[Limited Series]🥫SPAMAGEDDON🥫Will Switching Email Platforms Help or Hurt? Ep. 327

0:05Welcome to Spamageddon. This is a special five part crossover series between the email after hours podcast and the do this not that podcast we're going to keep these short they're going to be fun they're going to be awesome we're teaming up to help marketers battle the ultimate inbox apocalypse is your email program doomed or can you survive the invasion of spam filters block lists and dwindling engagement in this special series we're going to bust myths drop truth bombs and give you the tips you need to survive the deliverability doomsday all right so your host You got me, Jay Schwettlson from the Guru Media Hub and the Do This Not That podcast.

0:42And I'm Guy Hanson. I'm VP of Customer Engagement at Validity and co-host of our Email After Hours podcast. And I'm Danielle Gallant, also of Validity and Guy's Better Half on the Email After Hours podcast. We are back for Spamageddon. So excited for this short episode. We're going to be breaking down about switching your email sending platform. Does it help? Will it solve all things? But before we do that, in this special series, we start out every episode playing You Have 10 Seconds, where I ask Danielle and I ask Guy two separate questions that are totally ridiculous. And they only have 10 seconds to answer the questions.

1:18Guy, are you ready for your question? Let's do it. Okay, here we go. You have 10 seconds. Name three horrible movie musicals. Oh, Sound of Music, La La Land. and dare I say it, Queen the Musical. Wow. You might get kicked out of the whole entire British world there. That's not good. Wait, we didn't like La La Land? I feel like, Danielle, did you like La La Land? Come on. That was a good movie. Oh, no. Danielle's on mute. That's just because I didn't want to slam La La Land too badly. There you go. Cats, Guy. That last, that movie, like there's some insanity in there. I can't believe it. I just don't think Guy likes movie musicals.

2:05All right, Danielle, are you ready for your question? Clearly. Are you ready, Danielle? No, but please go. All right. You have 10 seconds. Name three fashion trends you wore and now deeply regret. Bell bottoms, number one. No offense. I know those are back now. Mini skirts, platforms. Wow, you were ready with that. You have a lot of fashion regrets. I don't. Please don't go looking for any of these. I feel like we should throw a 10 second at you, Jay. Oh, no. Here we are. We're Spamageddon. We're sort of inspired by Armageddon. So, are you Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, or Liv Tyler? Oh, my God. That's a great question.

2:53I would like to be Ben Affleck. Bruce Willis is the coolest. I'm more Liv Tyler because she stayed on Earth. And she was safe. So I don't think I'd go on the asteroid and help humanity. I would stay home and hang out with my dad, who's Steven Tyler, which would be really cool. Yeah, that would be very cool. You both got that luscious hair. Yeah, there you go. Exactly right. And you wouldn't have to miss a thing. Oh, wow. That is the worst joke I've ever heard. All right. But this won't be the worst episode. We're going to get into this now about will switching email platforms help? because I think that's what a lot of marketers think, that, oh, my deliverability stinks, my performance stinks.

3:34If I just change platforms, it will get better. So Danielle, I want to toss it to you first. Is that a thing? Is there a, you know, I could just switch to any platform, any platforms would be better than the one that I'm on. Is it one size fits all? It's just not. Like the key word for any platform is functionality. Like what do you need as a sender? So if you're trading up, you know, You got to make sure that your new platform has all of the reporting, analytics that you need to be able to measure and grow. And if you're downsizing to save costs or something, you got to make sure that that new platform has enough functionality to at least maintain your performance.

4:16But different ESPs offer different things. Some do offer shared IP services for those smaller senders. Some don't. So it's really about what you need. Let me ask you one more building on that question. If I'm in a particular industry, I'm B2B, I'm in education, I'm nonprofit, I'm whatever, right? I'm a direct to consumer marketer. Are there platforms that you should be looking at depending on the industry you're in? Or is it more, I just like the functionality of the platform. So I'm going to roll with that. Yeah, I'm sure that there are platforms that are catered to or geared towards certain models more than industries, maybe like maybe B2B versus B2C.

