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CASE STUDY

How ZeroBounce helped MediaShares reduce bounces to almost 0%

Email Validation MediaShares Case Study

A high bounce rate caused their email service provider (ESP) to cancel their service. The team at MediaShares was in dire need of an email validation company – and reached out to us. Here’s how ZeroBounce helped them reinstate their ESP account and reduce bounces to almost 0%.

We talked to Gene Massey, Chairman and CEO of MediaShares, who helped us understand the issue they were facing and how ZeroBounce got them squared away.

About MediaShares

MediaShares helps companies market their investment offerings by managing their email campaigns to potential investors.

  • Year of foundation:
    Founded:2007
  • Our Offices
    Location:Los Angeles, Ca.
  • Mainly serving services
    Mainly serving:Companies seeking financing, FINRA brokerages, and early- stage companies implementing crowdfunding campaigns
  • Types of emails send
    Types of emails MediaShares sends:Marketing emails and newsletters
  • How to start send marketing emails
    Started sending marketing emails:2014

Challenge

The issue was critical: a bounce rate of 12% rate completely stalled MediaShares’s email campaigns. “At one point, the bounce rate was so high that our ESP cancelled our service,” CEO Gene Massey told us.

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"We could no longer send emails with our email service provider. After we cleaned our list, we could send again and conversions improved markedly."

Gene Massey
Chairman and CEO, MediaShares

Approach

MediaShares decided on email validation as the answer to saving their email list. “We tried several services and settled on ZeroBounce,” Gene Massey says. He goes on to explain why:

  • With our previous email verifier, we still had a high bounce rate.
  • We were looking for a service that was, above all, cost-effective. Turns out ZeroBounce was not only less expensive, but also the most accurate.
  • Customer support is always available. It’s great to be able to get someone on the phone if you need to. That doesn’t always happen with other SaaS companies.

Results

With ZeroBounce’s email validation service, MediaShares completely turned things around.

“Using ZeroBounce’s email verification, we identified the offending fake and invalid email addresses. Our ESP is extremely strict, but once we cleaned our list and they were convinced it was up to date, they reinstated us,” says Massey.

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“Using ZeroBounce we have an almost zero bounce rate. I guess that’s why you call it ‘ZeroBounce’!”

Using ZeroBounce we have an almost zero bounce rate

Now, Gene Massey and the MediaShares team clean their email list before every campaign. Massey says email hygiene is crucial to maintaining a good sender reputation.

“If you send emails without checking your list for accuracy, you may get in serious trouble with your ESP. And your ESP is the entity you have to answer to, because they don’t want to ruin their reputation.”

The experience of having his account closed has turned Gene Massey into a big believer in email verification. “If you do get shut down,” he says, you’ll be in a real mess. It took me a long time to get my account cleaned up and reestablished. So I learned the importance of verifying every email in our list,” MediaShares’s CEO concludes.

“Sometimes we get fake and bot sign-ups. We have to use ZeroBounce to verify the emails we gather are valid. There are so many bots out there now, this is not something you can ignore. You need to verify that address because you don’t know if it’s real or if that signup came from a bot,” Gene Massey advises.

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“I wouldn’t dream of sending a mass email without running my list through ZeroBounce.”

Validating catch-all emails: MediaShares uses our A.I. email scoring

Many senders find catch-all emails challenging because they are impossible to validate. Email verifiers will detect catch-all domains but are unable to tell which catch-all emails are valid.

Because he chose ZeroBounce, Gene Massey had an easy solution to this problem: our A.I. email scoring service.

“About 20% of my results ended up being catch-all emails. Instead of throwing them away, I scored them. That helped me figure out which ones were legitimate. We found this feature extremely valuable to verify catch-all emails. You shouldn’t send anything to these types of emails without scoring them first,” the CEO of MediaShares believes.

Overall Experience

We asked Gene Massey what his overall experience working with ZeroBounce has been. He summed it up like this: “We will never use another email validation company.”

Ready to up your email game today?

Whether you need to clean your list in bulk or in real time, score your contacts or test your emails before you send, it’s free to get started with ZeroBounce.

Create an account today and enjoy the benefits:

  • Validate or score 100 email addresses for free every month
  • Test your mail server configuration – you get one free monthly test
  • Test your inbox placement – get one test for free every month
  • Get access to our blacklist monitoring service – even with a Freemium account

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