MarTech Interview with Liviu Tanase, CEO at ZeroBounce

Liviu Tanase, CEO at ZeroBounce dives into some of the prevalent email marketing and email validation myths that still plague B2B marketing and sales processes:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Liviu – tell us about yourself, your journey over the years and more about your time at ZeroBounce.

Two things fascinated me growing up: chess and technology. I learned how to play chess when I was a kid, and I still play chess every day. It’s made an impact on my strategic thinking in business and it helps keep my mind open and flexible.

As for technology, you can imagine what it was like growing up in the ‘90s and seeing all the innovations emerge. When email became popular, I was hooked!

I started my first business early, selling computers. Then, through the years, I founded several companies – some of them revolving around email technology. As these businesses were growing, I felt a need to expand in every way and decided to pursue a new path. So I left Europe and moved to the U.S. to explore new business ventures and experience living in a different culture. The energy was tremendous and I knew that I’d made a good decision.

A year later, with a small but knowledgeable team, I started building ZeroBounce. From my own experience in the email industry, I knew that email data degrades quickly, and landing in the inbox is a challenge for many companies. Our goal was to build the most accurate email verification service while also maintaining the tightest data security standards.

The demand was impressive as soon as we launched. In just three years, ZeroBounce took no.40 on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in America. Growing so fast wasn’t easy. It took a lot of effort from our team, but looking back – what a great ride it’s been!

How has the ZeroBounce platform evolved over the years and what are some of the recent innovations you’d like to highlight?

In the beginning, ZeroBounce was an email verification and data appending service. The software validates email lists in bulk and in real time, via the API. Also, where available, it adds missing data to an email address, such as the name, gender, and geolocation of the user. These tools help senders improve their inbox reach and allows them to better segment and target their leads.

Looking at ZeroBounce now, it’s mind-boggling how the platform has evolved. Every year, we added at least one new feature or tool to the email kit. Today, ZeroBounce provides email scoring, email server and inbox testing, blacklist monitoring, DKIM, DMARC, and SPF generators. These tools work together to help our customers get more out of the emails they send.

The latest tool we launched is called Activity Data and it provides insights into your subscribers’ overall email activity. Using interaction data from our partners, Activity Data pinpoints the subscribers that have recently opened, clicked, forwarded, or unsubscribed from an email. It covers a time frame of 30 to 365 days, so you get to see how engaged your prospects are with their inboxes. The tool has had a high adoption right away. Many of our customers find it useful in segmenting their contacts and reaching out to those with the best potential.

Also, we have a brand-new tool coming this spring. Keep an eye on our website and social media. It’s been in the works for a while and we can’t wait to share it with everybody!

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For sales and marketing teams who spend a lot of resources in email validation, how can tools of this kind enable them? 

First, I’d like them to know they don’t have to spend a lot of resources. It doesn’t cost much and it doesn’t take a lot of time to keep a healthy, high-performing email list.

If you can do only one thing to help your email marketing perform, I’d say scrub your database regularly. ZeroBounce validates 100,000 contacts in about 45 minutes, so it’s quick. And it’s so simple that anyone can do it: upload, validate, download. You can also automate your email list cleaning through the API.

Using a valid email list allows you to:

• keep a good sender reputation, which will determine whether your emails will go to inbox or spam
• get those emails you work so hard for in front of real people
• boost engagement and make consistent sales through the campaigns you send.

Once you’ve started getting into the habit of cleaning your list, look at some of the other ways you can improve your results.

For example, testing your email deliverability lets you fix any issues before your email goes out to your list.

The blacklist monitor alerts you if your IP or domain have been added to an email blacklist – so you can take steps to get delisted right away.

Also, a tool like Activity Data gives you insights you’d never know otherwise. The more you know about your target audience, the better emails you can craft.

From the founder’s point of view: we’d love to know what inspired the platform and how you see demand for these kinds of tools in today’s market?

What inspired the platform was our passion for email and a desire to make it better. It’s a powerful, universal channel – more than half of the world’s population uses email. But email operates with fragile data.

We recently analyzed the six billion email addresses ZeroBounce checked in 2022 and gathered the results in an industry report. What we found was staggering: almost a quarter of the average email list decays yearly. Obsolete data causes many issues. Campaigns and newsletters start going to spam or don’t even get delivered. Engagement drops, revenue plummets, everybody’s unhappy.

Aside from marketing emails, there are other emails a business needs to send: account confirmations, invoices, receipts. You can’t afford having these transactional messages land in spam.

As email is essential to businesses of all sizes, the demand for these types of tools has only been increasing through the years. We’ve listened to our customers and built the tools that help their businesses perform. Also, we love staying ahead of emerging trends and building technology that responds to new needs.

If you had to change five things about email prospecting in B2B marketing and sales, what would they be?

Email is such a tremendous B2B marketing and sales tool, but as a founder and CEO in the B2B space, I see quite a few things we could improve.

1. Segmentation.

B2B sales and marketing professionals would get more engagement if they spent more time segmenting their leads. You’ll be more successful reaching out to 50 well-chosen prospects, with a fine-tuned pitch, than blasting out the same email to hundreds of people.

2. More care for data quality.

Sending emails indiscriminately to as many contacts as you can, without verifying them first, is a surefire way to run into deliverability problems. A high bounce and spam complaint rate will burn your IP and domain quickly. Taking the time to check every email address pays off. ZeroBounce lets you do it for free – every account holder can validate 100 contacts a month at no charge.

3. Personalization.

Segmenting allows you to take a deeper look at the people you’re about to reach out to. You learn what their biggest pain points are and how your product or service can make their lives easier. Next, use what you’ve learned to personalize your emails to the last detail. Your conversion rates will be higher when your prospect feels like you’re talking to them specifically.

4. No clickbait in the subject line.

I still get emails using “Re:” in the subject line to create the impression that I’m having an ongoing conversation with the sender. It’s not the only clickbait I see in prospecting emails. Great offers will get a response. You don’t need to resort to this type of deceit.

5. Less pressure in the CTA.

As a B2B sales pro, you’re expected to close a set number of deals every month. Don’t let your prospect feel that pressure. You may want them to schedule a call or a demo, but instead of pushing for that, leave your call-to-action open. A simple “let me know if you’d like to learn more” may get you more responses. Prospects will ask for a demo if they’re interested, and you’ll be negotiating from a better position.

A few common misconceptions about the modern state of emails and email marketing?

The most common misconception I encounter is that you should send emails to as many people as you can, regardless of bounces and lack of engagement. Although marketing and sales have evolved greatly, this myth is still prevalent – and it’s hurting many senders. Bounces affect the sender score, which causes campaigns to go to the spam folder.

Another misconception I see is that you need to be an expert to start with email marketing. Anyone can begin today, and you can begin for free on many platforms.

If you’ve been building your email list, start reaching out to those people – they’re waiting to hear from you. Do so consistently. You need to show up in those inboxes on a set schedule to build your sender and brand reputation.

Don’t worry if your emails don’t have all the bells and whistles you see at other companies. I know plenty of business owners who make incredible profit sending plain-text emails. It all boils down to your strategy and approach. Keep your list fresh, be genuine, and send helpful content regularly. That’s how you build engagement and increase revenue.

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