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Visit ZeroBounce.net to access free tools for email validation and warmup, or connect with Brian directly on LinkedIn.
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Everyone thinks they know why their emails hit the spam folder, but Brian Minick is here to prove most of us wrong. As the COO of ZeroBounce, he breaks down the real technical reasons behind deliverability without making it sound like a boring lecture. Jay Schwedelson presses him on the biggest myths in email marketing, including the truth about using the word "free" in your subject lines.
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Best Moments:
(02:30) Why hitting 100% inbox placement is actually impossible
(04:09) The truth about using trigger words like "free" in your subject lines
(04:51) Why unsubscribes actually help your sender reputation
(05:46) You should want your sales emails to land in the Promotions tab
(07:30) How to safely migrate email platforms without ruining your deliverability
(09:00) The real difference between shared and dedicated IP addresses
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Partner with Jay! https://www.jayschwedelson.com/contact
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Pre-order Jay Schwedelson’s new book, Stupider People Have Done It (out June 9, 2026). All net proceeds are donated to The V Foundation for Cancer Research—let’s kick cancer’s butt: https://www.amazon.com/Stupider-People-Have-Done-Marketing/dp/1637635206
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Check out Jay’s YOUTUBE Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@schwedelson
Check out Jay’s TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@schwedelson
Check Out Jay's INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jayschwedelson/
Welcome to do this not that the podcast from marketers we share quick tips things
you can do right now and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every
episode we also keep it short like this intro let's check it out we are back
for do this not that and we have a repeat guest you know when a guest is
great when we bring them back because we almost never do that so do we have we
have Brian Minick who's the chief operating officer at zero bounce now Brian
won't say this about himself but I will first of all zero bounce the reason I
asked Brian to come back is the basics of email performance getting in the
inbox not going to the junk folder or spam folder deliverability everybody's
always trying to figure out what they got to do in Brian he's a super technical
dude because he oversees the fact that zero bounce helps hundreds of thousands
of companies with better email validation better email deliverability but the
reason Brian's cool is that he's normal usually at a tech person on here they're
like a big nerd I don't know what they're talking about they use big words I
don't understand but Brian while he knows the words he doesn't use them because
he knows I'm very simple minded so we're going to break it all down here he's
awesome Brian welcome to the show thanks Jay I'm excited to be back and I'll
keep all geek terminology off to the side here today so sounds good by the way
just I mean we didn't talk about this I'm just curious right out of the gate are
you like Star Trek or Star Wars or you neither because you're not that big of
whatever I'm neither because I'm much more into stupid comedy movies that's like
stepbrothers bridesmaids that just allow me to actually escape so I I can't say
I'm good into the Star Trek and Star Wars world Star Wars world that's my wife
for sure do we just become best friends okay that was my stepbrothers you
nothing so there you go anyway so let's jump into it here I want to get into
dispelling some myths about email deliverability I want to tell everyone some
table stakes things everybody's out there is like okay I don't think my emails
are all going to the inbox the way they should I think a lot of going to spam I
think it's because of this reason or that reason and usually people get it wrong
so when someone comes to you and says hey I have a hundred percent
deliverability I'm crushing it or hey my deliverability is terrible what's going
on what are the basics that you kind of dig into everybody needs to know yeah so
number one hundred percent of anything not possible so if you think you're a
hundred percent in the inbox I can with certainty tell you you're wrong unless
you're sending emails to yourself and only to yourself like you send one
email so if you send mail in any sort of size thousands of messages hundreds
of thousands messages you will definitely be in spam folders at some point and
this can be due to just user behavior so if they have marked you as spam or
you know we're G Suite I use G Suite Gmail if you hit mark spam it then says do
you want to also block this person and if you say yes it doesn't actually block
the message it throws in the spam folder so you can you know have even just
individual users that can change the behavior of where your mail ends up
going but the the aggregate of those signals can really start to influence what's
happening on that network and so it is definitely important to understand a
hundred percent is not possible and what you want to achieve is maximum you know
capability of being in the inbox and you definitely want to be shooting for you
know 98% and above and and this can be done but it's not easy and it does
require some work and it requires some effort to make sure that you're doing
the right things all right I want to ask you a series of true false questions
related to the livability and I want you to answer true false and then maybe give
you one or two sentences afterwards that support whether it is true or false
okay about the livability okay sounds good okay true or false that if I put
words like free in the subject line that there are certain words if I put in my
email subject line it will cause me to go to the junk folder more by using
those words totally false now there are some words I want to say that there
are some words that we probably all know that should not be used and it's not
going to be those free or marketing type catch words they're going to be more
words that are adult type words these type of things okay but no absolutely not
that's not going to do it now if you overdo it you put it all over the place
you do it a hundred times maybe but generally speaking no that's not going to
put you in the spam folder all right everyone stop believing that you can put
words in the subject lines all right next one is it true that if I get unsubscribes
even really mean unsubscribes this will hurt my deliverability and this is the
reason I'm going to the spam folder this is false as well and actually unsubscribes
send positive signals towards your towards your deliverability because it
