Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth

The Deliverability Mistakes Killing Newsletter Open Rates with Alyssa Dulin on the Growth In Reverse Podcast
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Chenell Basilio: [00:00:00] I think 90% of the issues that creators and people running newsletters run into have to do with deliverability and they don't realize it.

Alyssa Dulin: What you wanna minimize is people who don't open consecutively for a long period of time.

Chenell Basilio: If you stop sending emails to your newsletter list, after 180 days your reputation like resets completely.

Alyssa Dulin: Let them know who are you and what value are you providing them. Why should they care? Why should they be opening your email?

Dylan Redekop: I wanna go from sending a weekly email to like a two, three, five time a week email. Are you gonna get flagged for like increasing your sends like pretty dramatically? Why would somebody's email suddenly land in a spam folder?

What are some things that could have maybe triggered that?

Chenell Basilio: Today we have Alyssa Dulin from Kit, from the Kit team. Yes. We are just excited to talk to you all about deliverability and how people can get more emails into the right places and all of the good things. So thanks for, thanks for coming on the show.

Alyssa Dulin: Of course. Thanks for giving me a chance to talk about deliverability, which is all I wanna [00:01:00] do, so.

Chenell Basilio: For people who don't understand what deliverability is at all, do you wanna start there, without going too technical into it? Yeah. We'll get there, but

Alyssa Dulin: yes. Yeah. Yeah, feel free to pull me up any time I go too technical. But the general idea is, like, your ability to reach the inbox of subscribers, and I do like to clarify that there is a delivery and deliverability.

So you might hear people talk about a delivery rate or a deliverability rate. Um, deliverability rate isn't a thing you can truly know, because it's how, what rate of emails landed in the inbox versus spam, and unless you are looking at every single person's inbox somehow, like spying on them, you don't know.

So you know your delivery rate. That's how many emails got delivered successfully, and that really just means essentially whenever the email was sent, the mailbox provider said, "Okay, great." They didn't bounce it. So that's your delivery, email delivery. That's important. Gotta get in the door. [00:02:00] But once, uh, Gmail, Microsoft, whoever, uh, accepts the message and it's delivered, they can decide where should it go now, and that is the art of deliverability, uh, which is does it go to the inbox, does it go to spam, does it go somewhere else?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, it sounds like it's a art, science, and a puzzle- Mm-hmm ... all in one. Yes.

Alyssa Dulin: Definitely.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Man, I have so many questions- Mm-hmm ... 'cause I think, I think 90% of the issues that creators and people running newsletters run into have to do with deliverability- Mm-hmm ... and they don't realize it.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: So, like, my open rate dropped, or, like, why is this happening?

Why is my email getting clipped, or anything like that. So I think a lot of this stuff really does come down to that. Um- What-- I don't know. Are there like-

Dylan Redekop: I,

Chenell Basilio: I think- Dilla, where do you wanna start? Yeah. Let's,

Dylan Redekop: let's kinda start, I think this will probably lead into a lot of, a lot of, um, topics or discussion that we could have, but, like, for people like myself and Chenell who are sending emails pretty regularly, um, and a [00:03:00] lot of your clients, why would somebody's email, one of our emails, suddenly land in a spam folder?

What are some things that could've maybe triggered that or caused that?

Alyssa Dulin: It's a great question. There are lots of things, but I'll kind of just start going through some of the common ones I see, especially when it's someone who has not had a problem and they suddenly do have a problem. One can be DNS record things, authentication.

That's one I see pretty regularly. Um, people don't realize that they have made a change. Um, maybe they moved to a new domain provider, and, uh, their essentially verified sending domain settings get broken. That can get super technical, but the, the general idea is that you have to pass authentication to reach the inbox.

The good news is most email tools basically take care of this for you after you have connected- Okay ... your domain to them, um, with a couple CNAME records. So in Kit, it's called a verified sending domain. Other people [00:04:00] might call it something different, but it's the same general premise that it essentially allows us to sign the emails, um, and pass SPF, DKIM, and DMARC using your domain.

So we're pretending to be you, basically sending the email, and it all passes and looks lovely. But every now and then, someone will make a change or someone, you know, a tech person that they hired will go in and not realize what everything is connected to, and they might accidentally delete a CNAME record, and then suddenly, you know, everything was great, and now you're failing DMARC, and you can't reach the inbox.

So that's one quick, easy thing to check, and I, I obviously never want that to happen, but if there's a problem and it's authentication, the great news is it's usually just a click away to fix it, which is great. Um, there are a lot of other scenarios that are not so easy. So that would be like a reputation issue has suddenly hit you, and sometimes it does happen pretty suddenly.

So, um, in that case, it could be that you [00:05:00] have had some high complaints, uh, complaint rates lately, and Gmail or whoever has essentially hit their threshold with you. They're like, "Okay, enough is enough. You now have a lower domain reputation. We're gonna start sending some emails to spam." Um, so that's another scenario I see pretty regularly.

Lots of different things can cause those complaint rates to spike. Sometimes it can be weird things you didn't know about. Maybe your form has been hit by bots and you didn't know you were doing anything wrong. Um, or yeah, maybe there's just you sent to an email list that hasn't heard from you in a while, and a lot of people marked it as spam The best way to keep tabs on that is, um, Google Postmaster Tools, which I'm not, not sure if y'all wanna get into that right now, but that is my favorite tool for keeping an eye on your complaint rates and your reputation and making sure that, uh, you're seeing the signs before any spam filtering starts to happen.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I think Postmaster Tools is, like, almost the equivalent of Google [00:06:00] Analytics but for your newsletter. And so a lot of people don't know about this, but it's super simple to set up, and once you have it, you can log in and see, like, okay, I sent an email out to 20,000 people last week, did some of them mark it as spam?

And it's not gonna capture every spam complaint, but it captures the ones from Gmail.

Alyssa Dulin: Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio: Right? So I think that's a super useful tool. The one thing, you were kind of alluding to this, um, I've seen this happen a lot recently inside of the private community we have, is like, people will go from sending at, like, you know, domain.kit.com or domain.beehive.com, and they're like, "I wanna brand my thing.

I'm gonna send from chenelle@growthinreverse.com," and they don't warm up the email. Mm-hmm. I've seen this three times in the last two months, and I'm like, "What are you guys doing?" Oh. Like, no. Yep. And so they're like, all of a sudden your open rate's at, like, 15%, and that is not a good place to be at. So I don't know.

W- would you recommend people just, like, revert back to sending with the other domain and, like, slowly warm up [00:07:00] their personal custom domain too, or...?

Alyssa Dulin: Yes. This is something we help people with all the time at Kit. So if you're a Kit customer and you're needing help, you can always reach out to us, and we can just build you a custom plan.

Um, but yes, that's an extremely important thing people don't realize they have to do, but you've essentially, you've built up a, a reputation on someone else's domain. Your sending has been benefiting them or, like, being counted towards that domain, and all of a sudden when you start sending with your domain, it's not tied to any of your past sending history.

