January 2025 Summaries

Twilio has been running its Bug Bounty program for ten years, partnering with talented researchers from around the world to improve its security. The program has undergone several updates over the past decade, including introducing a new submission template and clarifying language in its scope. As of 2025, Twilio has received over 10,000 lifetime submissions from approximately 2,500 unique researchers, achieving faster submission acceptance times than the industry average. In addition to the Bug Bounty program, Twilio has launched a Vulnerability Disclosure program, which is open to all and aims to collect valuable security information without offering monetary rewards. The company thanks its researcher community for their dedication and appreciation for their hard work in improving Twilio's security.

You can create a WhatsApp recipe recommendation chatbot that uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to provide recipe suggestions and computer vision to process images containing cooking ingredients. The bot will be built using the Twilio Programmable Messaging API for handling WhatsApp messages, Ollama, an open-source tool for running large language models locally, and Chroma, a vector database that stores and retrieves embeddings. The chatbot will understand recipe requests, analyze ingredient photos, and engage in natural conversations about cooking. It uses the Nomic embed text model to generate embeddings for recipes, the Mistral NeMo model for generating contextual responses, the LLaVA model for processing ingredient images, and RAG to improve accuracy and ground the model's responses in factual data. The chatbot can be tested with sample queries and images, and it will respond with recipe recommendations and detailed image descriptions containing identified ingredients.

Twilio is introducing new interactive rich content features for RCS (Rich Communication Services), a messaging platform that allows businesses to send personalized and engaging messages to customers. The new features, including Rich Cards, Media Integration, and Rich Card Carousels, enable businesses to deliver visually appealing and immersive messages that include images, videos, quick reply buttons, and call-to-action buttons. These features are supported on both WhatsApp and RCS, allowing businesses to connect with customers across multiple communication channels and enhance their customer engagement strategy. With these new features, Twilio empowers businesses to create personalized content, provide a seamless user experience, and make a lasting impression on their audience.

Amid the transformative impact of ChatGPT and generative AI on digital marketing, this article explores how strategically crafted prompts can enhance email marketing efforts, delivering high-quality results comparable to those created by humans. By engaging in prompt engineering—the practice of carefully designing instructions for AI—marketers can leverage AI to efficiently generate effective email content while maintaining quality. The text provides a range of meticulously tested prompts designed to optimize email marketing tasks such as welcome emails, event management, sales campaigns, and customer re-engagement, emphasizing the importance of clarity, customer personas, tone, and marketing frameworks in the prompts. Additionally, it highlights the potential of Twilio SendGrid's tools to further elevate email marketing strategies, showcasing the integration of AI-driven insights into a comprehensive marketing approach.

I'm Plushcap, here's a summary of the text in one paragraph: Andrew MacLean is Twilio Developer Educator who was described by his former boss as "fearless" due to his approach to learning and embracing curiosity. He has an amateur heart, loving the process of learning and sharing knowledge. His journey into technical education started with a degree in Forensic Science, then teaching, and eventually coding for education. He built his first production application, a learning management system called Comtinuum, and later transitioned to working with high schoolers, launching HighTechU bootcamp, and teaching STEM. He joined Battlesnake as Community Manager, where he created educational content, before joining Twilio's Ecosystem team as Developer Educator, leading projects like Liftoff and Level Up, blending his passions for teaching, technology, and public learning.

Sending an SMS magic link for one-click phone verification is a widely popular method that improves the user experience by creating a one-click verification process. This tutorial explains how to implement SMS magic links using Twilio Verify API, which abstracts the more annoying parts of sending an SMS and focuses on business logic. The process involves inputting a phone number or logging in with an existing phone number associated account, sending an SMS with a verification link, clicking the link, validating the provided OTP, and setting a session or sending a callback to indicate verification success. To send magic links, developers need to create a Twilio Verify Service, deploy a custom template for testing and production, add environment variables, and implement verification logic using Twilio's stateless verification tracking features. The process provides a user-friendly way to validate phone numbers for authentication or authorization while offering strong security and fraud prevention measures.

The Voice channel for Twilio AI Assistants is now in Developer Preview, offering businesses the ability to integrate voice capabilities into their customer engagement strategy. This new feature empowers developers to build and deploy sophisticated conversations with human-like quality, facilitating scalable voice applications that leverage real-time communication protocols. With its seamless integration and rapid deployment capabilities, Twilio's solution offers tangible advantages such as low latency, smart turn-taking capabilities, great UX, and the ability for quick experimentation and iteration. The opportunity for transformation is immense, driven by a growing demand for AI-driven customer engagement solutions, and developers can get started with the Voice Developer Preview right away by checking out Twilio's documentation and sample application.

