Revenue Rehab: It's like therapy, but for marketers
Jan. 15, 2025

Deliverability Dynamics: Navigating Email's Ever-Changing Landscape

This week our host Brandi Starr is joined by MV Braverman, Founder of Inbox Welcome. Meet MV Braverman, a trailblazer in email marketing with a focus on helping small businesses master email deliverability and sender reputation. MV's expertise...

This week our host Brandi Starr is joined by MV Braverman, Founder of Inbox Welcome.

Meet MV Braverman, a trailblazer in email marketing with a focus on helping small businesses master email deliverability and sender reputation. MV's expertise extends far beyond just crafting compelling email campaigns; they're an industry thought leader frequently sharing insights on top podcasts.

In this episode of Revenue Rehab, Brandi and MV will debunk common email marketing myths, delve into the critical importance of email deliverability, and explore actionable strategies to enhance subscriber engagement and email list health. From decoding bounce codes to leveraging AI summation tools, they'll provide a comprehensive guide to ensure your emails not only reach the inbox but captivate your audience.

Bullet Points of Key Topics + Chapter Markers:

Topic #1 Rise of Email Deliverability Challenges [07:22] MV Braverman accentuates the shifting landscape of email deliverability, saying, "Metrics you see on your dashboard are only a portion of the story. Recent changes from Google and Yahoo mean we're constantly having to adjust our strategies. It's not just about sending emails; it's about navigating an evolving environment and ensuring our messages truly reach our audience."

Topic #2 The Misconception of the Promotions Tab [14:45] MV Braverman clears up common misunderstandings about email categorization, stating, "Landing in the Promotions tab is not a death sentence for your email. It's still the inbox, and often, users peruse this tab with a buying mindset. Viewing these tabs as opportunities rather than obstacles can shift how you approach your campaigns."

Topic #3 Vital Email Design and Accessibility [22:30] "Content should be accessible to everyone," MV underscores. "That means considering factors like ADA compliance and colorblindness. Simplifying email design by focusing on text first can enhance accessibility. We need to ensure our emails are engaging whether viewed on mobile, desktop, or even in dark mode."

What’s One Thing You Can Do Today

MV’s ‘One Thing’ is to shift your mindset from using vanity metrics to focusing on engagement. “Just start by segmenting your list to identify the most engaged subscribers and treat them like VIPs. Focus on building a relationship and providing value. It’s easy to get caught up in trying to achieve higher open rates or increasing the size of your list, but engagement is what truly matters. Nurturing these relationships will naturally lead to better deliverability and stronger customer loyalty. Begin monitoring engagement trends rather than vanity metrics, and you’ll see a more robust and effective email strategy take shape.”

Buzzword Banishment

Buzzword Banishment: MV Braverman's Buzzword to Banish is the term "email blast." MV wants to banish it because it implies that email marketing can be done in a haphazard, one-size-fits-all manner, which couldn't be further from the truth. MV emphasizes that effective email marketing is about nurturing relationships with subscribers and continually refining and personalizing content, not just sending out mass emails without thought or strategy.

Links:

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Transcript

Brandi Starr [00:00:36]:
Welcome to another episode of Revenue Rehab. I am your host, Brandy Star and we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by MV Braverman. MV is the founder of Inbox welcome, an email marketing consultancy dedicated to helping solopreneurs and small businesses go from sent to scene. With a unique blend of technical expertise and marketing strategy, MV focuses on email deliverability, sender reputation, and creating campaigns that not only reach the inbox, but also resonate with the recipient. When MV isn't optimizing email deliverability or crafting workflows, you'll find them guesting on Top podcasts, sharing knowledge that empowers business owners to succeed, seed in the Inbox and beyond. Welcome to Revenue Rehab, mv. Your session begins now.

MV Braverman [00:01:32]:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Brandi Starr [00:01:36]:
I am excited to have you and it is always great for me to have another email marketing specialist in on the couch. So excited about that. But before we jump into our topic, I like to break the ice with a little woo saw moments that I call buzzword banishment. So tell me, what industry buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

MV Braverman [00:02:02]:
Well, I have two. Of course. We have our perennial email blast. Please, please, please. There is no blasting. No. And then the other one I see it's more of a sales tactic is set it and forget it. And we all buy into this promise that automation can let us do, set and forget things.