So it's kind of like a credit score. Whenever you wanna buy a house or a car or something, if you don't have a credit score, like, it's not going to be helpful. You're at zero, and that's essentially where you're at if you haven't been sending any emails from your domain historically, you're at zero. So if you overnight start sending volume from it, it's not gonna go well, unfortunately.

So you'll want to ramp up slowly, and I recommend starting with the most engaged subscribers first, just to send really healthy, positive signals and help that ramp up go smoother. [00:08:00]

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I think you can almost equate this to, like, think of a spammer starts a new Gmail account, and they're trying to send, like, thousands of emails from this thing.

Google is pretty much seeing you the same way as that person, 'cause it's, in their eyes it's a brand new email address. Right.

Alyssa Dulin: Yep.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. It's crazy.

Alyssa Dulin: It is

Chenell Basilio: crazy ... the stuff you never think about until it happens and you're like, "What is this?"

And,

Dylan Redekop: and with Kit you can- Yeah ... segment from your, like- Yeah ... most engaged subscribers, right?

And, yeah.

Alyssa Dulin: Okay. Yes, definitely. Especially, well, if you have the pro plan, we have subscriber scoring. That's probably the easiest way to do it, so you can be like- Right ... "Five-star subscribers, you go first, and then four-star, and then three-star." Um, if you don't have, um, Pro and you wanna do something like this, um, reach out to deliverability@kit.com.

We- I've got a little tool I can- Ooh,

Dylan Redekop: there you go ...

Alyssa Dulin: uh, give you access to, I know, that essentially helps you... I mean, anyone can reach out to me if you want this, and essentially helps you, um, filter your audience by engagement, like have clicked or [00:09:00] have opened in the past- Okay ... X, Y, Z timeframe. That sort of

Dylan Redekop: thing.

And would the m- the length of time that you'd wanna do this warm-up, would that really depend on how big your list is, or is it, like, a percentage you wanna do per week, or how d- how would that kind of look for somebody, say, who had, like, a 10,000 subscriber list?

Alyssa Dulin: Hmm. Yeah, it depends on the size. Um, for, like, a 10,000 subscriber list I would say between four to eight weeks.

Wow,

Dylan Redekop: okay.

Alyssa Dulin: Um- That's

Dylan Redekop: if you're sending weekly ...

Alyssa Dulin: is probably, yeah- Yeah ... the length of time. Yeah. Yeah, I would say so. Um, the main thing is just, like, you don't wanna shock the systems. They wanna see gradually, slowly ramping up. But again, if they're seeing really healthy, positive signals right off the bat, lots of opens, even replies, that's a great one- Mm

I'm sure we'll talk about, that's gonna help you get in the safe zone a little bit faster. They're gonna say, "Okay, we trust this person. People want this mail." 'Cause what Gmail wants, they wanna do what subscribers want. So if they are seeing, okay, subscribers want this mail, they're thinking, "I wanna give them this mail."

Mm-hmm. That's great for our users. But they just need to know. And if they think [00:10:00] people don't want this mail, then they do not wanna give it to users. So you just want to do things in a way that keeps the, the systems happy and, um, is not throwing any red flags.

Dylan Redekop: Nice. So let's-- You kinda mentioned, you kinda teased replies and that sorta thing.

So what would be, like, the number one action, maybe, like, the top three actions in order of, like, best to, um, I guess not worst, but, like, the best thing that you would wanna get your subscribers to do to ensure you get good deliverability?

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. I mean, number one is always gonna be replies. It really is the strongest.

It's just-- It goes above and beyond, um, showing someone's interested in this mail, they're engaging with it, and it crosses a line into it being, at least for the algorithms, they're thinking, "Oh, this person is, this is a personal email." Like, they're, they're replying. People don't reply to target emails. They don't reply to whatever, like, function health emails- Credit card

these big companies have beautiful, great emails. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, those are, [00:11:00] even if people love those emails and they want them and they're clicking on them, they're probably not replying to it. But people are replying to, like, their boss and their coworkers and their customers and the emails they truly wanna be engaged with.

So it helps you get to the inbox. It also helps you get to the primary tab, if that's something you care a lot about. I would say that's, like, the best way to try and get there. Um, opens, of course, are really good. What you wanna minimize is people who don't open consecutively for a long period of time.

That is a really, a strong, uh, negative signal that you wanna try and minimize. So that's, I would say, the most important thing to keep tabs on in terms of opens versus not opening. And clicks are great, you know, especially I think clicks are great mainly for your goals, like the action you want people to take.

Um, but if you're really trying to drive better deliverability, I would say replies should be your north

Dylan Redekop: star. Right. Then they have to, of course, open to click, so- Those kind of go hand in hand. Right. Okay. That's, that's good to know. We've, we've, for a long time- Mm-hmm ... Chenell and I have both been like, you know, [00:12:00] uh, the number one metric you should be focused on is getting replies, and you can't beg people to reply to every single email, but, like, you know, writing your email in a way that, you know, encourages people to reply, or, or compels them to reply, or even, you know, like we said, asking for it from time to time is a, is a good way to go about it.

So I'm glad we've been kind of verified with that.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Real quick, before we keep going, um, you mentioned n- not wanting to send emails that don't g- Mm-hmm ... like, get opened for a long period of time. What is that long period of time? I'm just curious- Mm-hmm ... what you consider that.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. I would say, like, I wish there was a textbook that told us exactly what the rule is.

I say between 90 to 180 days, kind of depending on your frequency. Um, if you're a daily sender, like, I would, I would go to 90 days, because you're sending a lot of emails. So you can imagine if someone's not opening, um, your emails and you're sending to them daily, honestly, 90 days might even be too much.

You might want to go down to 60 days. But if you're- Yeah ... weekly or even, um, less frequent than that, I think 180 days, in [00:13:00] between 90 and 180 days is probably a safe zone. I would not want to go past 180. Um, I think, you know, everything is custom to the sender a bit, and I would keep tabs on your complaint rates and your engagement in general.

If you're someone who keeps a really healthy list, the way people get into your list is completely opt-in, you know, everything's looking great, then you might be able to stretch to that 180. Um, if you are using a lot of other sources like referral systems- Mm-hmm ... or, um, maybe a lot of lead magnets where people don't really want your newsletter, they just wanted that freebie, um, you might have to have a, a tighter window.

Chenell Basilio: Oh, there's so many good things. The 180 day number, uh, makes me think of, I was talking to your counterpart, Melissa, which is very confusing.

Alyssa Dulin: I

Chenell Basilio: know. Alyssa and Melissa.

Alyssa Dulin: Yes.

Chenell Basilio: And she was saying how I think 180 days was the number she mentioned, like, if you stop sending emails to your newsletter list, after 180 days your, your reputation, like, resets completely.

