- Out of Bounds uses Postal
- SMTP ensures that emails are delivered
- High delivery quality is business-critical
- A strong sender reputation is reflected in the open rate
- About Out of Bounds
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Out of Bounds uses Postal
They’ve been running e-commerce for nearly 20 years, are growing steadily and send up to three million emails every month. Out of Bounds uses Postal to make sure their emails actually reach their recipients.
If you run an online store, you know that customer communication in general is an integral part of your day-to-day operations.
Email communication, in particular, is no small part of that daily routine, as it’s closely tied to your store. It includes automated workflows and manual mailings; it’s essential order confirmations, regular newsletters and the occasional sales-driven campaign.
Previously, Out of Bounds managed its email campaigns directly from their own server, but as volumes increased, it eventually became unsustainable. It’s especially true when you run Europe’s largest selection of golf balls. The emails must be delivered as intended.
Enter SMTP and Oderland Postal.
SMTP ensures that emails are delivered
Simply put, SMTP is a technology that delivers your emails between servers. With an SMTP service, you confirm to receiving servers that your emails are legitimate and not spam. If your emails are classified as spam, there’s a real risk that the recipient will never see them.
SMTP is the standard that ensures your emails actually arrive as intended.
Out of Bounds has tested many similar services over the years, including SendGrid and Mailgun. But in the end, they felt it would be convenient to consolidate as many services as possible in one place.
– We were satisfied with our web hosting, so after testing several different SMTP services we decided to consolidate everything under one roof and send both newsletters and transactional emails via Postal, says Alexander Edsmyr, IT Manager at Out of Bounds.
“Having a service that can guarantee
high delivery quality is, ultimately, business-critical.“
They currently send up to three million emails per month. As a result, one of their biggest challenges is being able to send the desired volume of emails without compromising delivery quality.
Postal provides full control over how mailings are batch-processed. To keep their deliveries running smoothly, they divide the large volumes into several smaller batches throughout the day. This ensures a steady flow without overloading the system. They manage their mailings using their own custom-built software via PHP Mailer, integrated directly with Postal.
Delivery quality is important for emails sent for marketing purposes (such as newsletters and promotional email campaigns), but it also applies to automated mailings.
High delivery quality is business-critical
A large online store naturally generates a large number of orders that need to be processed. That means a lot of automated messages to customers — everything from order confirmations and shipping notifications to receipts and invoices.
These are what’s known as transactional emails.
Transactional emails place high demands on delivery reliability and speed. A large part of Out of Bounds’ customer communication consists of order information, as is the case for anyone active in e-commerce.
These are messages that you need to be able to trust that they will arrive as intended.
– Ensuring that customers receive their order information is, of course, very important to us—we can’t have any emails getting lost along the way. That risks slowing down workflows and affects how our customers perceive the ease of shopping with us. Having a service that can guarantee high delivery quality ultimately becomes business-critical, says Alexander.
Postal is 100% Swedish and fully GDPR-compliant.
– It’s an advantage that everything is operated in Sweden and that we don’t have to use foreign services to communicate with our customers.
“Postal is an affordable alternative to businesses who want an easy way to have full control of their technology and business.“
A strong sender reputation is reflected in the open rate
So email communication is a central part of both Out of Bounds’ business and in their interactions with customers. By taking a strategic and deliberate approach to email management, they have strengthened their position for a more profitable business:
- They’ve built a strong sender reputation over time
- With higher list quality, they’ve gained better insight into which email addresses are active and which should be removed
- Seamless segmentation allows them to easily batch their emails
It’s these combined improvements that have collectively streamlined their approach to email management and are helping them grow their business.
And if you’re looking for proof of what working with the right tools can deliver, their open rate says it all. It regularly sits at up to 65%.
– Postal is an affordable alternative to businesses who want an easy way to have full control of their technology and business, says Alexander.
About Out of Bounds
Out of Bounds offers Europe’s largest selection of high-quality recycled golf balls. They are an affordable and eco-friendly option for golfers of all skill levels. They also help golf clubs and courses clean up ponds and waterways.
