GUEST!! 🚫 The Truth About "SPAM WORDS" in Subject Lines w/ZeroBounce COO Brian Minick | Ep. 473

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

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