THE EMAIL CULTURE
A community-driven approach to escalating revenue and business growth through email.
Welcome to The Email Culture! 👋 We started this community to bring people in the email industry together to share ideas, experiences, lessons learned, and things that actually work. As a little welcome gift, we’re sharing our playbook, Revenue Acceleration Through Email, with practical ideas to help you get more out of your email marketing.
Every week, expect fresh thought leadership, important email industry updates, three practical resources worth your time, and real questions answered by email experts. But the real value comes from all of us contributing. Share what works, ask questions, and exchange ideas to help the email ecosystem grow stronger together. We're glad to have you with us!
THE BIG IDEA
Email is no longer a channel. It's your identity & deliverability infrastructure.
Email is not just a marketing channel; it is the infrastructure that supports your revenue, customer relationships, and brand identity. Deliverability issues, weak authentication, and poor list hygiene can quietly reduce email revenue without obvious warning signs.
sinesses must prioritize monitoring, maintenance, compliance, and incident response instead of focusing only on campaigns and creative. Treat email like infrastructure, not a broadcast channel, to protect inbox Placement and long-term revenue growth.
In this article
The mindset that breaks email programs
The numbers nobody puts in the board deck
Why nobody notices until it’s expensive
What treating email as infrastructure actually looks like
The belief, plainly
FAQ
The call always starts the same way.
Email revenue dropped and nothing was touched.
In fifteen years of marketing technology work, versions of this conversation have come up more times than can be counted. A brand is growing, campaigns are shipping, the calendar is full — and then one month the revenue line from email quietly sags. No error message.
No alert. No obvious cause. The team's first instinct is always the same: change the creative, test new subject lines, send more.
THE EMAIL BRIEF
3 Things Worth Knowing
Gmail is evolving beyond a traditional mailbox into a digital vault, bringing personal communication and sensitive information into one connected ecosystem.
Its privacy strategy emphasizes data protection, user control, and secure access in an increasingly connected digital world.
AI can help B2B marketers write and personalize email newsletters more efficiently by tailoring content to different audiences and business needs. This enables teams to save time, improve engagement, and deliver more relevant messages to subscribers.
Many B2B teams struggle with go-to-market (GTM) execution despite having strong products and effective marketing strategies because their teams, messaging, and customer journeys are not properly aligned.
For email marketing, the key lesson is to connect campaigns with sales goals, deliver consistent messaging, and use customer data to reach the right audience at the right time.
Most email programs have never had a proper inspection. Stepin's Email Program Audit checks your authentication, deliverability, automations, and revenue attribution — and shows exactly where money is leaking.
This slot is available to sponsors — reply "sponsor" to learn more.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Why are my emails going to spam?
Sender Reputation and Engagement
Low engagement hurts reputation: If recipients ignore, delete, or mark emails as spam, your sender reputation drops, leading to more emails being routed to spam. "That engagement data (or lack of it) builds your sender reputation over time, and when that reputation drops below a certain threshold, the inbox provider starts routing your mail to spam."
Domain age alone isn't enough: An old domain doesn't guarantee good deliverability if engagement history and sending behavior are poor. "A 10-year-old domain unfortunately doesn’t guarantee good reputation anymore because inbox providers care way more about engagement history and sending behavior now."
Sending infrastructure impacts reputation: The IP reputation of your sending service can affect whether emails land in the inbox or spam. "Sometimes the issue is more about the sending infrastructure/IP reputation than the domain itself"
Technical Configuration
Authentication is crucial: Correctly setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records is vital for email deliverability, as these signals help inbox providers trust your email. "If you're sending from your own domain (like yourname.com) the fix is making sure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are properly configured, these are the three signals inbox providers use to decide if your email is legitimate, and missing any of them is enough to send you straight to spam."
New domains need warm-up: Fresh domains often land in spam initially until systems recognize they are not spammers. "New domains usually land in spam for a few weeks until systems recognize it’s not a spammer."
Check raw headers for issues: Analyze the full headers of an email received in spam, especially the SPF, DKIM, and DMARC summaries, to identify filtering reasons. "a good start is to look at the full headers, as received by GMail: in the GMail WebUI, open the message, click the 'more' (three vertical dots), then 'Show original'."
Content and Sending Behavior
High volume and similar content trigger filters: Sending many similar emails in a short period can trigger spam defenses, especially with multiple links or attachments. "Sending the same or very similar mail to a lot of people in a short time can trigger spam filters so that part is valid."
"Salesy" content isn't the primary trigger: While volume can amplify problems, modern spam filters prioritize sender reputation and authentication over individual words or sales-oriented content. "Its almost never about the content being salesy. Thats one of the biggest myths in email."
Avoid certain elements: Too many links, especially shorteners, overly complicated signatures, or attachments, can increase the likelihood of emails being marked as spam. "Remove all the links, have the links inside the pdf."
Do you need help checking your SPF, DKIM, or DMARC records?