4:58But I have senders that are, you name it, a nonprofit, retail, B2B, they're all using the same platform. So it's just really about finding what works best for your business. Fair enough. All right, guy, let me toss it to you. Totally different topic about moving platforms. I think the biggest reason people move platforms is that they have an issue. They have bad deliverability. They're sending reputation to the problem. If you switch platforms, will it solve those issues? So I'm going to be the contrarian here because I think there is some truth in that statement. I think if you choose the right ESP, you know, it's entirely reasonable to expect your ESP to have your sending infrastructure buttoned up and that they've got established relationships with the big mailbox providers, key third party vendors like us at Validity.

5:51I think some email service providers have established standards and they won't work with the sender unless they at least meet those standards. And, you know, those can be external obligations to like the CSA in Germany or, you know, more or industry body. So I think, you know, listen, all of these factors, you know, if your new ESP is offering them, will make your program perform better. fact. But remember that your bad practices will follow you no matter where you go. You know, moving from one platform to another is a great opportunity to wipe the slate clean. You know, don't take your old dormant subscribers and your suspect addresses and your bad practices with you.

6:37Start fresh. And I think also, email service providers cannot be expected to exert any control over the relationships that you, the sender, have with your subscribers. It's the sender who controls the data selections, the sending frequency, the content and the copy that you're using, the offers and the pricing that you're deploying. So that's all in your gift. Make sure that you're sending valuable content that your subscribers want to receive, and you'll do via. When you switch platforms, should you migrate? So when you send out an email, you're sending it out via an IP address or a shared IP address or whatever it may be in the domains you're delivering your email from.

7:23Should you bring those with you when you go to the new platform or you should start fresh and use whatever IP infrastructure that they're giving you? Yeah, mostly you can't, right? It is the ESP that owns those IP addresses. So even if you're moving, if you, let's say, you know, business A moves from one ESP to another, that IP address is getting left behind, rested, and then recycled. So a whole new sender is going to use it for IPv4. There's a finite number of those in the world. And if you had a bad reputation on the last one, maybe don't bring it with you. I'll tell you what, I'll offer one additional thought though, because you often see programs make that change and they also change sending domain.

8:10And I always think they miss a big opportunity to tell their subscribers in advance about the new domain that's going to be used and ask them, you know, the usual stuff, add us to your trusted senders list. Because, you know, I guess sometimes we sit wondering, you know, do people really do that? They do. And I reckon a mature a program, you know, they make the move. And by then, maybe 10 % or 15 % of their customers have effectively, you know, allow listed them. And, you know, if you suddenly change sending domains and you haven't given them any advance warning, you're going to lose that benefit.

8:43And it's a big impact when it's 10 or 15 % of your list. I love that. That's a great tip. And I'll throw this out to everybody that's listening, which is oftentimes when you sign up with an ESP, you're paying for a lot of stuff that you never end up using. You're using like 20 % of the capabilities of what you're actually paying for. And so what we try to do is we try to have at least an annual call, if not twice a year call, where we have our platform basically repitch to us everything that we already have access to. Because every platform has new bells and whistles every year. You're not aware of them.

9:15Your team's not aware of them. You have new members of your team. And instead of going in a new platform, find out first, without paying an extra dollar, what you have access to and meet all the people that can actually help you with your programs because there's a lot of internal resources at all these platforms that I don't think enough marketers tap into before they make the change. Okay. So speaking of change, we're going to be crushing more episodes. Everybody's got to go and sign up for email after hours podcast. They do an incredible job and you can check out, do this, not that also, and do not go and look for any of Danielle's old photos and all the fashion issues that she had that not that you had issues, but in your mind you did.

9:58And I want you to find them and post them on social media. I mean, don't post them on social media. Guys, go for it. Amazing. All right. We'll see everybody at the next one. That's a wrap on this episode of Spamageddon, but the battle for the inbox never ends. If you love this crossover chaos. You got to tune in the next time and make sure to subscribe to email after hours podcast. It is one of my favorites. And also check out Do This Not That podcast for marketers. It is a blast. We'll see you at the next episode.