The Twilio.org Climate Tech Prize aims to support innovative solutions that enhance climate resilience by investing $1 million in scalable, tech-driven approaches. The prize showcased diverse applications from nonprofit and for-profit organizations worldwide, demonstrating the power of collaboration in building climate-resilient communities. Five winners were announced: Gravity Water, delivering safe water through automated rain harvesting; ClimaSens, providing machine-learning-powered risk analysis for heatwaves, floods, and fires; One Acre Fund, empowering smallholder farmers across Africa to adapt to climate change; NAXA, leveraging digital and spatial technologies to address disaster risks; and Blue Marble, offering parametric insurance solutions to underserved communities. These solutions embody the critical need for private-sector and nonprofit innovation to converge in addressing the pressing challenges of climate resiliency.

This tutorial covers the basics of integrating SQLite with Go, using the go-sqlite3 library. It starts by setting up a basic integration and creating a note-sharing app using the Gin web framework. The tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to create a new database, perform CRUD operations, and build routes for managing notes. It also includes examples of HTML templates for rendering notes and forms. The tutorial concludes with a GitHub repository containing the code used in the tutorial and resources for further learning.

You can create a powerful SMS-based stock price update system using Go and Twilio by following this tutorial. The application will receive real-time stock price updates via SMS, allowing users to make informed investment decisions on the go. To start, you'll need to set up your project directory, retrieve your Alpha Vantage API key and Twilio credentials, install necessary packages, and create an endpoint in the app to take incoming SMS messages, check the given stock prices, and respond by SMS to the given phone with the Twilio API. You'll also need to open ngrok to expose the locally running Go application to the internet, allowing Twilio's SMS webhook to send real-time stock price updates. Once set up, you can test the application by sending a stock quote from your phone to your Twilio-generated phone number and receiving the current stock price in response.

To send an RCS message with Twilio and Python, you need a Twilio account, a phone number for sending SMS as a fallback to your RCS service, a device capable of receiving RCS business messages, and Python installed on your machine. You can create an RCS sender in the Twilio Console, add profile information such as a name, description, logo, banner, contact details, and link to privacy policy and terms of service. After setting up your RCS sender, you need to test it by sending a message to yourself or another device. Once verified, you can create a messaging service in the Console, add your RCS sender, and set up an SMS fallback sender. You also have the option to set up webhook integration for handling incoming messages. To send your first RCS message with Python, you need to copy the Messaging Service SID, retrieve your Account SID and Auth Token from the Twilio Console, create a new file named `send_rcs.py`, run the script using `python send_rcs.py`, and see the result on your phone or device. With Twilio, you can explore advanced RCS features such as content template builder for rich message content, programmable messaging logs to troubleshoot errors, and secure one-time passwords with Twilio Verify.

Email marketing for SaaS businesses is a complex yet rewarding strategy, leveraging the vast amount of data available to create personalized and effective campaigns that engage and nurture customers throughout their lifecycle. Despite its complexity, email marketing remains a preferred channel for SaaS companies due to its impressive ROI and the ability to maintain direct communication with customers. This approach is essential for SaaS models, which often rely on subscription or freemium models that require continuous engagement. The guide discusses essential strategies such as mapping customer lifecycle stages, building an email list, understanding available data, and segmenting audiences to optimize email campaigns. It also emphasizes the importance of marketing automation, hyper-personalization, balancing educational and promotional content, and ongoing A/B testing to enhance performance. Through examples from companies like Twilio Segment, Crowdstrike, Salesforce, Whimsical, Linear, and Grammarly, it illustrates the effectiveness of educational, segmentation, welcome, onboarding, and platform usage update emails in driving engagement and conversions.

This project involves building a voice-based pizza ordering service using Twilio, OpenAI, and Google Maps. The system allows users to place an order by calling a phone number, selecting items from their nearest Dominos store's menu, processing payment with their bank card, and utilizing a Large Language Model (LLM) to interpret user requests into Dominos' official item codes. The project covers setting up Twilio Studio, gathering order information, calculating the order price, validating the delivery address, extracting order metadata, getting the nearest store, fetching the order price, trying it out, creating a new Twilio service route, returning a <code>&lt;Pay&gt;</code> response, and adding a Pay Connector. The system is designed to provide a seamless experience for users, with features such as natural language processing, payment processing, and integration with Dominos' API.

