How BarCups Increases Email Engagement with ZeroBounce

How to increase email engagement: check your ESP and email list

Eighty-eight percent of people check their inboxes daily, and 40% do it in search of brand coupons and discounts. The team at BarCups knew their email marketing could drive even more sales – but it needed a revamp.

When BarCups wanted to transition to Mailchimp, Elizabeth Jacobi, a certified Mailchimp Pro Partner who's worked with brands like Toyota and Harry & David, knew that using a solid sending platform was only the first step to increasing email engagement. She also brought up the importance of using a healthy email list, especially during an ESP migration.

"BarCups had been sending emails through another platform and relying solely on opens and replies. When we started working on migrating to Mailchimp, I knew it was vital to make sure the data was clean," Jacobi told ZeroBounce.

"One of the significant benefits of using Mailchimp is that email deliverabilityⓘ is essential to them, and brands with high abuse complaints run into issues," she added.

Passing the Mailchimp Omnivore test

Mailchimp sends over 600 million emails daily. To maintain high email deliverability rates for its 11+ million users, it enforces strict data hygiene rules for senders. Mailchimp Omnivore, the company's abuse prevention algorithm, monitors for suspicious and abusive email addresses.

Whenever a user imports a new list of contacts, Omnivore checks them to determine potential risk levels relating to data quality. Getting an Omnivore warning means you can't send emails to anyone on that list – until you make sure it's valid and healthy.

That's right: this means your email marketing program will come to a halt.

Mailchimp's Omnivore warning prevents senders from reaching out to an unsafe email list.

"We also knew that BarCups desired to send to the maximum number of subscribers to increase revenue for this business," Elizabeth Jacobi told us. "However, to do this, we knew that data hygiene was a must to essentially relaunch the email program for this brand."

- Elizabeth Jacobi, MochaBear Marketing

Email lists decay fast

All aspects are important in an email marketing program, but the email list? That's vital. It's also the most fragile part of the puzzle: more than a quarter of the average database decays yearly.

To ensure BarCups was in great shape ahead of the migration to Mailchimp, Elizabeth Jacobi suggested running the company email list through ZeroBounce.

"I've been a fan of ZeroBounce for a long time and recommend it often. I work with a lot of Mailchimp customers, and the integration between Mailchimp and ZeroBounce is streamlined, so it is an easy recommendation to make, especially when migrating to a new platform," said the marketing pro, who has 20 years of experience.

Email engagement increased to 78%

Cleaning the BarCups email list was a breeze, and it gave the team a clear picture of the health of their data. "We were able to get rid of 13% of bad data before loading anything to Mailchimp."

Email marketing platforms charge based on the number of contacts on an email list. By removing those obsolete email addresses, BarCups saw an immediate reduction in costs. But that's not all: after the team validated a good chunk of that list, email engagement went up.

"We saw a 78% engagement rate on an onboarding journey.By loading only 87% of the initial list, we saw a 78% engagement rate on an onboarding journey. However, we did have a group that we did not initially run through ZeroBounce. That group only saw 22% engagement on the same journey, which shows the importance of utilizing a data hygiene service."

- Elizabeth Jacobi, MochaBear Marketing

Ensuring email hygiene during an ESP migration

The founder of MochaBear Marketing also pointed out that companies often think changing email service providers is enough to boost metrics. "I always run into this issue where clients think moving to a new platform will solve the issue." But oftentimes, poor click rates are because of "a data issue," Jacobi adds, emphasizing how important email hygiene is during an ESP migration.

"Brands invest a lot of resources in developing email programs and growing their subscriber lists. However, they often end up wasting funds by sending emails to invalid addresses, inactive email accounts, or accidentally including spam traps in their lists. ZeroBounce solves this and is an essential tool that brands should add to their tech stack," the email marketing expert added.

ESPs will block you for a high bounce rate

Our customer Gene Massey, knows how risky an outdated email list can be. His company, MediaShares, got blocked by its email service provider because of a 12% bounce rate.

See how ZeroBounce helped fix the problem.

"I wouldn't dream of sending a mass email without running my list through ZeroBounce."

- Gene Massey, MediaShares

Bonus tips to increase email engagement

Using a reliable ESP and a healthy, validated database is a great way to increase your overall email engagement. But if you're ready to take things up a notch, here are some extra tips – follow these rules, and your click rates will be boosted.

• Send emails regularly. Showing up in your audience's inbox builds familiarity for your brand and keeps your IP warm, too.
• Give people what they signed up for. If your subscribers signed up for a weekly newsletter, avoid bombarding them with daily sales emails.
• Make unsubscribing easy. Major email service providers, like Google and Yahoo, enforced one-click unsubscribes. Let people opt out easily and set up an automatic process to remove unsubscribes within two days.
• Focus on educational content. Even your sales emails can have an educational angle and help you build brand trust, industry authority, and long-term engagement.
• Segment and personalize. Making your content more relevant to each audience will increase your click rate and foster a more meaningful connection with your customers and prospects.

How healthy is your email list?

If you're curious about the quality of your list, you can get a free evaluation – no account needed. Simply upload your contacts to our free email list evaluator, and it'll instantly reveal what percentage of your data has decayed.