actually means someone opened and clicked so just because I'm unsubscribed this
is why I preach this don't make it impossible for people to unsubscribed you
are doing yourself more harm than good because if they don't want your email
and they can't unsubscribed they will mark you as spam and that is way worse
than an unsubscribed any day of the week so no that is not going to put you
in the spam folder what it can do is do it on that user so it can you know have
some influence on that user but no it's not going to hurt your deliverability
and unsubscribes are okay okay true or false my emails are going into the
promotions tab and I want to get out of the promotions tab because that's a
bad place for my emails to go should I try to get out of the promotions tab true
and false is my answer it depends so if you don't want to be in the promotions
tab don't send a promotion that's that's step one if you want to be in the
promotions tab send a promotion because that's what people are looking in that
tab for I don't think there's a problem with that if I'm looking for sales and
I'm in the promotions tab what's the problem that's exactly what I signed up to
look for so I don't think that's necessarily the issue where I think people are
trying to game the system is they want to send their promotions and get them into
the inbox and I think that's really that might be the the false part where you
want people to people want more visibility in the inbox but also just bear in
mind that the providers want to put the mail where the user would expect to
receive it with the mindset of clicking something so I think they're doing their
job there and people are too offended by this promotions folder okay now this
one hot take here I want to know true or false my deliverability stinks so what
we're doing is a company we're going to switch to another email sending
provider another platform and that's going to solve our problems because it's
going to be a new thing true or false oh there's a tough one to answer on
on a binary level and let me say non-technical here maybe so you can have bad
infrastructure on an ESP or your sending platform and migrating can help you
it can hurt you as well if you don't do it the right way so the quality of that
infrastructure and the reputation of that previous system to the new one can
definitely play a role in what happens in the future both good and bad so
here's here's here's the how you get around this here's how you fix this you
keep both systems running for a small period of time maybe 60 days and attempt to
use both at the same time and AB test that now if that's too technical here
Jay I'm not sure that anything I say today will resonate but if you can keep
both of those systems running for let's say 30 to 60 days which you're going
to need to kind of do anyway try sending half and half off each of those ESPs
and get an idea on the performance and that will give you a much better inclination
what's going to happen okay I want to try to see if you can explain something in
the least technical way possible I think impacts people's deliverability email
deliverability and they don't know that they're doing it which is if you are a
relatively small marketer maybe your database size is 50,000 names okay and
you're sending out on whatever platform you're sending out on and you're sending
out on a dedicated IP address as opposed to a shared IP address and that in
of itself in my opinion could be the root cause of your problem because you're
a list you're not sending out enough you can't generate enough engagement all
these weird things that I it's going to get weirdly technical can you explain to
everybody why it's important for them to know if they're sending out on a shared
IP or a dedicated IP and what the impact about the good and bad about both are in
the least tactical non-boring nerdy way possible share so the shared IP just to
define this means that you are on a IP address that is being sent
sale meant mail is being sent out of from lots of organizations so meaning that
you and maybe 50 other companies are sending mail and the downside of that is
the impact of those let's just say 49 other companies may hinder your ability
and your deliverability if they are sending bad email or they're a bad sender
things of this nature so with dedicated IPs coming to play and definitely can
help is if you are a good sender and you want to make sure you don't have
outside influence that's impacting your deliverability meaning and outside of
your control you don't get to control who's on that shared IP dedicated IP is
definitely the way to go and for most good senders I would highly recommend you
be on a dedicated IP to improve your deliverability okay issue you don't
agree with me you don't have to agree with me that's for sure but what we can
say and where I can kind of say with with certainty is that you have full
control of your own dedicated IP whereas the shared environment anything can
happen and you really don't have any control over what's happening with it and
you don't know who the culprit is so the only thing if you have a problem here's
here's why I don't like it if you have a problem you can only go to your ESP
and complain to them and then hopefully they do something if you have your own
IP address you know what that IP address is and you can go to bat with the
people you have a problem with so that's kind of one of the big difference you
have much more control with a dedicated IP all right can I ask you a question
though because you're the deliverability guy I'm not so this is what my thought
process has been and then you can tell me why I'm wrong and I will trust you so
first off for everybody out there when you send out an email your email is going
out through some form of an IP address a set of numbers okay it is this
mechanism where your email is actually going out into the universe and this
idea of being on a dedicated IP address where you're the only sender the
only marketer whose email goes out via that set of numbers is a dedicated
IP address I like shared IP addresses then you'll tell me why I'm wrong because
if you're a relatively small sender right you got 50,000 names on your list and
you send out an email maybe once or twice a month or whatever you are not
generating a lot of engagement so it's hard just to have the only traffic on
that IP address be whatever mail that you're sending out now if you're using a
reputable sending platform one of the big sending platforms and they stick you
on a shared IP address so now that you're sharing the same sending mechanism as
like 50 other marketers right and this is a really reputable platform and these
50 other marketers are doing good stuff and they're generating a lot of
engagement then when you send out you get the piggyback on their back with because