By 2026, customer engagement is anticipated to transform into a continuous, trust-driven relationship where brands succeed by ethically and intelligently integrating into customers' lives. Predictive engagement, powered by AI, will enable brands to anticipate needs and provide timely, relevant interactions, shifting from reactive support to proactive experience stewardship. Rich Communication Services (RCS) will enhance trust through clear, interactive messaging, particularly in industries like hospitality, while agent productivity will improve through frictionless, unified tools. Omnichannel engagement will prioritize seamless continuity across platforms, and personalization will evolve into contextual understanding, with transparency and consent as critical components. The integration of AI will enhance human empathy, and engagement will become more participatory, fostering dialogue and collaboration. Ultimately, loyalty will derive from consistency and reliability, as brands focus on building meaningful connections rather than simply capturing attention.

To handle incoming WhatsApp audio messages in a Go application using Twilio and AssemblyAI, users need to create a new project, install the required dependencies, store their credentials as environment variables, retrieve the necessary credentials, set up the application logic, connect the app to the Twilio WhatsApp Sandbox, start the application, set up a Twilio WhatsApp Webhook, test the application, and learn how to use these tools for automated transcription services or voice-driven data collection platforms.

AI-ready instrumentation, particularly through Twilio Segment's Auto-Instrumentation, seeks to streamline data collection and analysis by reducing the dependency on engineering resources. Traditional data collection, often requiring significant upfront investment and constant updates across multiple platforms, can become a bottleneck in businesses' data strategies. Auto-Instrumentation offers a solution by automating the process, allowing businesses to react swiftly to customer behavior changes without recurring engineering resource demands. This approach enables real-time data streaming and automated event translation directly on user devices after a one-time setup. Businesses can use these capabilities to enhance their understanding of customer preferences and iterate on marketing strategies more efficiently. Twilio Segment's investment in AI-powered customer data platforms (CDPs) aims to lower adoption costs and improve data-driven insights for its clients, with a private beta phase planned for select customers.

A plain text email is a basic form of email that contains only text, without any embedded links, images, or stylistic elements such as bold or italicized text. Despite its simplicity, plain text emails have certain advantages, such as consistent appearance across devices, quick loading times, improved accessibility for visually impaired users, and potentially better deliverability to primary inboxes. They are often used for transactional messages like receipts or order confirmations. However, tracking engagement is more challenging compared to HTML emails, which offer richer features and easier tracking of click-through rates and user interactions. Marketers sometimes use "look-alike" plain text emails, which are HTML emails designed to resemble plain text, to create a more personal feel while retaining tracking capabilities. Users can switch to sending plain text emails through their email client settings, and services like Twilio SendGrid allow for sending true plain text emails by specifying the "content-type" as "text/plain" in API requests. Testing both plain text and HTML formats is recommended to determine which best suits the audience's preferences and engagement needs.

In 2025, businesses seeking alternatives to Mailchimp for their email marketing needs have several options, each offering unique features to cater to various strategies and industry requirements. Twilio SendGrid stands out with its robust email delivery infrastructure, developer-friendly APIs, and omnichannel capabilities, making it suitable for high-volume senders and e-commerce platforms. Constant Contact provides small businesses with simplicity through its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, while Adobe Campaign delivers enterprise-level email marketing integrated with Adobe's suite, though it may be complex for smaller teams. HubSpot offers a comprehensive CRM and marketing platform, emphasizing a data-driven approach and integration across customer touchpoints, whereas AWeber is designed for small businesses, focusing on ease of use and strong support. Mailjet, with its team collaboration features and basic automation, is aimed at small to medium-sized businesses. Choosing the right platform depends on factors such as technical requirements, scalability, integration capabilities, support resources, compliance, and cost structure.

Monitoring email delivery and open rates in a .NET application using Twilio SendGrid Webhooks is made possible by creating a new ASP.NET Core Web API project, installing the SendGrid NuGet package, configuring SendGrid in the application, implementing email sending functionality, setting up a webhook endpoint to capture event data from SendGrid, running the app and exposing it with Ngrok, enabling event webhooks in SendGrid, testing the integration, and saving logs for analytics. Twilio SendGrid's event webhooks are powerful tools that can help evaluate the success of email campaigns and make informed decisions upon accurate results.