Mm-hmm. [00:14:00] So, like, you might have been sending to them for years, but, you know, people fall off sending newsletters. They're like, "Well, I haven't sent my list an email in six months," and then all of a sudden it's like, "Why is my open rate down?" And it's, that's the reason, is you kind of reset your reputation.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. I mean, sometimes I even see it happen if people go a month. I mean, it kind of depends. Oh,

Chenell Basilio: really?

Alyssa Dulin: Like, if you have a huge list, um, maybe let's say you have 50,000 subscribers or more and you take a month off of sending, like, I would not just send to that- Wow ... 50,000 right off the bat again. I would actually do kind of like a mini ramp up.

Um- Because those spikes just don't go well, especially in the, the age where you have to have, you know, the domain authentication, um, the verified sending domain. Things have gotten harder since that whole, we used, we called it Yahoo-gle, but basically when Yahoo and Gmail put out their re- requirements, um, a couple years ago now, I guess.

Time is weird. But, um, it used to be so much easier because you could just use [00:15:00] your ESP, like Kit. You could just use their domain for authentication. You didn't have to set up a verified sending domain. Your domain was in that, like, friendly from that everyone sees, but in the background, the email was being sent by Kit, and so the volume Gmail saw was all of Kit's volume, billions of emails a month, and if you took a month or two off sending, no one cared, no one noticed.

I mean, you know, the algorithms didn't. I'm sure your s- your audience cared. But, um, it didn't impact your deliverability at all, so people could be loosey-goosey- Hmm ... with that sort of thing. Now, since Yahoo and Gmail and Microsoft require that you sign your own messages, it's really all on the sender's shoulders now to, like, manage their reputation in a way you didn't used to have to.

Um, and so you have to keep things consistent, or again, your reputation will get wiped clean and you have to start all over.

Dylan Redekop: So when we send, talk about sender reputation, it used to be ESP more focused, leaning towards that sender reputation, and now it's more- Yeah ... focused on the actual creator who's sending, using the ESP to send [00:16:00] emails.

Okay.

Alyssa Dulin: 100%. The friendly from address, like, it mattered a little bit, but the main thing that has been mattering is the, the domain that's being signed in the authentication process. And so it used to matter way more which ESP you chose because their deliverability really made a huge difference, which was great for Kit because, like, we have cared so much and invested so much that we could really confidently say, like, "Come to Kit and your, like-" Yeah

"open rates will go, be higher, your deliverability will be better." Um, obviously that still matters, um, in some ways, but it matters way more y- what your reputation is as a sender, and that's gonna follow you around from ESP to ESP, so you can't really outrun, like- Right ... if you've done something that hurts your domain reputation and you move providers, it's gonna follow you.

So now the new thing that matters the most really is, like, what's the level of support you can get at each, um, ESP so that whenever if you do run into a problem, like, you have an expert who's gonna look into it, 'cause that's really, um, what matters now. [00:17:00] But when it comes to, like, the reputation that gets you to the inbox, it is now more on the sender.

Hmm.

Dylan Redekop: Okay.

Alyssa Dulin: Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio: And is it domain specific or is it like, so is it @growthinreverse.com or is it chenell@growthinreverse.com- Oh, good question ... versus dylan@growthinreverse.com?

Alyssa Dulin: Mm-hmm. The main component is gonna be the domain, the growthinreverse.com, but we have seen that there is a slight variance in reputation from each, um, mailbox, like chenell@growthinreverse.com.

If, for example, Dylan only sent cold emails from his email and Chenell sent non-cold emails and really, like, warm, you know, people wanted to receive it, there would be, like, a slight variation in reputation there. Um, but for the most part, it's the domain that matters the most.

Speaker 4: Hmm.

Chenell Basilio: Got it. Okay. That's why when I get cold emails, it's usually, like, some variation of their actual- Mm-hmm

website as the email sender.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Hmm. That's interesting. Okay, very cool. Um, [00:18:00] so we've gone a little deep, but I guess for someone who's, like, you know, they have 1,500 subscribers, maybe 5,000 subscribers, somewhere in that range, and they're just, like, looking to make sure that they're doing all the right things, like, what, what do you think that- Mm-hmm

like, mini checklist should be?

Alyssa Dulin: Hmm. Good question. It's actually harder, I think, to do deliverability and reach the inbox when your list is, like, less than 5,000, um, because you're in this weird area where, uh, I think when Gmail put out their requirements, they said it's for bulk senders, which they are very loosey-goosey about what that means, but it's, like, 5,000 emails or more, I guess, you know, a day.

No one really knows. But, um, the smaller senders have a harder time, like, managing their reputation, and any changes make things fluctuate so much. So honestly, if you have less than 5,000 subscribers, I would probably start without doing the whole verified sending domain setup at your ESP and use your ESP's reputation [00:19:00] instead, um, unless you start to have any problems with that setup.

But so far, from the guidance we've gotten from mailbox providers, the smaller senders are fine to not set up the verified sending domain. Hmm. And from what I've seen in a lot of cases, it actually makes things a lot harder because again, you just, you're not sending very much volume. So if there's any fluctuation, like even a couple people marking emails as spam, it can really, um, make a difference, versus the large, large senders I work with, it feels like they have much more room to, like, endure taking time off or getting a little spike in complaints, and it just doesn't impact- Right

them as much. Um, sorry, I didn't get into, like, what you should do about it. So one thing I would say is, like- It's

Chenell Basilio: okay ...

Alyssa Dulin: as long as you can, use your ESP's domain to send mail. Um, two, I would say, like, growing your list is super important with really engaged subscribers. Um, keeping that list really healthy if you're-- especially if you're just getting started, have good [00:20:00] hygiene now.

It's easier when you start. Um, so you can build automations that will, um, start as soon as someone joins your list, and it will wait however many days you set, 90 days, for example, and then check if they haven't opened any emails. You can either unsubscribe them automatically or send them, like, a re-engagement sequence, and then unsubscribe them if they're still, um, not engaged.

So I would say take the time to set up the good systems while you're growing. Um, and then once you hit that 5,000 mark, I would set up a verified sending domain in your ESP, ramp up slowly on it, but not too slowly since you're on a, a smaller list right now, and set up Google Postmaster Tools. Very important, and monitor that closely.

Dylan Redekop: It's good to know. I like that. I just axed 15% of my email list. Yeah

Alyssa Dulin: You did.

Dylan Redekop: Um

Alyssa Dulin: Wow. I

Dylan Redekop: know it's hard to do ... I put everybody through, basically everybody through a 90-day cycle. It's like, are these people engaging? Gave them 90 days, did a [00:21:00] re-engagement campaign, and there was a good chunk of people who just, it wasn't worth keeping them around.

So- Yeah ... they are now gone.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. Well, I know it's hard,

Dylan Redekop: but you made the right decision.

Alyssa Dulin: I know. I know. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: They just don't like me. Good job. I, I'm, I'm dealing, the, my ego's dealing with it, but we'll get there.

Alyssa Dulin: It's their loss. I

Chenell Basilio: feel like we should, we should set up, like, a monthly call where everybody is just, like, on their thing, and then it's like, "All right, everybody ready?"

And you just delete the, the- Yeah ... unengaged

Dylan Redekop: people every time. Yeah, it's like rip that Band-Aid off. You know it's gonna happen. Yeah. That's... But.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: I have a question about, um-

Chenell Basilio: Oh, it's so good ...

Dylan Redekop: we talked, we touched on it very briefly about, like, recommendations, 'cause recommendations are everywhere.

They're on Substack, they're on Kit, they're on Beehiiv. Mm-hmm. Um, how, for somebody who might be... Like, I know Chenell gets a good amount. She's got quite a few people recommending her through the Kit network, and what would be your, like, rec- your recommendation to people who are getting a lot of people recommending newsletter or subscribers to them, um, in terms of, like, onboarding those people or treating [00:22:00] them maybe differently than just a regular organic subscriber who's coming to your landing page from, like, LinkedIn or Twitter or something like that?

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. I love this topic, and I got to talk, uh, to Chenell a little bit about it at- Mm ... New Media Summit, and so I'd love to hear her input too, 'cause I know she's, like, a pro at this. So first of all, I think is the mindset that these are not regular subscribers. The people I see who do have deliverability problems when they turn on recommendations are the people who don't do anything differently with these people, and they just sort of throw them into their weekly broadcast.

They don't send them- Mm-hmm ... any welcome emails. And so people suddenly start getting emails, and they're like, "What is this? I don't know who this is," and they mark them as spam. So you have to remember that these people really don't know who you are. They, you know, signed up to someone else's email list.

They saw the description of your newsletter, and at the moment thought, "Oh, that sounds interesting. I'll sign up for that." Um, but you have to do a lot more to get them to understand, like, who is this person? Why am I on this email list? And then for it to, like, get [00:23:00] sticky in their brain once they start receiving your regular emails.

So most importantly is that welcome, um, making sure, first of all, I like to say to include up towards the top, uh, like, "You're here because so and so recommended me." You can use liquid code for that, or you can just say, "Someone recommended me." Um, if you didn't mean to do this, like, click here to unsubscribe, because that will happen sometimes.

People forget or whatever, and you want to make it easy for them to unsubscribe so that they don't mark you as spam. Mm-hmm. That's one of the best ways to not get spam complaints is to have a really easy unsubscribe. Um, and then from there, like, let them know who are you and what value are you providing them.

Why should they care? Why should they be opening your emails? So I would put them through, like, a, I don't know- You can decide what your cadence is, like a five-day welcome sequence or something. Hit them with, like, your greatest hits, uh, what do people come for you for, deliver some value, maybe provide some freebies, whatever it is in that first [00:24:00] instance, and then, like, let them know what to expect also.

It's like, "You're gonna be hearing from me weekly on this topic," blah, blah, blah. Um, but I would say in general, just, like, warm these people up, help them understand who you are, provide them early value so that by the time they're on your email list with everyone else, it's no surprise. They know who you are, um, and they're excited to be there.

But, uh, also I would say, like, have really good list cleaning set up for those people too. So if someone enters through the creator network and they don't open emails, honestly you might wanna do, like, 30 days. Yeah. Um, because it's just a lower intent group, so if someone doesn't open in 30 days, maybe you just go ahead and unsubscribe them.

No hard feelings. Um, so those are just a few ideas.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I like to think- Mm-hmm ... of them more like followers versus an actual subscriber, and you have to, like, earn that follow or that subscriber, um, over time more aggressively than you would someone who's been following you on Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever for weeks and months and finally decides to join your email list.

So totally agree [00:25:00] there. Um, I have a lot of people come to me and they're like, "My open rate is so low, but I'm growing so fast with, like, a recommendations platform," and I'm like, "Oh no, you're not unsubscribing these people, are you?" Yeah. And 90% of the time they're not. So it's one of those things you really have to pay attention to.

Alyssa Dulin: Mm-hmm. And if you do it well- Mm-hmm ... it can be amazing. Like, there's definitely people doing it well and it's working really well for them, but it does take a little bit of extra effort to do it well and make sure it doesn't hurt your deliverability.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I, I, I have a big- Yeah ... for, like, creator network subscribers, I have, like, a very big unsubscribe button on the first email they get from me, because I'm just like- Nice

"Here's what my newsletter's about." Yeah. "You were recommended because of so and so who, you know, who recommended my newsletter. But, um, if you don't wanna be here, I don't want you to be here if you don't wanna be here, so please, you know, check out." Unsubscribe, and- Yeah ... and my, I think my engagement rate for, like, uh, creator network subscribers is almost on par with, like, my, my average.[00:26:00]

So it's, like, just a hair below, but it's, it's pretty good, and I think it, I owe a lot of that to, um, to doing that.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. That's really good.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. One thing I saw Katelyn Burgoyne doing was in the recommendations, the first email, she put an actual- Mm-hmm ... screenshot of what the rec- recommendations box looks like- Mm-hmm

with herself in it. So she's like, "Here's exactly what this looked like. Do you remember seeing this box? That's how you got on here." So I started doing that too, and I've, I've seen a good increase as well. So I think- Yeah. Just a little tip for people out there is, like, let people- Yeah ... visually know where they came from, 'cause they're not gonna know what recommendations is.

They're not gonna know what any- Right ... of this stuff is. So if you can just, like, show them, "Oh yeah, that box- Me too ... that's how I got here," and then they won't, like, mark you- Yeah ... as spam. Yeah.

Alyssa Dulin: I love that.

Chenell Basilio: Totally. So

Alyssa Dulin: smart.

Dylan Redekop: Can we talk a-

Chenell Basilio: She does

Dylan Redekop: some good things, so Oh, sorry to make it off the show. Uh, can we talk a little bit about- Go for it

Gmail clipping? 'Cause I know that's kind of a topic that, um, some people experience, some people don't know how to fix. Uh, I mean, in this day and age, you can just ask- [00:27:00] Mm-hmm ... Claude or, um, ChatGPT, like, "How do I fix this?" But coming from you, coming from an expert, somebody who's been dealing with Gmail and clipping for, like, 10 years, what, what advice can you give people?

Mm-hmm. First explain maybe what it is, and then why it happens, and then how you can get around it.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah, great question. So essentially once an email size, like the overall file size is too large, Gmail clips it, which is, um, if you've ever experienced you're on a, an email in Gmail and you scroll down to the bottom and it says, "Click here to- Yeah

view the full message," essentially. Um, I think they mainly just do that because the file size is so large, they don't wanna load the whole thing. Uh, one reason it matters so much to senders is because that open tracking pixel is in the footer of an email, and so it gets clipped as well, meaning it doesn't load whenever someone does open the message the way that it normally would.