MV Braverman [00:02:30]:
That is never ever true. And it does not work. Instead, it should be set it, document it, and review it.

Brandi Starr [00:02:40]:
I love that you are totally speaking my language. And yeah, it is. So often people think, yeah, we're just, we're going to set it and forget it. And it's like, no. Like, automation does help you scale. It gives you some longevity. But you can't, you can't just forget it like you do. You still got to pay attention to it and optimize it and definitely document it.

Brandi Starr [00:03:05]:
So you're definitely speaking my language there. So I can promise that for this conversation, I won't talk about setting it or forgetting it. And we also won't call it an email blast. We're not sending anything into outer space and we're not shooting anyone. So we, we won't be Blasting away. So now that we've gotten that off our chest, tell me what brings you to revenue rehab?

MV Braverman [00:03:37]:
Well, I am always eager to talk about email deliverability and some misconceptions that go along with it. And of course, you know, since Google's announcement and Yahoo's announcement In October of 2023, everything has changed and everything keeps changing in email marketing world. And deliverability is much more on people's minds.

Brandi Starr [00:04:02]:
I would agree. And I believe in setting intentions. It gives us focus, it gives us purpose, and. And most important, it gives our audience an understanding of what they should expect from our conversation. So what are your best hopes for our talk today? What would you like people to take away?

MV Braverman [00:04:21]:
I think what I really want them to take away is the understanding that what they see in their platform dashboard is just the tip of the iceberg. And there's a lot that goes on under it. And. And I would love to dive deeper into that and give people a clearer understanding of what's underneath.

Brandi Starr [00:04:42]:
Okay. And I like to often ground our conversation in the why should we care? And I know I get this question a lot where, you know, talking to CMOs like Deliverability and those things come across as so, so tactical and in the weeds. And I am of the mindset that it is something that executives, you know, not that they're necessarily the ones monitoring it or fixing it, but that it does need to be on everyone's radar. And so I'd love to hear your perspective on why deliverability should be top of mind, even when it's not tied to a big change from Yahoo and Google.

MV Braverman [00:05:25]:
I think these days it's become a lot more strategic rather than tactical. We no longer have the. Here are the spam words that you should never put into your. You know, if you have free in all capital letters in your subject line, it'll go to the spam. That does not happen. It's rather, it's. It's thinking more strategically about your subscriber relationship, your customer relationship, and how it's growing.

Brandi Starr [00:05:53]:
And that's such a great point where deliverability is what's happening in the inbox, but it is more about that relationship with the subscriber and how desirable is what you're sending to them, which plays a role in whether it actually lands in the inboxes.

MV Braverman [00:06:16]:
Exactly. Yes. It's. Are you setting the expectation and are you meeting that expectation? Because your email could be incredibly ugly. But if it's perfect for your audience and they want to hear from you, and they love opening and receiving it you can be breaking all the other rules, except maybe authentication, and still make it into the inbox and still succeed.

Brandi Starr [00:06:42]:
Yeah. And I do see a lot of emphasis put put on what the email looks like and I mean it's definitely important what it looks like. You want it to align to your brand and all those things. But it was years ago. I can't think of the name of the newsletter now. I'm drawing a blank. But there was a weekly newsletter that I got that had great content that tied to my role and things I needed to be thinking about. And it was very like, it was unattractive like there.

Brandi Starr [00:07:11]:
It had that late 90s kind of web design vibe to it where it was like a very plain table where you know, you had the borders and all of the things. And despite its lack of attractiveness, it was something that I consistently read because the content was valuable. And so I do see so often where there's so much effort put into the design of the email and the template and making sure that it's just right and the words and purpose and targeting almost feels like an afterthought. Have you seen that challenge as well?