The text discusses adding SMS capabilities to AI agents in minutes. It explains that AI agents can only communicate via chat, limiting their potential, but equipping them with more tools like mobile messaging makes communication more versatile and impactful. The guide walks through the basics of what AI agents are, how they differ from large language models (LLMs), and how to integrate Twilio Programmable Messaging into AI projects. It also provides sample code using JavaScript with the OpenAI SDK and LangChain, respectively, to demonstrate the process of enhancing AI agents with communication tools. The guide emphasizes the importance of tool definition, agent execution, and CLI integration to create a seamless user experience.

Go's memory management system is effective and automates most tasks involving memory. To improve memory efficiency in Go, designers can use four techniques: designing memory-efficient structs by ordering fields from largest to smallest, using pointers for large data structures, managing variable scopes, and pooling resources. Additionally, the Go `sync.Pool` type can be used to manage and reuse instances of objects, reducing allocation costs and garbage collection overhead. The built-in `pprof` package provides methods for identifying bottlenecks and memory leaks in Go applications, allowing developers to profile memory usage and analyze profiling data using commands such as `pprof top` and `pprof list`.

Upselling and cross-selling are essential sales tactics that can significantly boost revenue by either encouraging customers to purchase a more expensive version of a product or an additional complementary product. Upselling involves motivating buyers to upgrade to a premium or enhanced version of a product or service, while cross-selling involves offering a related product that complements the original purchase, both of which can increase the transaction value. These strategies are effective because customers often see the value in enhanced or complementary offerings, and they can be applied across various industries, from SaaS to retail. Real-world examples include upgrading to a premium software package or purchasing a protective case alongside a smartphone. Businesses can leverage these tactics by integrating them into their sales processes and using personalized communication channels, such as email, to target potential upsell and cross-sell opportunities, leveraging tools like SendGrid for efficient execution.

You can build an email monitoring application that uses Twilio SMS and semantic analysis with sentence transformers to analyze the importance of emails. The application will retrieve unread emails from your inbox, use semantic similarity to classify their importance, send SMS notifications about important emails, and provide detailed console output for monitoring. To start, you'll need a free Twilio account, Python 3.7 or later installed on your computer, basic knowledge of Python programming, an email account that supports IMAP access, and generate an app password for Gmail if using the service. The application will be implemented in a file named `email_monitor.py`, where you'll add the core functionality to retrieve emails, analyze their importance according to your set keywords, and send SMS notifications. You'll use environment variables to keep sensitive information secure, including email credentials and Twilio API keys. The application will also handle various character encodings in emails using the `safe_decode` function. Once implemented, you can test the application by sending sample emails to yourself and running the script with your credentials correctly set in the `.env` file. The application demonstrates how modern NLP techniques can be used to create powerful email monitoring solutions, showcasing how AI and cloud communications can create productivity tools.

This blog post explores the integration of Twilio ConversationRelay with Twilio Flex for contextual escalations in customer service, enabling businesses to efficiently handle complex issues. To achieve this, developers must integrate Twilio's powerful tools, including Functions and contact center Flex, into their applications. The process involves configuring a Large Language Model (LLM) to execute a function when it understands the intent to escalate a conversation to a human agent, followed by a serverless function that adds task attributes and enqueues the call to Flex. A Flex plugin is also required to present these new task attributes to the agent. The blog post provides samples for each building block of this integration process, including ConversationRelay, Functions, LLM configuration, implementing handoff triggers, and Flex plugins. By following this guide, developers can create a seamless transition from automated to human interaction, enhancing the overall customer experience.

Building a voice AI application traditionally requires managing components such as speech-to-text, text-to-speech, real-time streaming, and large language models. However, using Twilio ConversationRelay and BentoML simplifies this process by handling critical features like STT, TTS, real-time streaming, and interruption handling. With ConversationRelay, the voice interaction layer is managed, and BentoML helps handle model serving, application packaging, and production deployment. The framework automates hosting and deployment of a WebSocket server, enabling seamless real-time communication between Twilio and the LLM. It also allows developers to easily switch between different LLMs for testing or deploying updates in production. By combining ConversationRelay and BentoML, users can build a production-ready voice AI application with customizable serving logic, interruption handling, streaming responses, and scalable deployment in the cloud.