you're on a shared IP address I always felt that you have a greater likelihood of
going into the inbox if you are sending out on a shared IP range as opposed to a
dedicated one if you're not a big marketer so it's a good interesting take on it
and you're not wrong where I would argue is 50,000 to me is not is not so
miniscule that you can't build reputation now if you told me 50, 100 okay
that's that's not enough traffic to really even warrant having to dedicate a
IP address and I would agree with you but 50,000 is plenty to establish and kind
of get sending reputation on it and as long as you stick to your patterns your
behaviors you know you send mail this this time of day this this days of the
week these type of things you shouldn't really have any issues with it it also
doesn't make financial sense for really small businesses to go towards a
dedicated IP address because there's a cost associated to it but 50,000 I would
definitely argue you know you should consider it especially if you're having
problems that's really where where you might be able to make that decision
after the fact and that's okay but an IP address can make or break your
deliverability and me personally I'd rather have control over that to be able
to say the good and bad of it rather than rely on that third party to make me
feel good the one other part which I just want to say is we have absolutely
seen once a sender maybe does something wrong and and tarnishes reputation on
that IP and this can be you as the client the one who's sending the marketing
that the the ESP can actually downgrade you into a lower tier IP addresses
behind the scenes you'll never even know this took place and that's going to
absolutely impact your deliverability so the question they take as a business
is do I do I still want this person's money well yeah because I need it for
the ESP and I want that but do I want to put them with my infrastructure of
really really high quality people no so let's downgrade there where they might
be and that will happen you'll never have a clue that took place so if everybody
out there who just was like wow the last five minutes of the show are really
boring I don't know what they were talking about what is important take out
this if you're like I don't even know if I'm on a shared IP or a dedicated IP that
in and of itself is very important for you to know and to check in with your
platform and to get a baseline understanding of it because when you're if
you're having deliverability issues or they're whatever that could be one of
the reasons why and I think that you need everybody out there needs to consider
that um all right right so I'm curious before we run out of time here so you
don't watch Star Trek or Star Wars but I clearly established everybody now
knows you are nerdy dude I mean you do last five minutes proves it what
nerd things do you actually do if you don't follow the normal path of Star Trek
and Star Wars wow I'm really gonna embarrass myself here
I think what I probably my bad habit is that what we're gonna talk about here
what's my bad habit I don't know I just feel like what do what like do you
just go at home and you have like a tattoo of like the Pythagorean
theorem or something I don't know oh my god that's hilarious no I'm much more
not that that nerdy um I think it's just aimless
scrolling on social media probably like the other people would be the
the the the bad habit that I would probably consider I don't think TV is a
bad habit just to be clear but no I don't really watch TV I'm trying to watch
the Olympics but man Bob's letting's just not that exciting wow so you know
things like that wow you're just not a nerdy guy if everybody out there
I'm gonna get hate on Star Trek Star Wars I like both okay I'm way more
Star Trek than Star Wars a thousand times over so because all the new
Star Wars after return of the Jedi forget it they're all terrible
um very and very important topic here that we're covering um so I did like
Mandalorian I will say that so I do watch Star Wars and I
watched the Mandalorian can't say I loved it it was all right uh but I like
future stuff techie techie kind of routes there so that's that's where it was
so like everybody what Brian's coming zero bounce does is pretty wild and
they have a lot of free stuff and access to stuff so Brian do it do give a
commercial here hit everybody up with how they should get consumed in your
world and what they can get access to yeah sure so uh like Jay said we
helped so many people that do email marketing and we were founded
because we have companies sister companies that we came from
which are email senders that needed help with tools they were having issues
with deliverability they were having issues with bad data and so that's how
zero bounce was founded so we help people clean up the email their email list
and the data we're the data cleaner uppers of the email world and on top of
that we also offer a bunch of free tools that are very powerful to know if
you're in the inbox or spam folder and some different technical uh test
that you can run blacklist monitoring things of that nature
and also email warm up so if you are new sender or you are migrating or you're
on a dedicated IP and don't have enough traffic you can use tools like warm up
to help you know boost repair and and establish reputation on
on your domain so our goal is to get you in the inbox inbox is where the ROI is
inbox is what really is going to make your campaigns you know make money
listen we're gonna put all the show notes but first off you go to zero bounce.net
they're incredible find Brian on LinkedIn we'll put his info in the show notes as
well he's a really great dude just hit up ask questions to he's super accessible
he's awesome and I've been he didn't ask me to say this but I've been a long time
zero bounce customer I'm a huge fan of what they're doing over there and
they're they're good people so uh appreciate you Brian man thanks for coming
on the show thanks for having me Jay
wait the party is not over go to jschwettelson.com because I want to do stuff with you
I want a partner with you when you click on the button partner with j you let me
know what you got going on work with my agency work with me directly get access to all
of my free resources at jschwettelson.com and I got a book coming out this April it's called
stupider people have done it and all of the net proceeds are going to the b foundation
for cancer research go on amazon by stupider people have done it that way you can help kick
cancers but with me and if this podcast wasn't the worst podcast you've ever listened to it might
have been leave it or review follow the show you are awesome go out there and crush it

Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson

Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson

Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson
