How Litmus helped GasBuddy fix a deliverability issue
Resolving errors for 4 million subscribers in less than 48 hours
With Litmus, GasBuddy was able to identify the root cause of a blocklisting issue, plus get clear direction on how to fix the issue. They were back up and running in less than 48 hours!
The email team at GasBuddy is working hard to make their email program the best it can be, helping more than 4 million active subscribers find the cheapest gas, plan the perfect road trip, and stay safe when traveling by car. With a laser focus on the subscriber experience and a team dedicated to sending truly relevant content, GasBuddyâs email program could very well be part of an email best practice playbook.
An email program thatâs so well taken care of could never end up on a blocklist? Melanie Kinney, Email Marketing Manager at GasBuddy, thought so, too. Until one day, a simple oversight resulted in blocklisting.
Hereâs how Litmus helped the team identify the root cause of the blocklisting, and empowered them to promptly introduce a fixâwith minimal impact to their email performance.
The Challenge
One morning, Melanie was sending a test email to her colleagues for approvalâjust as she does every day. Usually, feedback comes in within minutes, but this time, she didnât hear back from her team at all.
“I asked around, and quickly found that the test send had been placed in everyoneâs spam folder.”
Melanie sent another test email, then a live send to the internal test list, all with the same result: GasBuddyâs emails were marked as spam.
GasBuddyâs email team has always been thoughtful about only sending relevant content, managing frequency, and building an active and engaged subscriber base. Being placed in the spam folder just didnât make sense. Thatâs when it first dawned on the team: GasBuddy might have been placed on a blocklist.
Being blocklisted is more common than you might think. In 2017, over 15% of marketers said their emails had been blocklisted during the past 12 months. Still, when itâs your program thatâs blocklisted, the pressure is on.
This was the first time that Melanie and her colleagues had faced a blocklisting issue, and their research didnât turn up much actionable advice for what to do next.
“Itâs paralyzing, really. Being blocklisted is something youâve probably heard about, and know you donât want to be a part of. But when it comes down to it, do you really understand the process around it?”
How Litmus Solved the Challenge
Litmus Spam Testing not only confirmed that thereâd been a blocklistingâGasBuddy was listed on SORBS and RATSâit also immediately helped pinpoint the cause of the issue. Litmus Spam Testing revealed that GasBuddyâs emails were failing both DKIM and DMARC; something was off with GasBuddyâs email authentication.
This gave the GasBuddy operations team something to work withâand within minutes, the error was found.
Melanie Kinney,
Email Marketing Manager at GasBuddy
The Results
After identifying the root cause of the blocklisting, GasBuddy paused all scheduled sends to avoid delivering emails to the spam folder while they worked on a fix. Because Litmus Spam Testing provided clear direction on both what had been causing the blocklisting and how to submit unblock requests, the team could resolve the issue quickly. This minimized the impact to GasBuddyâs email performance and brand perception.
Today, Spam Testing is part of GasBuddyâs pre-send checklist. Melanie and her team get notified of any issues that might impact deliverability before they send, and can rest assured that their carefully crafted emails make it to the inbox, every time.
