Email Deliverability: What Every B2B Marketer Needs to Know

#256 Email Deliverability | In this episode, Dan is joined by Sarah McNamara, Revenue Operations & GTM Strategy Lead at Vector, and Alex Fine, co-founder of Understory, an agency helping B2B SaaS companies scale with outbound, paid, and email. Both Sarah and Alex are experts in email strategy, specifically the behind-the-scenes mechanics that make or break your deliverability.They break down what B2B marketers often overlook when it comes to getting emails opened, read, and replied to, and share practical tactics to improve performance across newsletters, outbound, and lifecycle campaigns.Dan, Sarah, and Alex cover:Why email deliverability issues are more common than you think and how to spot them earlyThe metrics that actually matter (hint: opens and clicks aren’t on the list)How to protect your domain reputation and warm up inboxes the right wayIf email is part of your GTM motion, this episode will help you reach more inboxes and stop your messages from disappearing into the void.Timestamps(00:00) - – Intro (02:10) - – Meet Sarah and Alex (04:15) - – Why email deliverability matters more than subject lines (06:30) - – How to tell if you have a deliverability problem (08:45) - – The most useful (and overlooked) deliverability metrics (11:05) - – Why replies matter more than opens or clicks (13:30) - – Tools Alex and Sarah use to monitor deliverability (15:45) - – Should you buy a dedicated IP? (17:40) - – How to evaluate platforms for deliverability (20:00) - – Getting sales to care about data hygiene (22:30) - – Deliverability tips for small senders and solopreneurs (25:15) - – Subdomains vs. secondary domains (28:05) - – How many inboxes per domain is too many? (30:10) - – Best practices for cold outreach (33:00) - – How security bots skew your open and click data (36:00) - – What counts as “spam” (and how filters decide) (39:15) - – How to re-engage cold or inactive lists (42:00) - – What to A/B test in subject lines (and when it’s pointless) (45:10) - – How to build a healthy, opt-in list from scratch (48:00) - – When to stop emailing cold leads (50:15) - – Welcome sequence tips for engaged subscribers (53:10) - – How to warm up a new domain (56:30) - – Final takeaways and advice Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Webflow - A website platform built for the agentic web, helping modern marketing teams build fully custom sites—no developer needed—that perform in AI search. Learn more at webflow.com/for/exitfive.Markup AI - A content quality platform that scans your content against brand voice, preferred terms, messaging standards, and AI-search readiness before it goes live, right inside Google Docs. Learn more at markup.ai.Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more