Overstock, the leading online discount store, didn’t have great deliverability when they first came to Return Path in the first quarter of 2006. Every email they send leads to revenue, and when delivery rates were averaging 88% -- with missing rates spiking as high as 13% -- Overstock knew they were losing money and wanted to maximize their revenue potential for the upcoming holiday season. So, in the spring of ’06 they signed up for Return Path Platinum service for help increasing their inbox placement rates.
After five months of Return Path Platinum service, which combines consulting and tools, Overstock’s inbox placement rates averaged 98% and often reached 100% at their most important domains. This 11% increase over their previous average primed them to take advantage of the busy Q4 2006 holiday shopping season. However, the deliverability landscape changes daily. Having 100% inbox placement one day does not mean 100% inbox placement tomorrow, a reality Overstock quickly experienced in their first year of service with Return Path. Overstock recently took advantage of these quick diagnostics and repairs when they encountered a serious delivery challenge at Yahoo!.
The Problem
Temporary failures at Yahoo! were causing Overstock’s emails to go missing from the inbox during the crucial holiday season. Overstock’s deliverability to Yahoo! had gone from 100% to 92% -- a drop of 9%.
First, Return Path’s deliverability consultants were able to figure out why their email wasn’t getting through – high volumes of spam into the Yahoo! system were forcing the ISP to divert email that they would normally accept. Second, they were able to come up with a set of recommendations for how Overstock could best send email into Yahoo! without tripping the volume filters. In the end, the fixes were quite simple and easy for Overstock to implement. Return Path recommended they limit the number of messages per connection and the number of concurrent messages, based on information from the Yahoo! team.
“The change was instantaneous,” says Ryan Hofmann, Email Marketing Manager at Overstock. “We implemented the fixes Return Path suggested and were back to 100% deliverability at Yahoo! overnight.”
Because Yahoo! is one of the largest domains in Overstock’s email subscriber list, a 9% drop in deliverability means a big difference in revenue -- particularly during November and December. I can tell you down to the penny what my revenue is on every email I send, so there is no question that this drop in delivery at Yahoo! affected us,” Hofmann said. “The rapid response of the Return Path team mitigated the damage to the program and got us back on track quickly.”
With revenue on the line, Overstock continues to rely on Return Path because they offer proactive monitoring of their campaigns to prevent delivery failures and instant access to expert consultants when problems arise so they can maintain their good deliverability and achieve maximum response.
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