MV Braverman [00:07:54]:
Definitely. And it's gonna become more and more of a problem when you focus on design rather than accessibility in a way. But we are now just starting to see Apple intelligence, other AI summarizers really coming into force. So your pretty designs no longer matter. Your preview text is going to be supplanted by the summary. So some of the things that we focused on in the past are no longer relevant. But there is indeed a lot of focus on. We want our 20% off to be perfectly so.

MV Braverman [00:08:39]:
They make it an image. An image is not searchable. An image is not viewable to the AI summarizer. An image is not accessible to your audience that may be using tools to help them with their disabilities. So for all of those reasons, it great design is, is wonderful. I like, I love it and I respect it, but it should be, I don't want to say garnish, but it should be an add on to make the experience better. It should not be what you start with.

Brandi Starr [00:09:20]:
Let's talk a little bit more about the AI summarizers because I do think some of these changes that impact how we design, develop the content, etc are important for senior leaders to understand and as they are supporting their teams in developing the strategy. So I know that like I can remember when email pretext first was a big thing and making sure that you coded that pretext in there to support the subject line and help drive open rates. Talk to me about what you're seeing around AI summarizers and how that's showing up for the recipient and how we need to think about our content in a way to support that.

MV Braverman [00:10:06]:
Well, again, it's very early of course I am just now looking at the beta versions of so it's even before it is released. But it is changing things dramatically the way that of course Apple now has the tabs that lots of people were worried about with Gmail and now they worry about it with Apple. If is your email going into the promotions? Okay, first that's another misconception is if your email is going into promotions, that's a good thing for two reasons. Now first, promotions is inbox. It's not spam and a lot of people don't even have those enabled. But when they do and they go into the promotions tab then go with a buying mindset. So even if you think there's fewer people going in there, they are in the right mindset. They're not in the I'm trying to get through my hundred emails and just get them out of the way.

Brandi Starr [00:11:13]:
And that's a it's very different mentality thinking about it that way because I do see many people that have that mindset of if they're not landing in the main inbox tab that it is a bad thing. And to your point, promotions tab or for Gmail is it forums or updates? Those are all inbox tabs. And just thinking about my own behavior, you're right. When I do go to those tabs I am going with a different mindset in terms of what I'm looking for and even where that mindset is. Let me figure out what to delete. I may be going thinking okay, I'm kind of skimming what do I want to keep versus what am I going to mass delete. And so that is an opportunity where I might check all for delete the whole thing and then uncheck the things that I'm like oh no, I need to actually look at that and that is where I do have the time to actually think and read or you know be able to buy or whatever the case may be versus everything that's in my inbox, especially in my you know, work email. I know those are more this is task I need to be doing people that are expecting something of me.

Brandi Starr [00:12:34]:
So that is a really great point that I hadn't thought about around the the mindset of people when they are looking at those different tabs and changing our perspective that that's a bad thing. When I agree with you, it's not. As long as you're hitting the inbox, that's a good thing.

MV Braverman [00:12:55]:
Absolutely.

Brandi Starr [00:12:57]:
And then going back, talking about design a little bit because I do know that, you know, ADA requirements and, you know, other forms of disabilities, colorblindness, like, there's a lot of things that impact the readability of our emails that I really, I mean, I think these challenges have always existed, but I think people are talking about it a lot more. And there is a lot more emphasis on making sure that your content can be consumed by all. And so are there key design things that you're seeing that people should be aware of or even some that, you know, you talked about the, the big images, which I feel like that has been a no no for so long. It still shocks me how many people have those. But in addition to that, are there any recommendations or things to avoid that you feel like we should consider?

MV Braverman [00:14:00]:
Well, with the understanding that I am not an accessibility expert and that is a whole, a whole area of expertise that I thoroughly respect, I think not. Maybe it's more of what I would say don't, don't buy into is there's a lot of people who are like, I want them to. I want to use my brand fonts. I want to make sure that they see things the way that I intended. People today are setting their own fonts. I see screenshots with fonts and I'm like, why? But what you think you're sending and what they are seeing are going to be different things and just, just assume that that's gonna happen. So, I mean, of course there's always the mobile first. These days, more than 50% of opens are on mobile.

