Confused.com Restores Stellar Email Performance by Re-Partnering with Validity Sender Certification.

Confused.com is a leading UK-based price comparison website that helps consumers find deals on insurance, financial services, and utilities.   

The company relies on the email channel to communicate with new and returning customers. Confused.com typically sends quotes for insurance coverage, renewal reminders, and regular educational content aligned with subscribers’ interests.  

The company is keenly aware of the email channel’s high value. “Email accounts for a significant amount of our company’s overall revenue,” said Ben Thorpe, CRM Manager at Confused.com. “If we encountered any kind of technical issue that resulted in our program being down for a day, we’d be impacted financially.”  

Given the importance of email, Confused.com invested in Validity Sender Certification to optimize their inbox placement rates and prevent deliverability problems. Sender Certification is the industry’s most exclusive email allow-list, which gives senders priority status at major mailbox providers like Yahoo and Microsoft.   

The solution suited Confused.com well. The company enjoyed a steady 99.8 percent inbox placement rate across their various Certified IP addresses and low spam complaint rates.  

However, in an effort to cut non-essential expenses, Confused.com decided to discontinue their Certification contract in mid-2024. “We thought we could go out on our own,” recalled Thorpe. “We had a very good IP reputation, Sender Score, and inbox placement, so we thought we could reduce overheads, without certification.”  

Within weeks, the company saw a sharp decline in key email performance metrics. Inbox placement rates dropped by over 20 percent, leading to a drop in email-driven revenue. Without the Certification benefit, Confused.com also started hitting large volumes of spam traps (particularly pristine spam traps), which put them at greater risk of deliverability issues and blocklistings. “We saw the financial impact right away.” 

Their transactional sends also took a hit. Without the protections of Sender Certification, these critical messages were more prone to incurring spam complaints or being filtered out. Since transactional emails often drive higher revenue per email, the impact of these emails failing to land was significant.    

Ultimately, not having Certification had a financial impact on Confused.com.  

Recognizing the financial impact of poor deliverability and with holiday season marketing challenges looming, Thorpe and his team decided to reinstate Validity’s Sender Certification only two months after deactivation. “After we saw what happened without Certification, everyone jumped at the chance to get it back,” said Thorpe. “It was easy to make the case to our leadership team.”  

 The re-implementation process was swift. As a former Certification user, the barrier was low for Confused.com to re-certify—they were back up and running within a few days.  

More importantly, the benefits of re-activation were immediate.  

Certification ensured that Confused.com’s emails were prioritized for inbox placement with major mailbox providers, restoring their reach to engaged customers. “As soon as we got Certification back, everything went back to normal,” said Thorpe. “Our emails went straight into the inbox. Open rates and click rates recovered quickly.”  

The “trusted sender status” also meant Confused.com wasn’t penalized for their image-heavy emails and high levels of relevant promotional content (i.e., sends containing discounts)—both of which traditionally trigger spam filters.   

The Certification program’s proactive monitoring and daily performance reports helped Thorpe and his team make better strategic decisions. “We send many different types of emails to our customers, from quote information to relevant promotional offers,” said Thorpe.

“The insight we get from Validity allows us to plan for these to keep in line with best practices. We can also monitor feedback we’re getting from our email campaigns and understand the content behind this feedback. And as a result, we can adapt future efforts in line with this.”