Deliverability “experts” exposed in public

I got an email from a popular email deliverability software a couple of days ago that made me spit out my coffee. 

(Okay, okay, I may be stretching the truth just a weeee bit, but I had to get your attention one way, eh?) 

First, I was impressed that they, y’know, were actually using email to promote their business. There are so many email-adjacent companies who never consider to use the single most effective marketing channel despite shilling its various benefits elsewhere. 

Second, the email wasn’t half bad either. It told a simple story, but a story nonetheless. It was mostly plain-text too. And if they hadn’t lied through their teeth, it might’ve even been persuasion. 

Alas, they lied through their teeth. 

The simple story they told was about accidentally sending a text meant for one person to a group chat. And then they segued into how you should only send emails to people who want them. 

Well, duh, right? Wrong.

Because what they meant was you should only send emails to people who open them:

“Every email that remains unopened is a clear signal to the mailbox providers that you have unengaged contacts on your list.” 

Something about a lie stated so matter-of-factly grinds my gears. 

This is obviously false: The other day I told you the story about how a recent conversion from an email never once “opened” the email according to our email software. 

They then went to threaten that sending to people who don’t open is a way to “rapidly be seen as a dangerous sender.” 

Another obvious lie: Gmail themselves admit that they do not even track open rates. 

Now, if you’re an email deliverability shill, you gotta shill. I don’t mind the shilling as much as the lying. 

But almost all of these deliverability grifters are like this: 

The only way to promote their services or software is to lie to your face. 

The bigger problem is how many people forget Abraham Lincoln’s axiom about the internet: “The problem with information that you read on the Internet is that it is not always true.”

Like, for example:

Nearly every single ESP will parrot this same, obviously false advice about deliverability… 

* “Only send to contacts who have opened in the last 30 days” 

* “Create a sunset automation to automatically unsubscribe someone if they go 90 days without opening” 

* “Your open rates are falling - do XYZ before your deliverability crosses the point of no return” 

These are inoffensive enough to not even cross most people’s radars. And yet, they are nothing more than pure falsities. You can even check on this for yourself: See if a customer purchased from an email they never opened - it happens all the time, read Gmail’s own documentation on this where they state, with clarity, that they don’t track open rates, send a sunset campaign to a happy and satisfied customer who gets offended you’re “threatening” to remove their profile because your ESP can’t properly track them. 

If any deliverability best practice so much as even mentions opens, it’s a good rule of thumb to assume it’s a lie. Because every best practice about opens requires open rates to be accurate—and they’re not. 

That’s why Gmail doesn’t track them. 

That’s why I don’t track them. 

And that’s why you shouldn’t track them either - and why you should run away whenever you hear someone grandstanding about opens (whether copywriters or deliverability services or gurus). 

Moral of the story? 

Open rate hysteria is still alive and well. But remember, it’s based on lies that the entire industry is hoping get repeated enough that they simply become true. 

Don’t fall for it. 

Now, in my humble opinion, the best way to prevent yourself from falling for it is by distancing yourself from your email strategy completely. By working with a professional who’s not so easily duped by declarations based on lies. 

In that case?

Hit reply, and let’s find a time to chat. 

John