MV Braverman [00:14:59]:
I even, I think it's almost gone too far because now things look really terrible on my desktop because they're designed for mobile. And so really it needs to be balance mobile and desktop and consider both. But start with the content. And then the other thing is back to accessibility is like having alt text on your images. There's a business case for it. Again with the AI summarizers, they're going to be looking at that alt text and using it. Also, if you're sending a giant image and either I don't load images or I'm on a bad connection and it doesn't load. You know, I mean, I see some that say like screenshot 12, 10, blah, blah, blah.

MV Braverman [00:15:45]:
It's like that. Really what you want to convey here? No. So look at, you know, assume that your images don't come through at all. What happens? Is it still legible? Assume that they do come through. That makes the experience better.

Brandi Starr [00:16:04]:
Yeah, and that's a great point. And I think the other thing, like in thinking about like text first, less images, keep it simple is where I think we went. Like email started off really simple when email marketing first had a boom. And then I think it became a. Because we can, we did. There were so many options for what could be done in email design. And so it was like we're gonna do all of the things and we're at a place now where it's like we need to go back to simple. Like what is the simplest way to convey the message? Because leading with the text and simple designs, you almost solve for the, you know, the, the who's reading it, can everyone access it, you know, is it accessible, etc.

MV Braverman [00:17:02]:
And also there's the dark mode, which I forgot to mention, which of course is more and more users. But you, like younger people are a dark mode all the time. Some people are in dark mode never. And some people like me are dark mode at sunset. So I see a lot of bad things around that. And with an image, it is much harder to make it look good both in light and dark mode.

Brandi Starr [00:17:34]:
Yeah, especially PNG images. That is one place where I have seen a lot of dark mode emails where because I am dark mode always on email on my phone, but I almost never use dark mail on my desktop or dark mode on my desktop, which, you know, thinking about my own preferences. But anywho, it is there is so often where I do see, see where you can tell there's an image there because like there's some odd colors but you can't really see what the image is because it's a PNG and it's just switching everything.

MV Braverman [00:18:10]:
So it's in transparent. It's actually a good thing. And there's some tweaks like glows and things that are pretty easy to do that will actually make it better. So I think actually JPEGs are worse because sometimes you get that white background, you know, in your face. It's like I wanted everything to be dark.

Brandi Starr [00:18:32]:
But I want to bring us back. I know I got off on a little tangent. I want to bring us back to deliverability because I know that is your key area of expertise. And so I would love to just hear what advice do you have for our listeners in terms of what should they be thinking about related to deliverability.

MV Braverman [00:18:56]:
So again, it's what you see in your dashboard. And the metrics that get reported to you are only the tip of the iceberg. They don't tell the whole story. And so, you know, if you say my open rate is 50% or something else, well, there's a lot of fudging around with mail privacy and other security measures that just open every email. So look for trends, not absolute numbers. And don't look at vanity metrics. Open rates at this point are vanity metric. List size is a vanity metric.

MV Braverman [00:19:35]:
People who focus on growth only. Please don't. This is the time to really prune and cultivate a strong list, not a large list.

Brandi Starr [00:19:47]:
Yeah, I definitely. And I think that's a really great point to dig into a little bit because, you know, very much like you working with different companies, I do see this hesitation to prune their list and have a smaller number. And I'm like, if they're all unengaged, what does the number matter? Like, to me, this. The database size number that I find value is what are the contacts that are engaged? Like, what's your count of contacts that you at least can prove they have a pulse? And, you know, it's like they may not even be opening, but there at least is a computer on the back end opening. Like, let's kind of just start there and really using that. And you know, I really like to go beyond just who's opening when I think about engaged. But if we can at least move the needle when we're talking about database size and talk more about engaged database size, to me, that is a metric that actually matters because it is how many people are actually receptive to our message and will engage with us in some capacity. And depending on what industry you're in, the level of engagement can vary.

Brandi Starr [00:21:07]:
If you're a retailer, you really want more high engagement because that's very consumer transactional. If you're B2B complex decision sale, you know, you may not have high engagement, but you do at least get some engagement from your database. So I think that point that you hit on is a really big one that, you know, I didn't want to gloss over because I do think it is something that people. There are so many marketing leaders who are just really hesitant to have that total database size number go down.

