Celebrate Email Day
with us on April 23!
Email Day? Yes!
Here's why
Did you know that more than half of the world's population uses email? By 2027, there will be over 4.8 billion email users around the world.
That may not be too surprising when you consider that email is the essential component of our online lives. We use email for just about everything! Signing up on social media and streaming services, getting purchase confirmations, receiving a favorite newsletter, or staying in touch with our loved ones.
Marketing and sales? Email is a revenue-driving force for millions of companies. Personal, business, serious, lighthearted – email is all of that and it keeps everyone connected.
Why we're starting Email Day
As true email junkies, we feel that email deserves a special day. Although it connects billions of us around the world, email has never had a proper holiday – until now.
On April 23, we'd like to invite the world to think of email and all the tremendous possibilities it has created for us through the past five decades.
Why is Email Day April 23?
April 23 is the birthday of Ray Tomlinson, the computer programmer who invented email in 1971. We couldn't think of a better way to honor his memory.
What's the purpose of Email Day?
We started Email Day to celebrate this channel we love so much. On top of that, Email Day aims to raise awareness around the misuse of email and to promote email best practices.
Here are some of the things we do at ZeroBounce to make email better. We invite you to be a part of these initiatives, whether you use email for business or just hang out in your inbox a lot.
1. On Email Day, let's make email safer
As widely used as it is, email still presents vulnerabilities that companies like ours set to address and repair. To give you an idea of the state of email today:
- 45.1 percent of email traffic is spam (Statista, March 2021).
- More than three billion spoofing emails are sent every day (Valimail study).
We're dedicating ourselves to preventing these malicious creators and perpetrators of spam from the harm they cause. Individuals, businesses and even government agencies have felt the full brunt of cybercriminals.
Companies like ZeroBounce help you:
- avoid bots and connect with humans
- eliminate email fraud and phishing
- ensure that transactional emails reach the intended recipients.
2. Let's make email more dependable
Legitimate senders who act in good faith can sometimes be mistaken for spammers. The economic impact of good emails landing in spam is substantial. But in certain industries, not arriving in the inbox can have more severe consequences.
With the rise of telemedicine in the past years, healthcare and pharmacy supply companies rely on email for critical communication. For patients, there are greater ramifications to an email landing in the spam folder. They range from frustration to more costly and risky repercussions.
ZeroBounce's overarching goal is to allow a more dependable and consistent email communication for both senders and receivers. Our tools work hand in hand to accomplish this goal – day in and day out.
3. Let's increase email ROI
Nine out of 10 marketers use email to distribute their content and 81 percent of small businesses say email is their primary customer acquisition and retention channel (Oberlo).
Also, did you know that the average email ROI is $42 for every $1 spent?
However, every day:
- 31 billion emails bounce (BetterBounces.net).
- 21 percent of all emails land in spam (ReturnPath).
Every email that doesn't reach the inbox is a lost opportunity. And while deliverability is a puzzle with many pieces, maintaining data quality is at the core of landing in people's inboxes.
ZeroBounce helps with that – and more. Its email optimization tools enable companies to achieve a higher email ROI and build more profitable businesses.
Looking for a resource to help you land more emails in the inbox? Make sure to read our email deliverability guide.
4. Let's reduce our impact on the environment
Sending an email requires only 1.7 percent of the energy it takes to deliver a paper letter (Science Focus study). But while email is more eco-friendly, it does have an impact on the environment.
The footprint of an email varies. BBC states that it ranges from 0.3 grams of CO2 for a spam email to 50 grams of CO2 for an email with images (like most companies send). It adds up when you consider that the total number of email users worldwide is 4.1 billion.
In its years of existence, ZeroBounce has detected billions of fake, invalid and bot-created email addresses. We guide you to communicate only with genuine, active users and help reduce the negative impact that unnecessary emails have on the planet.
"It seemed like a neat idea" to start Email Day in honor of Ray Tomlinson
We knew there should be an Email Day to recognize this world-changing innovation and the man who dreamt it up. To honor his legacy, we wanted it to be his birthday, April 23.
Ray Tomlinson implemented the first program that allowed the sending of mail between two computers connected to the ARPANET. Before that, people could communicate via electronic mail only on the same computer.
To send the first email from his computer to another, Ray Tomlinson came up with the @ sign. "It was the most obvious choice. We're talking about a user who's at some computer. It just made sense," he explained.
Years later, Tomlinson recalled about inventing email: "It seemed like a neat idea, like an interesting thing to do with a computer and a network. And so I just did it."
Ray Tomlinson received several awards through the years. In 2012, he was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. The board noted: "Tomlinson's email program brought about a complete revolution, fundamentally changing the way people communicate."
Did Ray Tomlinson fully grasp how important his invention was going to be? His daughter Suzanne shared some insights with us.
Tomlinson was "the original Google,"
his daughters say
ZeroBounce reached out to Ray Tomlinson's daughter, Suzanne Tomlinson Schaffer, to ask her more about the man who gave us email. "It's pretty cool!" she said when she first heard about Email Day.
"Dad was very well respected in his field, not just for email, but for all of his accomplishments," Suzanne told us. "He didn't think of creating email as a challenge, I think he was prouder of some of the other things he did," she added.
What kind of person was Ray Tomlinson?
"He was warm, and kind hearted," Suzanne describes him. "His coworkers appreciated his open-door policy and his willingness to let people bounce ideas off of him."
At home, "he was an infinitely patient tutor and so knowledgeable you could ask him anything and he would have an answer for you. My sister likes to refer to him as the original Google."
An MIT graduate, Ray Tomlinson ranks number four on the MIT list of top 150 innovators. He passed away in 2016, at the age of 74.
International Email Day Dates
- YearDateDay
- 2026April 23Thursday
- 2027April 23Friday
- 2028April 23Sunday
- 2029April 23Monday
- 2030April 23Tuesday
We thank you for helping us make email better
Every day – but especially on Email Day – we want to thank you for being mindful of how you use email. Also, we thank you for allowing ZeroBounce to be a part of your business. Your feedback lets us know that you appreciate the integrity we add to your data.
We invite everyone who loves email, friends, partners, competitors: honor this special day. Together we can elevate email.
Finally, we want to give Ray Tomlinson his due.
Thank you, Ray. You brought the whole world together.
