Posted by In the SaaS world, email is more than a communication channel. It’s a revenue engine.
Onboarding emails, renewal reminders, feature announcements, and win-back campaigns are all essential for keeping users engaged, informed, and retained. However, email had quietly become a liability for one mid-sized SaaS company based in the U.S..
They poured resources into well-designed email campaigns, but engagement metrics told a different story. Open rates were low, bounce rates were climbing, and customer retention was stalling.
What they discovered was surprising: the emails weren’t the problem; the email list was.
This blog takes you through their journey of identifying the issue, implementing an email verification tool, and increasing customer retention by 25% in just a few months.
The Silent Killer: Low-Quality Email Data
This SaaS company had grown quickly, like many tech startups do. Their email list had ballooned thanks to aggressive lead generation strategies, including gated content, webinar signups, free trials, and integrations with third-party lead capture tools.
But with growth came compromise. Their list was complete:
- Invalid or misspelled email addresses like [email protected]
- Users use temporary and disposable emails to avoid commitment
- Spam traps that could damage the sender’s reputation
- Fake sign-ups are often entered by bots or form spam
And because these issues weren’t visible in daily dashboards, they went unnoticed until performance declined.
What is the cost of this data decay?
- A bounce rate over 30%
- Increasing email spam complaints
- Onboarding emails are going unseen
- Lost opportunities to convert free trials into paid plans
- Declining sender reputation with email providers like Gmail and Outlook
Why This Matters: The Deliverability Domino Effect
High bounce rates and low engagement are more than frustrating. They are dangerous. Once a domain is flagged for poor sending practices, emails will likely land in spam folders, even if future campaigns are well-crafted.
For this SaaS company, the effects were felt across the business:
- Customer success teams had fewer users responding to onboarding flows
- Product teams noticed lower feature adoption during trials
- Marketing campaigns had shrinking ROI
- And retention numbers reflected all of this
They needed a reset, and that started with email verification.
The Turnaround: Implementing an Email Verification Tool
The team launched a step-by-step recovery plan with myEmailVerifier at the center:
Phase 1: Audit and Clean the Existing List
They uploaded their email database, which had over 80,000 contacts, into myEmailVerifier’s bulk validation tool. Within minutes, they saw a detailed report showing:
- Undeliverable emails
- Disposable domains
- Role-based addresses like support@ or info@
- Syntax errors and typos
- Spam traps and risky domains
They removed over 12,000 problematic email addresses, which immediately improved list quality.
Phase 2: Real-Time Verification at Sign-Up
Next, they integrated myEmailVerifier’s real-time API into their registration and lead capture forms. As a result:
- Invalid and temporary emails were blocked instantly
- Only verified users could access trials or gated content
- Bot traffic and fake sign-ups were significantly reduced
From that point on, every new subscriber was verified at the entry point.
Phase 3: Ongoing Maintenance
They began running regular list audits, scrubbing inactive users every 30 to 60 days, and monitoring bounce rates closely.
The Results: Better Data, Better Marketing
Within a few months, the improvements were clear:
- Bounce rate dropped by 40%
- Inbox placement improved, especially in Gmail
- Email open rates rose by 15%
- Click-through rates on onboarding emails increased by 10%
- Product trial conversions improved
- Customer retention grew by 25% in just 90 days
Takeaways for SaaS Teams
This story reflects a typical pattern among growing SaaS businesses. Performance eventually suffers when you focus entirely on growth without maintaining email list hygiene.
If you’re noticing:
- Higher bounce or complaint rates
- Declining open and click-through rates
- Trial users going cold or emails hitting spam folders
You may not have a marketing problem. You may have a data problem.
Here’s how to fix it:
- Audit your existing email list regularly, especially before major campaigns
- Use real-time verification on all signup, trial, and content forms
- Remove fake, disposable, or low-quality emails from your database
- Clean your list before sending re-engagement or win-back campaigns
Email Hygiene Is a Growth Lever, Not a Cleanup Task
For this SaaS company, email verification wasn’t just a technical fix. It became a growth lever.
Their onboarding emails reached more users. Their renewal reminders landed in inboxes. Most importantly, their customer lifecycle campaigns started driving measurable results again.
Clean data helped them re-engage their audience and retain more customers with less effort.
Want to Clean Your List?
If you’re running into email engagement issues or seeing declining retention, email verification could be the simplest, highest-ROI improvement you make this quarter.
Start your free trial with myEmailVerifier today and make every email count.