So, um, a lot of times I'll see if someone's messages are clipped, their open rates are almost nonexistent- Mm-hmm ... or very small. Um, and then we test it, we see it was clipped, and [00:28:00] the thing is, like, the actual, the opens, the human behavior was the same. Lots of people opened it. So that's hard. It's just that it wasn't tracked because that pixel didn't fire off the way it normally does.

Um, so the good news is, uh, Kit has, like, a warning system essentially in Kit. If your email gets too large, we'll show you in-app, like, "Hey, by the way, your message is probably gonna get clipped." Um, and then I think a lot of other ESPs do similar things. So that... I feel like I've seen a lot less cases of clipping at Kit since that's been launched.

The biggest cause I see for clipping is actually the templates people- Right ... are using. Um, not necessarily like, oh, a ton of text, it's super long, but it's, um, when I see people using really fancy templates that look absolutely beautiful. There's, like, lots of different, um, layouts to them and different styling.

Uh, that's how I see, um, message files get, like, super large and they get clipped. So that would be my number one tip. Um, I think you should always [00:29:00] test an email- Mm-hmm ... before you send it out. So test it to a Gmail address, scroll down to the bottom. If you see it's clipped, you should get a warning in-app if you're using Kit.

Um, but if you didn't, still look at that, um, make sure it's not clipped. And if it is, check out your template and see if, um, maybe you need to reduce some

Dylan Redekop: things. Right. So the more HTML you have in your, in your send or your, your broadcast is... That impacts the size of it, right?

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah, exactly.

Dylan Redekop: Cool.

Chenell Basilio: So would, would your email getting clipped- impact where it goes in Gmail?

Like, does it go to promotions or anything because of that, or just no? Your open rates will drop- Yeah ... because you don't know people are opening it.

Alyssa Dulin: Exactly. I haven't seen it, um, make any changes to the placement in the way that Gmail decides placement. I think it's mainly just, like, a thing on their end to reduce, um, like server- Yeah

loads or whatever when loading things. Um, I don't think it's, like, a negative thing to them in any capacity. It's just bad for senders because of they lose that tracking element.

Dylan Redekop: Is the tr- is that for every email that the tracking [00:30:00] pixel is in the footer, or can it be just... I, I thought I knew or heard somebody say that, like, a tracking pickle can, pixel can be in an image.

Like, so as soon as an image, any image loads in an email, that gets tracked as an open.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. So it is in itself an image. I think it's, like, a one pixel image that most email providers put within the footer. I have heard of some email providers will put one up at the top and in the footer. Um, I think there's pros and cons to both.

For the email providers who put it up in the header, I think they probably get more, like, fake opens, which, you know, there's a lot of fake opens out there anyways. But especially from those tools that kind of, like, have previews where you don't actually have to click on an email, but it just, like, shows up in the sidebar.

I think it would automatically load if it was in the header there. Um, in general, I've just heard that if it's in the header, you'll get more of those, like, fake opens. Um, but yeah, it ca- and I think in most places it's down in the footer. Oh,

Dylan Redekop: interesting. Okay. So when Chenell- Mm-hmm ... who notoriously does not have images turned on for her [00:31:00] Gmail emails that she gets, does that mean when she opens an email- Mm-hmm

none of that's getting tracked? Dang Correct You're so mean, Chenell. Why do you do that to these people? Yep, mm-hmm. They just want your open rate.

Speaker 4: Sneaky.

Chenell Basilio: Well, I don't know. I just feel like some- Yeah ... weird things show up at like, I don't know, sometimes I don't want images turned on, so I usually leave them off.

But, um, and then I also get, this is the, the beauty of it as like a newsletter sleuth, is I'll also get all the re-engagement campaigns- Right ... because people think- Yeah ... I'm not opening emails. So then I get to see what they're sending it for re-engagement, which is fun.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah, so you like it. You're like, "Oh, this is fun."

Chenell Basilio: I love it. That's funny.

Dylan Redekop: Oh y-

Chenell Basilio: Um-

Dylan Redekop: I was just gonna say, Alyssa touched on something that- I feel like we need to pull on, um, and that is-

Chenell Basilio: I think we're talking,

Dylan Redekop: thinking

Chenell Basilio: about the

Dylan Redekop: same thing- About like- ... so go for it ... legit opens and legit clicks and-

Chenell Basilio: Yes ...

Dylan Redekop: you know, illegitimate- Mm-hmm ... opens and clicks, yeah.

Chenell Basilio: How that's changed.

Alyssa Dulin: It's a whole thing. I honestly... So- Like where do I start? Uh, they're two [00:32:00] different things. Um, opens, you know, most-- I would say the biggest problem with opens right now are the automatic opens, but then there's also the providers who block all opens. So really, it's happening across the board of, like, some people are showing as opened who didn't, some people are showing as, uh, not opened who did open.

It's all very confusing. Um, but if anyone's listening and doesn't know what I'm talking about, the main cause is Apple, um, announced mail privacy protection a little bit ago, and essentially if someone opts into that, they automatically load, uh, the pixels in an email in order to prevent basically, I don't know, brands, people from understanding, like, when someone- Right

opened an email, um, or if they did. So just, like, a privacy protection thing. Um, so that means opens are very inflated. There's a lot of, um, subscribers who are gonna show as opened that didn't really open. The good news is, from what we can tell, those opens do not get [00:33:00] fired if the email lands in spam. So opens these days are less a proxy of, like, who is truly opening my message, and more a proxy of is my email landing in the inbox?

Um, so it still is helpful. If you see a drop in opens, it's a good sign that you landed in the spam folder at some mailbox provider, or that something is wrong. So it's still-- Like, I wouldn't just throw out open rates and say they don't matter. Um, it's more that you wanna keep an eye on the trend of open rates and notice- Yeah

fluctuations, and that can tell you hints about your deliverability. But it definitely is not an accurate depiction of, like, this exact subscriber opened this exact message in the way that it used to be.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, and I think a lot of, like, .edu email addresses, even corporate ones, will auto-open everything- Mm-hmm

because they're a corporation. They don't want their employees clicking on some-

Speaker 4: Yeah ...

Chenell Basilio: malicious link. Yeah. So they have to make sure that every link is safe and-

Alyssa Dulin: Yep ...

Chenell Basilio: all that stuff, too. So I know I'll send an email and immediately have, like, hundreds of clicks. I'm like, "Well, that's not real, but okay."

Alyssa Dulin: [00:34:00] Exactly. Yeah. So that's, like, a whole separate issue of, um, link tracking spam filters essentially, and it's becoming more and more common even on, like, the free mail addresses. So, um, it's a thing. It's definitely a problem that lots of ESPs are trying to solve. Um, at Kit now we do have a beta feature for, um, reducing click, bot clicks, so if you're interested in being part of that beta, just let me know.

