypass key spam filters, 1440’s email processing times were significantly reduced, even when sending large volumes of mail. This helped ensure their emails reached subscribers’ inboxes with news that was still fresh.
Kapoor and the 1440 team also praised Sender Certification’s 24/7 monitoring feature. This feature arms senders with a dedicated compliance team to help them avoid security compromises and alert them of any suspicious email activity.
“Validity’s robust monitoring tools come in especially handy when spam traps spike,” said Kapoor. “It can be hard to know what happens once you hit send if you’re not an email expert. But the consistent validation that our reputation is high and the heads-up about areas that could negatively impact our program gives us peace of mind.”
1440 also saw enormous benefits from working with Validity’s support team. They particularly appreciated the Validity team educating them about Gmail and Yahoo’s new bulk sender requirements (implemented in early 2024) and how their deliverability might be impacted.
“Thanks to Validity, we were already compliant with the new requirements well before they went live,” said Kapoor.
“It can be hard to know what happens once you hit send if you’re not an email expert. But the consistent validation that our reputation is high and the heads-up about areas that could negatively impact our program gives us peace of mind.”
Mitchell Kapoor – Vice President of Product and Growth
The results:
A strong, stable email program that can keep up with the company’s rapid growth.
After partnering with Validity, 1440 was thrilled to see their deliverability stabilize. This stability brought better inbox placement, higher open rates, and lower bounce rates.
“Sometimes you know things are going well when you realize nobody is complaining,” said Kapoor.
1440 has achieved a best-in-class inbox placement rate of >99% and a bounce rate between .08 and one percent (well below the average global bounce rate of 1.26 percent).
They also saw an immediate three percent bump in open rates after qualifying for Sender Certification.
Since the partnership began, the 1440 team has Certified two additional IP addresses to expand their program. “It was so easy to do, we barely even noticed it,” said Kapoor.
As 1440 continues to bring their news updates to a growing audience, they’re happy to have Validity as an email partner.
“It would’ve been a lot more difficult to take on deliverability for a list of this size and a business that relies so heavily on email without a partner like Validity. It’s a real game-changer to have an expert team on your side,” said Kapoor.
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