Case Study

Key result: Improved inboxing

Leading staffing agency moves from 100% spam placement to 85% inboxing in AOL and Yahoo

The agency’s email marketing team believed they had a deliverability problem but they weren’t certain and they didn’t know where to start. How do you diagnose and resolve an invisible issue? Their main tool for doing so was their email marketing provider and they found their deliverability metrics subpar. They used it to track open rates over time but found little to no consistent changes that would reveal an underlying issue.

When the opportunity presented itself for them to find outside help, and hire an email deliverability consultant, they jumped on it and went with Mr. Deliverability. Using engagement strategies including content and reputation best practices, Mr. Deliverability was able to take them from 100% spam placement to 85% inbox placement across all major ISPs.

The Challenge

They didn’t think they were reaching their subscribers with AOL and Yahoo email addresses. These types of emails make up 60% of their list. Thus, a decline in opens can negatively impact their ROI on their email efforts.

Large staffing agencies and sites like LinkedIn and Indeed have made it more challenging for healthcare staffing companies to find qualified candidates and stay relevant in the candidate’s inbox. Due to the nature of their industry and rapidly changing staffing needs, sites and employment opportunities become obsolete quickly.

The client

They are a leader in the healthcare staffing industry. They provide job seekers with resources and job opportunities via email. They have multiple divisions but are located in Boston, Massachusetts.

How Mr. Deliverability Helped

“If you’re not first, your last.” Ricky Bobby

While this may seem like a funny one-liner for a Will Farrel movie, it also describes exactly how the client was feeling in this instance. Thus, this concern guided the project. As a result, Mr. Deliverabillity’s goal was to help the agency become relevant to their subscribers, knowing that being second to the candidate’s inbox could be a lose-lose for both parties.

Sam reviewed the agency’s set up and made three major changes.

  1. Migration to a new email marketing provider. Mr. Deliverability helped the team create a ramping plan, hone in on a sending cadence that aligned with the agency’s goals and their subscriber’s preferences, and monitored their deliverability throughout the migration.

  2. Focused on engagement. Having a big list is great, but having a big list that doesn’t engage with your emails is foolish. Mr. Deliverability helped the agency identify their most engaged subscribers and developed a plan to slowly re-engage cold subscribers.

  3. Developed a strategic plan for AOL and Yahoo. Since these two ISPs made up the largest percentage of their list, Mr. Deliverability implemented recurring inbox placement testing and reputation management.

The Results

The client went from 0% to 85% inbox placement in AOL and Yahoo in just 90 days.

This meant more opens and referrals for the customer and yielded more revenue. Overall, improving the agency’s inbox placement in AOL and Yahoo allowed them to reach their revenue goals for the quarter.

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