Um, but using-- I mean, I obviously can't, like, give out all the secret sauce, but using tools to figure out which clicks are likely not- Right ... human clicks, and then filtering those out. Um, but yeah, the main thing is Those, the universities or the mailbox writers just wanna keep their subscribers safe, so they're gonna click through links, check them for safety, and then deliver it to the inbox, and then humans can click it after that.

Dylan Redekop: That makes, that makes sense. I, I do a thing in my... Oh, go ahead, Chenell. But it- And I'll pull up.

Chenell Basilio: No, I was gonna say, it just gets so, so bad that I don't even use link triggers- Mm ... anymore- Right. I know ... inside of Kit [00:35:00] because it's not accurate. Yeah. And I think this is just, like, across the board. This isn't a Kit specific thing.

Mm-hmm. But I'll just start using, like, polls, or I'm even toying with, like, setting up my own cookie on my website so that if someone actually hits the website- Yeah ... then I know they're real, versus, like, a click. So I don't know. It's a mess, but

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. What- Yeah ... I want you to assess my strategy here to try to decipher legit clicks versus not.

I have a, a period at the very bottom of my email that is, um, hyperlinked or linked, and so it's like, "No one's gonna click on this probably." Um, and then I can use that as a gauge to see in my analytics how many clicks that, that period got versus the rest of the, the clicks, if that makes sense.

Alyssa Dulin: I like the honeypot strategy.

It's one we definitely give people all the time. Um, I think it's just, yeah, it's good to know, like, which of your subscribers probably are auto-clicking, and you can take that list and do what you want with it. [00:36:00] I am very hopeful based on the results I've seen from the bot clicking stuff we're doing, that it will reduce a lot of it.

So, um, hopefully there is, there is something to come that will make this a lot easier and you won't have to have the honeypot step going. Are

Dylan Redekop: you foreshadow- is that foreshadow- like, you know there might be something being, yeah

Alyssa Dulin: Oh, I know. Well, yeah, like beta thing. Oh, like the, oh, so okay. Yes,

Dylan Redekop: yes. Talk to me about the thing you're teasing.

Alyssa Dulin: We have like, yeah, we have quite a bit of people on it already, and I've been able to see the reduction in clicks, um, in, like, the automatic clicking. So anyone can get on it if you want it, um, and it'll be live. I don't know the exact date, but it's coming. Yes,

Chenell Basilio: please.

Alyssa Dulin: Okay. We can talk after this.

Chenell Basilio: Okay.

That's cool. Yeah. It's, 'cause it's, it's always been so frustrating and, like, you know, someone's like, "Oh, I have, like, a 65% open rate." And I'm like, "Yeah, but are you speaking only to schools or universities?" And I'm like- Mm-hmm ... well, that's probably why. Yeah. It's 'cause it's inflated. But it's not, I just don't feel like it's a good [00:37:00] directional metric for people to use.

That's why, uh, we always talk about replies- Yeah ... making sure people are actually enjoying your emails and that kind of thing, so.

Alyssa Dulin: Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio: Interesting. I'm excited to see this link-

Dylan Redekop: Would it

Chenell Basilio: make- ... click stuff.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. It'll be so good.

Dylan Redekop: Would, like, click to open, I'm, I'm thinking of like- Mm-hmm ... a bunch of people, let's say you had, like, a 65% open rate, like Chenell was referring to, but your click rate is, like, 1 or .5%.

So that would be maybe, to me, that would be, like, an indication, like, I'm getting a lot of, you know, fake opens, if you will, or bot opens, and, um- Right ... maybe only, like, 20%- That's interesting ... of my list or 25% of my list is actually opening, but the people who are, who are legitimately opening, maybe the, the click rate is, like, 5% or whatever that might be.

Um, so is that a metric that people might wanna follow a bit closer, or is that not, is my math not mathing?

Alyssa Dulin: I mean, I understand what you're saying. It'll be ... So right now, both of those things- Yeah ... are inflated. And so if you turn on, like, um, a bot clicking reduction thing that I'm mentioning, then you would see, like, that click to open rate's definitely gonna change because your opens will still be pretty [00:38:00] inflated.

That's really a whole different mechanism for most subscribers, like the Apple Mail protection stuff. Um, so those opens will probably still be pretty inflated, but those clicks will now be much more normal, so you're probably gonna see a pretty big shift there, and it might be scary for some people, actually, at first to see.

They're gonna be like, "Oh my gosh, my clicks. What happened to them?" But it's really just all about do you want to see the, you know, the bigger inflated number- Yeah ... or do you wanna see something that's a little bit closer to reality?

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, humbling. It's gonna be humbling for a lot of people, I think. It's

Alyssa Dulin: like, oh.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Well, but good, especially if you're running- Mm-hmm ... sponsorships and trying to do brand partnerships. Like, you need to be able to tell them how many clicks they got, how many people actually saw their message, so I think it's important. Um, and Dylan, on that topic, I think it's-

Dylan Redekop: Yeah ...

Chenell Basilio: it's all relative, right?

'Cause I, I know people who send out emails that have no links, or the only link is, like- Right ... unsubscribe or- Yeah ... follow me on LinkedIn or something. So they might get very little clicks- Mm-hmm ... just in general. You're right. So I think that's a tough depends on the CPAs and everything But yeah, for [00:39:00] something like what we send is, yeah.

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. Hmm.

Chenell Basilio: Interesting. Well, okay, real, 'cause I know we're coming to the top of the hour, so we have a couple more questions. We have a lot more questions, Chenell. But I wanna make sure we talk about- We have

Speaker 4: like 25, 30 questions we, uh, we sent to Alyssa.

Chenell Basilio: Can you just come on for the next, like, three weeks- Yes, please

Alyssa Dulin: and we can keep talking about this? I love hanging out with you guys.

Chenell Basilio: Um, I'm, I'm curious about this because obviously AI is a hot topic, and, like, I'm wondering if there's anything, I don't know if it's, like, messaging or languaging that you might be using in emails based off of AI tools that would get you into trouble with deliverability, or maybe it's even, I don't know, formats or, I don't know.

Is there anything we should be looking out for in this day and age with emails that is very different from the past?

Alyssa Dulin: Interesting question. I love it. Um, I would say honestly the biggest thing so far is, um, around summaries. So AI summaries are a very real thing in the inbox now, and that's gonna be interesting [00:40:00] because that is now going to play a big part into whether someone opens your email or not.

Um, so it's something to keep in mind. Maybe, like, start watching the summaries that Gmail or others are creating for your messages and, like, how good of a job is it doing. I think- The sooner you can kind of get to the point or the value of the email, probably the better the summary is going to be at capturing that value.

Um, if you have a really long story to tell and you get at the bottom, you know that you have a 25% off sale and you want people to know about that, AI's probably gonna pick up that big long story you talked about going to your grandma's house instead- Mm ... and put that in the summary so people might not open it.

