Princess Polly Drives a 32% Revenue Increase with Validity Sender Certification.

As a global fashion brand, Princess Polly relies on its robust email program, Pollymail, to deliver the latest trends, exclusive drops, and seasonal recommendations to customers and prospects. The nature of being a global sender comes with its challenges. Catering to different regions requires precise segmentation and carefully crafted messages that reach the right audience at the right time. This can make deliverability difficult, especially when each region has its own set of regulations and sending best practices.

But Princess Polly cannot shy away from these challenges. “Email is one of our most important owned marketing channels,” said CRM Manager Hilary Castleman. “We have lots of rich customer data, gathered through sales, loyalty program engagement, and other onsite experiences. For us, leveraging this data is about creating the best possible customer experience, which in turn drives customer loyalty and repeat purchases.”

In the past, Princess Polly used a blast-targeting approach for their email campaigns. However, they quickly noticed this negatively impacted both their campaign performance and sender reputation. When they initially partnered with Validity, their goal was to deliver larger sends during major sales periods without triggering spam filters due to the sudden increase in volume. Validity helped them safely re-engage their database and expand their audience by introducing Validity Sender Certification, which allowed them to earn the title of “trusted sender” among certain mailbox providers and reach the inbox more reliably.

But when they paused their Sender Certification contract 2023, their deliverability troubles re-emerged. “When our certification ended in 2023, we experienced a spike in deliverability issues that also aligned to some less strategic audience targeting practices,” said Castleman. “The combined effect was both a decrease in email performance and some concerning deliverability warnings in our email service provider (ESP).”

Not wanting to waste another minute, Princess Polly reached out to the Validity team for guidance. Data from their previously Certified period showed a clear performance drop after they ended their contract. With even more audience growth on the horizon, Princess Polly knew it was time to reinstate Sender Certification.

“For us, leveraging customer data is about creating the best possible experience, which in turn drives customer loyalty and repeat purchases.”

Hilary Castleman | CRM Manager at Princess Polly

After swiftly re-Certifying their program, Princess Polly quickly turned to Validity’s in-flight Certification dashboard for daily insights.

“The in-flight Certification dashboard allowed us to review daily send volume jumps and complaint rates at a campaign and ESP level, helping us understand if there are any audience or content adjustments needed,” explained Castleman.

As they leveraged these real-time insights, the reputation benefits of Sender Certification began to take effect. By reinstating their “trusted sender” status with certain major mailbox providers (MBPs), Princess Polly began bypassing strict filtering algorithms and delivering their messages reliably to subscribers’ inboxes.

“The in-flight Certification dashboard allowed us to review daily send volume jumps and complaint rates at a campaign and ESP level, helping us understand if there are any audience or content adjustments needed.”