MV Braverman [00:21:44]:
And that's. I don't quite understand it for multiple reasons. Now, a lot of plans charge you per subscriber, so why would you be paying for people who aren't interested? But also, about 25% of an email list decays every year. So for B2B it's people switching jobs. For B2C it's you know, people abandoning their mailboxes, they lose access, whatever it is, they get overwhelmed by the amount of email, they create a new account. So yeah, it's not if you're just grow, grow, grow and the only time you prune is when the email bounces. That's a, that's at least a yellow light.

Brandi Starr [00:22:33]:
Yes, I do agree there and thinking about what do you see or what do you deem good when we are talking about deliverability and what people are looking at like what should people be striving for?

MV Braverman [00:22:54]:
Well the first thing is does it meet? Are you meeting your business goals?

Brandi Starr [00:22:59]:
Yeah, I think one of the self.

MV Braverman [00:23:02]:
Explanatory, most importantly is yes. Is it converted? Is it doing what you need it to do?

Brandi Starr [00:23:11]:
But more tactically so thinking more specifically about deliverability if you know I've seen different perspectives in terms of, of some people are looking at open rates purely from a deliverability perspective. Some people are, you know, digging a bit deeper in looking at like bounce back codes and trying to identify how often they're going into spam. Some are looking at hard bounce versus soft. Like what, what sorts of things are, you know, if I'm a CMO and I'm asking for data from my team to understand our deliverability and the health of our database, what sort of things do you feel like I should be asking?

MV Braverman [00:23:59]:
So yeah, open rates, again they might not tell you if a real person is opening it. What they are telling you is that the email that is registering as an open did not go to spam. You know that for certain. So looking for trends, same thing with click rates. There's a lot of security software like Proofpoint and Microsoft that click click on every link but again that means it didn't end up in the spam. I was like heart eyes when you talking about looking at the bounce codes because that's actually super, super helpful when you're just looking at what are my hard bounces and what are my soft bounces, that's a good thing. A lot of people don't even look at those. But actually looking at why is your email rejected? Was it rejected because you're not authenticating properly or was it rejected because again that person moved on or you might get soft bounces.

MV Braverman [00:24:58]:
Was it if now Google is enforcing the limits for disk space. So that's actually a lot of if you have a free Gmail account you have like I don't know, 10 gigabytes these days, uh, if you go over that Google would used to still deliver emails to you, they are no longer doing that. So there's a lot more of those soft bounces now with overflowing mailbox. You need to clean those up if you get those multiple times because chances are that person abandoned their, you know, they're not even actively trying to clean it.

Brandi Starr [00:25:34]:
Have learned that the hard way. I know for sure it is 15 gigs because I just had to clean up my 10 year old's inbox because he could not get emails. And so yeah, it was the first time he ran into that error code. It did surprise me because I do remember where it would still allow you to receive emails. It would hinder you from sending when you were over your limit, but it allowed things to come through. And now that they're cracking down on that, that does become a higher priority. And, and I do, you know, and in his case it wasn't even that the inbox was full because the space that they give you is across your Gmail account. And in his scenario it was just he had a ton of photos, photos and videos.

Brandi Starr [00:26:23]:
Google Photos. And so that is a thing because even, I mean you think about like we use Google Workplace and so you know, I know the limits are different when you're on a business account but, but at the same time it is still a possibility where you can run into those places where an account is full and unable to receive mail. And there are a lot of people that are not looking at that and cleaning that up. They're just seeing the soft bounce spikes and not necessarily knowing why or what to do about it.

MV Braverman [00:26:58]:
Well, with workspace you're actually going to see a soft balance if it's set up that like if you know an employee moves on and you get that auto reply saying this person's no longer with the company, please contact such and such person. That's a soft bounce on the other, on the other side, that's not a hard bounce. But if you keep sending to them then that's a signal like you're not listening. Yeah, you're not taking the feedback. So look at that feedback. The bounces are one of your best feedbacks and they're under, like they're underappreciated.

