Launched in 2008, Groupon offers discounts on activities, travel, goods, and services in 15 countries and 500+ markets. The Chicago-based company is reimagining the way people interact with commerce and has pumped more than $13 billion into local businesses, while simultaneously saving consumers more than $20 billion.
With over 48.3 million active customers, it is imperative that Groupon is able to reach their audiences in an easy and affordable way. For this reason, email has proven to be one of the biggest overall drivers for the business.
While this sounds like an easy route to take, email offers its own challenges—especially when trying to reach inboxes at over 2 million domains worldwide. With millions of messages sent on a daily basis, it is the job of Groupon’s Deliverability Team to navigate the vastly different mailbox providers around the world to make sure these emails reach their subscribers’ inboxes.
With varying reputation calculations and filtering criteria at each mailbox provider, it can be difficult to get insight into how each is treating an individual email stream in order to craft a successful strategy. To do so, this data-driven team needs access to various feeds giving them insight into how their email is being treated while maintaining steady inbox placement.
Groupon sends to over 2 millions domains worldwide to drive more than one billion Groupon purchases globally.
To overcome these challenges, Groupon joined Return Path’s Certification program in 2010. By becoming a certified sender, the team at Groupon is able to receive exclusive data feeds provided directly by mailbox providers to Return Path for insight into how their emails are performing worldwide. In addition, they are able to fine tune their sending practices for optimal inbox placement, coupled with reduced filtering at major mailbox providers.
“Certification provides a measurable lift when it comes to inbox placement rates, but also provides an invaluable data set at various mailbox providers, such as Yahoo and Outlook.com, that helps guide our deliverability strategy.”
Ryan Boyd
Postmaster & Director of Deliverability
Ryan Boyd, Postmaster & Director of Deliverability at Groupon, believes that without Certification, deliverability would be harder to navigate on such a global scale. He stated, “Certification provides a measurable lift when it comes to inbox placement rates, but also provides an invaluable data set at various mailbox providers, such as Yahoo and Outlook.com, that helps guide our deliverability strategy.”
Thanks in large part to Ryan’s team and their efforts, Groupon has achieved best in class deliverability with excellent inbox placement rates worldwide. With 48.3 million active customers, they continue to provide a positive experience for their email subscribers—positive enough that e-mail has been an important contributor to drive more than one billion Groupon purchases globally. Who says email is dead?!