How The Workplace Depot Gets Zero Bounces with Our Email Verifier

Why companies need an email verifier

Building a list of customer email addresses is smart. Whether you started in the nineties or are just beginning, you’re basically creating a direct line of communication with your audience.

But there’s one caveat: the validity of an email list decays over time – by more than 25% annually. So in the fall of 2023, when The Workplace Depot wanted to start email marketing, many of its customer contacts were obsolete.

Here’s how ZeroBounce’s email verifier helped solve that problem – fast.

About The Workplace Depot

Launched more than three decades ago, The Workplace Depot is part of one of the UK's largest Industrial and Commerce companies. It provides a comprehensive range of health, safety, and workplace equipment to businesses around the UK. That includes trucks, trolleys, lockers, office furniture, safety steps, and racking. The Workplace Depot serves companies across all industries, including Mercedes-Benz, CitiBank, Boots, Royal Air Force, and BBC.

• Founded: 1991
• Location(s): Bingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom
• Number of employees: 25
• Customers: B2B, industrial suppliers, trade businesses such as electrical suppliers, schools, councils, venues, restaurants, universities
• Email service provider: Mailchimp
• Types of emails The Workplace Depot sends: Marketing emails and company updates

Challenge: an old list causing bounces and spam reports

In September 2023, The Workplace Depot’s marketing team decided to engage their customers through email. Even though they hadn’t received any marketing emails for a while, these customers had shared their contact information with the company at one point. Head of Marketing David Barnes and PR Manager Annabelle Earps were both excited.

But the campaign didn’t go as planned: 4.60% of their emails bounced back, alerting the two marketing experts about the quality of their email list. When they also noticed a spam complaint rate of 0.23%, Barnes and Earps knew they had to change their approach.

“Our list was old, and we were conscious of data quality. There was concern regarding the potential presence of spam traps and abuse emails in our list,” Barnes tells ZeroBounce. “Our data was compiled through the years and we were mindful of permission,” he added, referring to subscribers whose opt-in status was unclear.

“ZeroBounce has been a game-changer for us. It's like having a magic wand that instantly cleans up our email lists, making our campaigns so much more effective. I can't imagine going back to the old way of sending emails without it!”

- David Barnes, The Workplace Depot

Approach: choosing an email verifier

David Barnes and Annabelle Earps knew they needed an email verification service to fix this issue. Picking the right provider was easy.

“We were convinced by the great online reviews and previous positive experiences with ZeroBounce at other companies,” Earps says. “David had used it at his previous company and then introduced the platform to me as I took over our email marketing processes.”

The two marketers integrated ZeroBounce into their email workflow right away. They also segmented their email list carefully to ensure subscribers who wanted to opt out had an easy way to do so.

“We segmented our data to those who had granted permission and those where the lines were blurred. We then used ZeroBounce to clean both segments and created two email templates:

• One where we state very clearly how we have their data and include a large unsubscribe button
• One with a regular “unsubscribe” button in the footer.

With the two templates and the help of ZeroBounce, our bounce rates and abuse reports diminished,” Annabelle Earps reports.

Bounce rates continued to decrease as the team repetitively cleaned the data using ZeroBounce.

“ZeroBounce became a part of our tech stack shortly after we began our email marketing journey. We aimed to achieve all that ZeroBounce promises, particularly ensuring that we could send high-volume emails while avoiding deliverability issues,” Earps adds.

“ZeroBounce should really be called 'ZeroStress' because it’s taken so much hassle out of our email marketing.”

- Annabelle Earps, PR Manager The Workplace Depot

Results: zero bounce rates, low spam complaint rates, and higher click rates

When The Workplace Depot decided to use ZeroBounce’s email verifier, bounce-backs and spam complaints were just a part of the challenge. The company’s outdated email list was causing ripple effects.

“We were also dealing with unsubscribed users and low click-through to open rate ratios,” Annabelle Earps says, “so we needed a tool that could clean our data and lower abuse reports and potential spam traps.”

ZeroBounce did just that. The Workplace Depot’s initial 4.60% bounce rate went down to 0.40%.

“After transitioning from physical catalogs to an e-commerce platform, ZeroBounce has allowed us to create new digital audiences and has completely eliminated email bounces and abuse reports. In turn, it’s enhanced our click and open rates – with our latest email getting less than 0.1% unsubscribe and abuse rates,” The Workplace Depot’s PR Manager tells us.

A few weeks later, the marketing team had more good news to share:

“The email list cleaning process has improved our sender reputation and boosted deliverability rates. We’re seeing better metrics across the board, including higher open rates and click-through rates. It’s a clear sign that our email campaigns are more effective and they contribute to the growth and success of our marketing efforts,” David Barnes, The Workplace Depot Head of Marketing, tells ZeroBounce.

How often should you use an email verifier?

It’s one of the most common email marketing questions. With more than a quarter of the average email list decaying yearly, consider pruning old data at least every three months.

The Workplace Depot team, though, has a more forward-thinking approach.

“We clean data every two weeks as that is when our marketing campaigns go out and when we update our email segments,” Annabelle Earps says.

During every list cleaning, ZeroBounce usually identifies between 100 and 200 risky email addresses.

“The Workplace Depot has been using ZeroBounce’s email verification platform for some time now, and we are thrilled with the results. Using ZeroBounce has allowed us to create a new audience segment of clean data to send our marketing emails.”

- Annabelle Earps, PR Manager The Workplace Depot

How to know it’s time to clean your email list

Email is an increasingly popular marketing channel, but not all marketers are aware of its pitfalls. Continuing to send emails to invalid email addresses or people who report you as spam will cause additional damage to your sender reputation. And when your reputation is tarnished, your campaigns will land in spam. In some cases, inbox providers will block them altogether.

But how do you know if you need an email verifier for your list?

• Your bounce rate is higher than 2%. Large email service providers, like Google and Yahoo, made it clear that bounce rates can’t exceed this threshold. If they do, it’s an indication of poor email list building practices.
• Your spam complaint rate is higher than 0.3%. Google and Yahoo – with Microsoft following soon – established this benchmark in their latest email sending guidelines.
• Overall engagement rates are low. With 27% of consumers checking their spamboxes only a few times a year, chances are your emails aren’t getting any attention. If your metrics are low, your email list may need scrubbing.

How much obsolete data do you have in your list?

If it’s been a few months – or years – since you validated your contacts, obsolete data is taking a toll on your email performance. Want to find out quickly how healthy your email list is?