In an interview with Sridhar Chandran, a seasoned deliverability consultant, various aspects of email deliverability are discussed, including common misconceptions and best practices. Chandran clarifies that email deliverability issues are multifaceted and rely on multiple signals rather than a single factor. He emphasizes the importance of understanding how ISPs use complex algorithms and customer engagement data to filter emails, especially in the context of Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP). The discussion also highlights how spam complaint percentages are calculated differently by ISPs compared to email service providers, and the role content plays in filtering decisions. Chandran stresses the need for continuous adaptation of email strategies as ISP filters evolve, and how brand recognition can enhance email deliverability. He shares insights from his transition from a postmaster role to consultancy, focusing on helping marketers avoid being perceived as spammers while maintaining effective email campaigns.

Anne P. Mitchell, CEO and President of Get to the Inbox by ISIPP SuretyMail, shares her insights on email deliverability and legal aspects of email marketing in a Q&A session. As a pioneer in email marketing and antispam law, she played a role in authoring the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and emphasizes the importance of understanding the law's nuances, such as the one-step unsubscribe requirement. Mitchell discusses the evolving landscape of email and data privacy laws across various U.S. states and critiques certain business strategies, such as using IP geo-location to block GDPR-covered regions, as potentially counterproductive. She also touches on the challenges of cold outreach in light of new state legislation and the legal risks of failing to confirm email addresses. Political emails, while technically exempt from commercial email regulations, are advised to include unsubscribe options to maintain deliverability. Additionally, Mitchell sheds light on Google's now-ended Verified Sender Pilot Program for political campaigns, noting its limited uptake due to campaign reluctance to adhere to best practices.

An email sunset policy is a strategic approach for email marketers to enhance engagement by reducing or eliminating emails sent to inactive subscribers over time. This practice shifts the focus from the sheer size of an email database to the quality of engagement, addressing concerns such as lower open rates, increased spam complaints, and delivery to spam traps. The process involves segmenting subscribers based on their engagement levels and gradually reducing communication with those who haven't interacted with emails within specific time frames. Implementing a sunset policy can lead to improved open rates, reduced spam trap hits, and overall better email deliverability, as demonstrated by a case study where a company doubled its unique open rate and significantly decreased spam issues. The key takeaway for businesses is to prioritize unique opens over database size to ensure emails reach interested recipients, thereby improving their email marketing effectiveness.

The ideal email subject line length is a topic of debate, with some data suggesting that short lines of 2-4 words perform better than longer ones. According to Twilio SendGrid's Cyber Week emails, the average subject line length is 6 words, but even shorter lines can be effective in grabbing users' attention. The best approach varies depending on the device type and email service provider, with Gmail recommending up to 70 characters, while mobile devices display only 33-41 characters. Analyzing past email subject lines and A/B testing are also recommended strategies for finding the optimal subject line length for a business's audience. Additionally, avoiding spammy-sounding content and including key information at the front of the subject line can improve delivery rates and engagement. Ultimately, the best approach depends on understanding an audience's preferences and adapting to their unique needs.

Jen Lantz, VP of Industry Relations at Kickbox, discusses the intricacies of email deliverability and the importance of email validation in a Q&A format. Email validation is vital for maintaining a healthy email database by identifying low-quality or invalid emails, which can improve sender reputation and reduce bounce rates. Lantz explains the different validation types, such as real-time and bulk validation, and how they can help marketers maintain a high-quality email list. She highlights the role of Kickbox's Sendex Score in assessing email address quality and emphasizes the importance of understanding bounce rates and handling older email addresses strategically in light of Apple Mail Privacy Protection. While email validation cannot identify spam traps or verify consent, it can prevent sending to mistyped addresses and provide insights into database quality, although it should be complemented by other security measures like CAPTCHA.

Morse Code is a way of encoding written letters as sequences of dots and dashes. Developing a Morse Code application can improve programming skills. A simple Morse Code application will convert text to Morse Code, send it as an audio message using Twilio, and expose the locally running application to the internet using Ngrok. Before diving into the code, ensure Go 1.22 or above is installed, along with a Twilio Account, Ngrok, and a Twilio phone number. The project covers creating a web app that listens for HTTP requests, decoding Morse Code messages, triggering a phone call where the recipient can hear the Morse Code as an audio message. It also involves configuring a Twilio phone number to respond to incoming voice calls, creating a function to convert text to Morse Code, and utilizing TwiML to generate audio tones for the Morse Code. The project sets up a new Go module, installs required dependencies, downloads beep sound audio files, exposes port 8080 on the local machine using Ngrok, sets up environment variables, builds the project by defining imports, defining TwiML structures, implementing Morse Code conversion, and creating HTTP handlers and the main function. Finally, it creates an HTML form for user input and runs the application to initiate a phone call with the provided message in Morse Code.