So I would say, like, try and showcase value, um, closer to the top of the email if you're not already, and, like, kind of getting more to the point so that it's picked up in the summary. Um-

Speaker 4: Hmm ...

Alyssa Dulin: I think that's the biggest call-out. I mean, things are just gonna be different. Like, there's so many AI tools now around the inbox, like managing your inbox, putting newsletters in a [00:41:00] different tab or folder, or marking them as read or whatever.

I know I've already started using some tools that do things like that. So it just-- I think it's never going to be more important to create really valuable emails that people want to read and, like, engage with and open. I think, like, the cream will rise. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like- Yeah ... if you have really good content and really good emails, the AI-- it's not gonna matter.

AI is going to give a summary, and people are gonna still wanna open it, and it's gonna be fine. Um, but if you are lacking in that department, it's going to probably get even harder to get visibility. I guess, uh, one way I talked about recently was like AI is gonna be more of a curator, um, of the inbox.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Alyssa Dulin: And so it's not just getting to the inbox, but it's gonna be, like, getting past that curator who's trying to give the user the best experience.

Dylan Redekop: That's a great example.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. So what you really-- What I wanted you to say was that if you use AI to write your newsletter- Yeah ... it's gonna go to spam. But-

Alyssa Dulin: Well, if the quality's bad- That's not true

it's not gonna, you know, like- Sorry ... [00:42:00] it's not gonna be good for you.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Alyssa Dulin: I don't, I don't know that Gmail cares. Like, it'll be interesting to see- Yeah ... like if an email's written by AI. I think that's gonna get so common that it's like I don't know. I don't know that they'll send those to spam. I think it's gonna come down to reputation.

Hmm. So if you start using AI to write emails and they're not good, and people don't engage, you're gonna go to spam because people don't want those emails. So it really comes down to, like, are the emails good? Do people like them? Are people engaging? And if you're writing emails with AI that people love, then you're probably gonna go to the inbox.

Um-

Chenell Basilio: Yeah ...

Alyssa Dulin: so I think that's the most important part.

Dylan Redekop: So insanely, insanely valuable content is- Mm-hmm ... uh, is key.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Knowing your audience, solving a problem for them, or, you know, giving them what they want via email. Like, I barely open any emails these days, but I do e- like, open emails when it's solving a problem for me.

It's about what I'm doing at my work, customer support, customer success, how to use AI to scale customer success, or if it's about deliverability. Like, I'm opening- Mm-hmm ... the email, um, because I want it, [00:43:00] and it's, like, it's solving a problem for me. But, um, if you are not doing that or are not doing it well, I do think it's gonna just get harder and harder.

Chenell Basilio: So I have a question that I just thought of right now. Mm-hmm. But it's a big issue for me. So I will often look, log into my Kit account, and in my subscriber list I see, like, 30 Yahoo emails, and I know they're all fake. Mm-hmm. And they're all coming from the same place, and part of me is like, "Should I just delete all Yahoo emails?"

'Cause for some reason I feel like bots are very good- Interesting ... and they just pick up Yahoo emails. I know it happens with Gmail too, but it's very common with the Yahoo stuff. Um, but it'll, like, throw off the next 30 minutes, 'cause I'm like, "Well, let me go delete all these people 'cause I know they're not real, and it's gonna be messing with my deliverability."

So.

Alyssa Dulin: Interesting.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Are they coming- I know I could just turn on double opt-in, but that's not

Alyssa Dulin: my style Yeah. Not my favorite. Are they coming in through a form or through the creator network or something else?

Chenell Basilio: Depends. I've had it through form- Sometimes it's either ... homepage form a lot recently. Yeah.

Homepage form. I've had it come [00:44:00] through Creator Network to the point where I had to block someone from- Yeah ... recommending me people, 'cause it got too bad. But, um, yeah, it's usually a form.

Alyssa Dulin: Okay.

Chenell Basilio: So I didn't know if there was- Before- ... like a specific... Yeah.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. Well, before, like, um, just getting rid of all Yahoo or turning on opt-in confirmation for everyone, if this is a real pattern you're seeing, you could set up a rule to only send an opt-in confirmation if the email address contains Yahoo.

Ooh. Um, so essentially force an opt-in confirmation for Yahoo subscribers only, and if they don't click it in a certain amount of days, it automatically unsubscribes them. Um, but the- Yeah. Ooh, I like

Dylan Redekop: that. I, I didn't know you could do

Alyssa Dulin: that. Jason thinks. Yeah, I'm like- ... looking. I'm pretty sure you can. You can create a segment.

Well, you can just set up

Chenell Basilio: an automation.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. But, but you have to search a string of text in their, like their email address to, and then trigger a, like a double opt-in confirmation essentially?

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. So I believe you can say, like, start the automation if someone comes through a form, [00:45:00] and you can have a segment that, uh, says, like, if email address contains yahoo.com, then I think you can branch that in the automation and say, like, add them to this sequence, and the sequence would just be an opt-in confirmation single email.

If they click on it, they get a tag, and then you wait for like- Right ... seven days, and if that tag, if they're not tagged with that tag,

Dylan Redekop: unsubscribe them. Okay. So it's still a, there's still-

Alyssa Dulin: We can fact check me after this, but I

Dylan Redekop: think that's what I'm hearing. That sounds right. So it's still a single opt-in, you know, the way they're getting in, but then you set up your own, like-

Chenell Basilio: Yeah

Dylan Redekop: sort of double opt-in on the back end with an automation.

Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm. I'm gonna do this, and the, the subject line is gonna be like, "You still use yahoo.com?" Question mark. No.

Alyssa Dulin: Love it. I mean, another thing, I'm sure you probably already are doing this, but if the forms where you're seeing them come in are not already a Kit, like an actual Kit form embedded in your site, we do have really good bot protection.

And if you're [00:46:00] still seeing bots come in, you can always tell me, and I can reach out to our engineering team and basically be like, "Do we need to tweak anything to catch these?" Um, but I would say, like, bot protection is your best way to try and fight them at the source. But if they're still coming through, you can do those little custom- Right

like double opt-in things.

Dylan Redekop: Right.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. That's smart. Okay. I'm gonna do that. Super

Dylan Redekop: smart.

Alyssa Dulin: Fun. I'm glad I got y'all a little tip there. I feel like you all know everything- ... so that's hard to

Chenell Basilio: know. No, no, no. Not with this stuff. I feel like we're, me and Chenell are always like, "We're not deliverability experts, but..."

Mm-hmm. And then I saw you at the conference, I was like, "We should just have-

Dylan Redekop: Yeah ...

Chenell Basilio: Alyssa come on the show 'cause we have so many questions."

Dylan Redekop: I'll come anytime. I, I have a quick question I, I saw in our list here that I, we haven't really touched on. Well, we did a little bit, but, um, maybe some people might be thinking like, "I wanna go from sending a weekly email to, like, a two, three, five time a week email."