Brandi Starr [00:27:33]:
I would agree. And I know we have a number of clients where we do that monitoring monthly of their bounce backs because they're like I don't even want to look at that report. Like it's a whole bunch of codes. It looks like gobbledygook you know, and I mean I am one of those people like, you know, we have our team that, that looks at those things for us because it is hard to understand and interpret. But to your point, it is something that is really important to do.

MV Braverman [00:28:05]:
Agreed.

Brandi Starr [00:28:07]:
Well, MV talking about our challenges is just the first step and nothing changes if nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy, the therapist will give the client some homework, but here at Revenue Rehab, we like to flip that on its head and ask you to give us some homework. So for those listening who recognize that they don't know if they've got a deliverability challenge, not what would be your one thing? What's the action item that you would recommend that they do coming out of listening to this episode?

MV Braverman [00:28:41]:
Well, one thing is of course focus on your subscriber experience more and more important these days. But you know, when you Google and Yahoo. Announced their changes, they summarize it in a way that I think it's really beneficial. So, so one was authenticate your email. So you want to have your infrastructure set up correctly. The way that that gets you through the door. That doesn't guarantee a VIP slot, but it gets you through the door. Without it, you're not getting anywhere.

MV Braverman [00:29:11]:
And to go with that, there's DMARC reporting. People don't look at that. Please look at your DMARC reports. Very important. So authenticate your emails. Send emails that people want. Again, that alignment between what your audience expects and what they are receiving make it easy for them to unsubscribe. I mean, I have seen the unsubscribe links in teeny little fonts in like light gray on a white background.

MV Braverman [00:29:38]:
I promise you that just because it's hard to find, that doesn't mean they won't unsubscribe. They're more likely to report it as spam, which is a way worse signal. Yeah, do make it easy to unsubscribe. The other thing is, you know, sometimes as lists grow and organizations grow, they start thinking I'm getting too many. Like I don't know how to route the replies. I don't want to deal with these bounce messages or whatever. And so they switch to a no reply from address. Please, please, please don't.

MV Braverman [00:30:12]:
That makes for a bad user experience that makes mailbox providers unhappy. Yes, it may be more work, but there is very, very limited cases where a no reply from address would make sense and 99.9% of the time it does not apply to your organization. So please have an address that people can reply to. A reply is a great signal to the mailbox providers and frankly, it's flattering. I'm very happy when I get replies from my subscribers.

Brandi Starr [00:30:49]:
Well, awesome. Well mv, I have enjoyed our discussion, but that's our time for today. But before we go, tell our audience how they can connect with you.

MV Braverman [00:31:00]:
So I am Quite active on LinkedIn where I share my insights and other email geeks and experts and and my website is inbox welcome.com awesome.

Brandi Starr [00:31:12]:
Well we will make sure to link to your LinkedIn as well as inbox welcome. So wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, check the show notes so that you can connect with mv. Again, thank you so so much for taking the time to join me.

MV Braverman [00:31:28]:
Thank you so much for having me.

Brandi Starr [00:31:30]:
Awesome. Well, I hope you have enjoyed my discussion with Envy. I can't. I can't believe we're at the end. Until next time, bye Bye.

MV Braverman Profile Photo

MV Braverman

Founder

MV is the founder of Inbox Welcome, an email marketing consultancy dedicated to helping solopreneurs and small businesses go “From Sent to Seen.” With a unique blend of technical expertise and marketing strategy, MV focuses on email deliverability, sender reputation, and creating campaigns that not only reach the inbox but also resonate with the recipient.

Known for simplifying complex concepts, MV equips entrepreneurs with practical tools and strategies to overcome the challenges of email marketing. From setting up authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, to crafting engaging content that builds trust and drives action, MV ensures every email works harder and smarter.

MV’s passion lies in bridging the gap between technology and human connection. Whether it’s turning overlooked email sequences into profit drivers or guiding businesses through the nuances of Black Friday campaigns, MV delivers insights that create lasting results.

When MV isn’t optimizing email deliverability or crafting workflows, you’ll find them guesting on top podcasts, sharing knowledge that empowers business owners to succeed in the inbox—and beyond.