Hi Hal, Members
Interestingly, because we initially were API only, back-end as a service, the
most significant portion of our revenue comes from:
- Marketing SaaSs - that want to protect their infrastructure from organic but
low-quality databases; and here low quality usually comes from old data or
mistypes (via paper form, phone, online forms)
- marketing teams coming to us from Marketing SaaSs, who, during customer
onboarding, notice that the quality of email lists is low and send their
customers to us to clean it first.
It's quite weird, but actually doing email verification (or asking customers to
do) is easier and safer for those ESPs to protect their infrastructure than
managing bounces :/
I think that in "better" world they should not use email verification but
simply VRFY instead.
I think that a part of the problem there is the fact that the sender's
reputation depends a lot on the bounce-back ratio. I know that when it was
introduced, there was a very high correlation between spammer and bounce back
ratio. But since then:
- heavy spammers, phishers, and other cyber criminals found ways to reduce it,
- people with old databases started to get a hit…
and for them, it was easier to do automated list cleaning than a proper
holistic one.
It's usually ESPs who educate the market to clean the list… and as laziness is
in the DNA of humanity - people go for email verification services.
Back to our customer base…
We also have some big brands that take their customers from offline to online
loyalty programs.
And they have noticed that the frictionless process (lack of double-opt-in)
significantly increases conversion rates, but reduces data quality - thus, they
use email verification for their registration forms.
And here again, VRFY would be a much better solution than what we do.
We also have cold-mailers and marketing agencies as customers… for which in
fact, I am still having dilemmas about when to treat them as spammers. From
time to time, I do have a dilemma here if we should block the customer… But I
know that if they don't use us - they will go to our bigger competitors, from
whom they will never hear about "Respect in the email" :(
I know it kind of sounds like a producer of alcoholic beverages or cigarettes
participating in the anti-addiction programs.
Another problem I have is the fact that we are still super small, and our
influence is very limited.
I think some of our competitors would be in a much better position to educate
and change the market…
And maybe we will be at some point too… though I hope we can do it without
crossing a line of our values.
(I know that you all think that our principles are already in the grey zone,
cause we are in the email verification business.)
This conversation did stimulate me, however, to think about how can we do a
better job in vetting out our customers and if we can change a business model.
Thank you so much for that!
Kind Regards
Radek
____________________________________ ______ ___ ___ ___
*Radoslaw Kaczynski*
CEO of Bouncer
usebouncer.com ( https://www.usebouncer.com/ )
ul. Cypriana Kamila Norwida 24/1
50-374 Wrocław, Poland
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On Tue, Sep 06, 2022 at 10:08:56, Hal Murray < halmurray+mai...@sonic.net >
wrote:
>
>
>
> Radek Kaczynski said:
>
>
>>
>>
>> That's interesting indeed - we haven't implemented SMTP VRFY as it is very
>> uncommon.
>> However, I truly think that it would be great to use VRFY instead of
>> "broken SMTP trick".
>> I would be more than happy to pay to use it - or give back to the
>> community or charity.
>>
>>
>
>
>
> If you want people to take you seriously, I suggest you put your energy
> into figuring out how to convince people that your customers are not
> spammers.
>
>
>
> I have no idea how you could do that.
>
>
>
> --
> These are my opinions. I hate spam.
>
>
>
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