And is that gonna... Are you gonna get flagged for, like, increasing your sends, like, pretty dramatically, um, by, like, inbox [00:47:00] providers, or is that not really something you need to worry about? If you're already doing... So you're already, you have, uh, g- a good str- strong sender reputation, all that stuff, let's assume.

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah, I would say maybe, like, if it's gonna be a big change, just kind of do it a little gradually, where it's like, "Okay, now I'm gonna send twice a week," and then I've done that for a few weeks. Now I'm gonna do it- Right ... three times a week or whatever. I wouldn't just, like, make a huge sudden change. And then another thing to note is just that, um, list health becomes, and engagement becomes even more important if you increase frequency, because essentially what's happening is you are, um, magnifying or, like- I don't know if that's the right word, but, um, the neg- the positive signals, the good signals, and the negative signals, you're just making those happen more.

Yeah. So if you have, like, a, a chunk, 30% of your audience who literally never engages and you email them once a week, not a huge deal, but now you're emailing those people who never open-

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm ...

Alyssa Dulin: two or three times a week, and so you're just giving the mailbox providers more signals that, like, you're [00:48:00] sending emails that people don't want.

So I would say if you're gonna do that, no problem, just tighten up your list cleaning, I would say. Like, whatever cadence you're using to decide someone should get cleaned out of your list, maybe make it a s- a little bit smaller, like we said, on that 90-day end.

Dylan Redekop: Okay. That's smart.

Chenell Basilio: That's super smart, yeah.

Alyssa Dulin: And you can also... I like the tip to tweak frequency. Like, if you wanna start sending more often, maybe only send it to your engaged people- Mm ... the, you know, three times a week. If there's people who are not opening your once-a-week emails, don't start sending to them more. Yeah. But maybe if you're like, "I still wanna send to them weekly," that's fine.

So you can have, like, different frequencies for different people, and I think that's a smart way to segment your list and make sure people are getting what they want.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I'm going through this right now with 30 Days of Growth because this year I was like- Yeah ... I'm just gonna send it to everybody, and they have to opt out of getting daily.

And now I'm like- ... well, this is dumb. So, like, the last few times, I started, if someone hasn't opened the first, like, six, I just am not sending them anymore. Smart. Um, [00:49:00] because-

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm ...

Chenell Basilio: it's not worth it, and I don't wanna see the open rates on those drop, and if they don't want it, I don't wanna, like, force them- Yeah.

Right ... the content. So yeah, I'm trying to tweak that as I go, but it's a, it's a game, so.

Dylan Redekop: And you're in a good place for that because you don't have these, like... You haven't promised, like, sponsors, like, we're sending this to X amount of people, right? So it would be different- Right ... if you're like, "Yeah, I've got, like, three big sponsors- Thankfully

that we promised, you know, all 30 emails to." So, um, I mean, the control's in your hands for that, so that's good.

Chenell Basilio: Good thing I'm- ... lacking the sponsorships. Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: The silver, the silver lining.

Chenell Basilio: It worked out. It worked out. Oh, it's so good. Well, I know we have spent so much time talking about this. Alyssa, thank you for coming on the show and sharing all your wisdom.

I'm sure people are gonna have a ton of questions. Um, I guess we should mention, you don't publish it right now, but you do have a back catalog of a podcast called Deliverability Defined, and those are... If you wanna nerd out on this stuff- Yeah. ... that is the place to go because it is so insightful, um, [00:50:00] and hopefully you guys- Yeah

will start doing it again, but-

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. We will.

Chenell Basilio: Is there any other place that people should reach out to you to connect or...?

Alyssa Dulin: Yeah. I'm trying to get better at posting on LinkedIn, so feel free to go find me there. Um, I will also say, insider tip, I literally haven't told anyone about this, so hopefully I don't regret it.

Uh, my, my night-and-weekend project has been trying to essentially, like, put my brain into a tool, so I think it's in a place where, like, people could start... I have some people using it. It's called Send Gauge. S-E-N-D-G-A-U-G-E.com. Um, and it's essentially like an email deliverability intelligence platform.

You can add your domain and it surfaces Google Postmaster Tools data once you connect that, your ESP's data, block list checks, DNS checks, all in one place, and then, again, did a lot of training with AI and things to try and give you really good, uh, recommendations on what to do next. Um, and you can also get help from me if you need it.

But, um, we'll see. That's cool. Uh, let me know if you have feedback, if anybody [00:51:00] wants to try it out. Um, so that's my little pet project. And yeah, I feel like LinkedIn is probably the, the other good place to reach me.

Chenell Basilio: I'm so excited- Yeah ... about this. That's cool. I'm gonna sign up right now.

Alyssa Dulin: Oh. But ... Okay. Well, you have to tell me all the things I should fix, and I am just, like, literally at 9:00 PM every night-

vibe coding. So, um- ... just tell me what you want and I'll build it. That's amazing. It's really fun.

Dylan Redekop: And that's SendGage- That's awesome ... SendGage.com- Well, thanks for putting that

Chenell Basilio: out there ...

Dylan Redekop: G-

Alyssa Dulin: Yep. SendGage.com.

Dylan Redekop: G-A-U-G-E?

Alyssa Dulin: G-A-U-G-E. I also bought a typo'd version in case someone spells it wrong. Mm-hmm. And I'll have to see- So smart

if there's more

Dylan Redekop: typos. That's brilliant. And you'll be at Crafting Commerce in June as well?

Chenell Basilio: I like it.

Alyssa Dulin: I will be, and I ha- am leading a deliverability workshop. You all probably don't need it, but, um, if anyone else is interested and is gonna be there, me and Melissa will be leading that. But I cannot wait- Yeah

to see you all there. We're excited. It'll be so fun.

Chenell Basilio: I remember I went to one two years ago that you guys ran, and I was, like, in the back, like, taking all these notes 'cause I was like, "This is so [00:52:00] interesting." Like, I didn't know any of this stuff. Oh, my gosh. That's when I signed up for- Mm ... Postmaster Tools, and it was great, so.

Alyssa Dulin: Oh, I'm so glad- Yeah ... to hear it. I assume everyone knows all this stuff, so it's good for me to be reminded that, like, it, yeah, people don't know this stuff. It's 'cause

Dylan Redekop: you talk about it every day, all day, to everyone, and yet-

I

Alyssa Dulin: know. Yeah. You- I'm tired of hearing myself

Dylan Redekop: talk about it, but- You think the amount of times I've said this- I have to remind myself

everyone must know, but no- Yeah ... many people do not.

Alyssa Dulin: Exactly.

Chenell Basilio: Oh, this is so good. Mm-hmm. Well, thanks again for coming on. We'll have to have you back on in a future episode and talk more about- Yeah ... all this stuff. So thanks again.

Please do.