In a Q&A session with Marcel Vinson, Sales Director at Valimail, the intricacies and benefits of implementing DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) were explored, emphasizing its necessity for protecting brand trust and email authentication. Vinson highlighted the rapid adoption of DMARC among US enterprises, driven by its ability to prevent spoofing attacks and enhance email deliverability. Common misconceptions, such as relying solely on Secure Email Gateways or a non-enforced DMARC policy, were addressed, stressing the importance of reaching DMARC enforcement for full protection. The discussion also elaborated on DMARC's role in supporting BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification), which visually enhances email branding and can significantly improve deliverability and engagement rates. Vinson shared insights on the ongoing efforts to simplify BIMI adoption and the recent advancements in Valimail's Enforce solution, which now allows for continuous DMARC enforcement to be achieved more efficiently, underscoring the importance of ongoing monitoring even after reaching DMARC enforcement.

The interview with Alex Brotman, a senior engineer at Comcast, delves into the complexities of email deliverability, focusing on the roles and responsibilities of an anti-abuse engineer. Brotman discusses the intricacies of ensuring desired emails reach customers while filtering out unwanted ones, highlighting the use of reputation systems, feedback loops, and external data feeds in the decision-making process. He explains how customer demographics influence email policies, the importance of sender reputation, and the tools available for businesses to educate themselves about email systems. Brotman also addresses the factors leading to higher spam complaint rates at Comcast and provides insights into managing subscriber engagement and avoiding blocklists. Throughout the interview, he emphasizes the need for a nuanced, data-driven approach to email management and the value of industry collaboration in defining best practices for email security.

Denis O'Sullivan's article delves into the intricacies of email reputation management, emphasizing the concepts of "fingerprinting" and "clustering" used by mailbox providers to assess email deliverability. These providers employ sophisticated algorithms to analyze various data points like IP addresses, domains, and content to determine the overall reputation of an email sender. The article warns against simplistic solutions like changing IP addresses to improve reputation, highlighting that such actions may lead to short-term gains but long-term issues. Instead, it advocates for a holistic approach to understanding how different elements of an email campaign can collectively impact its reputation, urging senders to focus on creating engaging content and maintaining distinct infrastructures for different email streams to avoid negative clustering. The piece also underscores the importance of recognizing broader industry reputation issues and the need for strategic sending practices, such as consistent sending habits and high engagement, to ensure emails reach the intended inboxes.

Denis O'Sullivan's article, reviewed by Jesse Sumrak, outlines the importance of delivering "wanted" emails to recipients in email marketing, emphasizing the need to understand the distinction between wanted and unwanted emails from the recipient's perspective. The text explains how email providers track user interactions to determine the relevance of emails, which affects inbox placement and overall engagement. To maintain relevance, businesses are encouraged to allow subscribers to customize their email preferences, respect these preferences, send only opted-in content, and avoid excessive marketing within newsletters or transactional emails. Consistency in sender details and regular testing of email components like subject lines and content are also recommended to enhance brand recognition and engagement. The article advocates for pruning mailing lists by letting go of uninterested users to ensure that emails reach genuinely engaged recipients, thereby maximizing the potential for business growth through effective email communication.

Developers frequently encounter the challenge of sending emails on behalf of their clients, especially in B2B applications, where the service provider wants the emails to appear as though they are coming from the client's domain. Historically, this was achieved by setting the "from" address to the client's email, but this practice is becoming obsolete due to security measures like DMARC, which combats phishing by ensuring emails are sent from authorized domains. As major email providers like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo tighten their policies, emails sent from domains without proper authorization will no longer be delivered. To adapt, service providers can either guide clients in updating their DNS records with SPF and DKIM or offer DNS services themselves to manage these updates directly. Despite the added support overhead, these steps are necessary to maintain high email delivery rates, especially as email platforms increasingly enforce domain control for outgoing messages.

Brad Van der Woerd, Head of Customer Experience at Inbox Monster, provides insights into common challenges and best practices in email deliverability in a Q&A session. He emphasizes the importance of proper domain and IP setup, consistent sending cadence, and cautious domain choice to avoid appearing as a spammer to Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Brad discusses the significance of understanding delivery rates beyond surface-level metrics and the role of rendering tests in ensuring emails are seen as legitimate by ISPs. He also highlights the utility of Inbox Monster’s read-time pixel for tracking subscriber engagement, suggesting daily seed testing based on sending frequency, and discusses how Apple's Mail Privacy Protection has increased the reliance on metrics like reputation scores and email read rates. Brad advises senders on handling blocklist issues and integrating traditional email metrics with Inbox Monster's tools to enhance email program effectiveness, while maintaining a focus on adjusting strategies based on subscriber segmentation and list source to resolve deliverability issues.

Gmail's tab system, introduced in 2013, has been a topic of frequent discussion among email senders, recipients, and industry stakeholders due to its impact on email placement and engagement. Despite initial concerns that the tabs might hinder email marketing efforts by sorting emails into categories like Promotions, Social, and Primary, the system has proven effective for user organization, with a significant portion of users finding the categorization accurate. Research indicates that the Promotions tab still sees substantial user engagement, with a notable percentage of users checking it regularly. The article argues against attempting to manipulate tab placement by altering email content, as such actions can lead to detrimental effects on sender reputation and message integrity. Instead, it encourages senders to focus on creating engaging content and respecting recipients' preferences for how they organize their inboxes, as this approach fosters valuable interactions and enhances the sender-recipient relationship.

Businesses deciding between email and SMS as communication channels must consider the nature of their messages, with email being ideal for longer, media-rich content and SMS best for concise, time-sensitive information. While email allows for in-depth messages that can be saved for future reference, SMS provides a direct and immediate way to connect with customers through mobile devices for promotions, reminders, and urgent updates. Both channels can complement each other, enhancing customer engagement when used strategically; for example, combining appointment reminders via SMS with detailed confirmations via email. Important factors in choosing between these channels include the urgency of the message, the need for archival, and the potential for two-way communication. Best practices for SMS include obtaining customer permission, using memorable shortcodes, ensuring deliverability through compliance, and maintaining simplicity and relevance in messaging. Effectively integrating SMS with email campaigns can bolster brand awareness and customer loyalty, demonstrating a commitment to meeting customer preferences and enhancing overall service quality.

Account Takeover (ATO) involves unauthorized access to an email account by a bad actor, often to exploit the account's reputation for sending spam or phishing emails. This can occur through exposed API keys or weaknesses in email security practices. Once compromised, it is crucial to secure the account, identify the vulnerability, and implement preventive measures like IP access management and API key restrictions. Although an ATO can temporarily affect an account's reputation, it can be restored by adjusting sending behavior and focusing on legitimate email delivery. Maintaining vigilance and adopting best practices in email security can mitigate future risks. Twilio SendGrid offers guidance and resources to help businesses enhance their email programs and prevent ATOs.

Independent software vendors (ISVs) integrating with SendGrid APIs can enhance their customer onboarding process by following a structured framework to ensure successful email program operations. The recommended phases include vetting customers to confirm their legitimacy and compliance with terms and acceptable use policies, verifying sender domains to establish trust and deliverability, and vetting email content to align with business goals while adhering to best practices. New customers should undergo a pilot phase to gradually increase their sending volume, leveraging IP pools to manage email programs optimally. Continuous monitoring of IP pools and customer performance through tools like Twilio SendGrid Deliverability Insights can preemptively address sending issues, while engaging customers through support and training can foster positive relationships. Ongoing governance is essential to enforce policies and manage escalations, and Twilio Professional Services offers expert guidance to ISVs navigating the complexities of running email platforms.

Lili Crowley, Postmaster at Yahoo!, offers insights into email deliverability and best practices for senders during a Q&A session. With her extensive background in data extraction and analysis, Lili emphasizes the importance of sending well-crafted, relevant content to engaged users rather than relying on high-volume email blasts. Yahoo! often defers emails from new domains and IPs to protect user experience, advising senders to gradually increase volume and respond to deferrals by temporarily reducing sending rates. She highlights the significance of user engagement in determining inbox placement, suggesting that senders focus on quality over quantity to avoid filtering issues. Lili also advises on crafting effective sunset policies by evaluating user engagement metrics like clicks and sales to identify inactive subscribers. Overall, her insights underscore the evolving nature of email deliverability and the necessity for senders to adapt their strategies to maintain a positive sender reputation and improve deliverability.