#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 early
• The 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 way

If 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
  


• (03:54 ) - – Meet Sarah and Alex
  


• (05:59 ) - – Why email deliverability matters more than subject lines
  


• (08:14 ) - – How to tell if you have a deliverability problem
  


• (10:29 ) - – The most useful (and overlooked) deliverability metrics
  


• (12:49 ) - – Why replies matter more than opens or clicks
  


• (15:14 ) - – Tools Alex and Sarah use to monitor deliverability
  


• (17:29 ) - – Should you buy a dedicated IP?
  


• (19:24 ) - – How to evaluate platforms for deliverability
  


• (21:44 ) - – Getting sales to care about data hygiene
  


• (24:14 ) - – Deliverability tips for small senders and solopreneurs
  


• (28:23 ) - – Subdomains vs. secondary domains
  


• (31:13 ) - – How many inboxes per domain is too many?
  


• (33:18 ) - – Best practices for cold outreach
  


• (36:08 ) - – How security bots skew your open and click data
  


• (39:08 ) - – What counts as “spam” (and how filters decide)
  


• (42:23 ) - – How to re-engage cold or inactive lists
  


• (45:08 ) - – What to A/B test in subject lines (and when it’s pointless)
  


• (48:18 ) - – How to build a healthy, opt-in list from scratch
  


• (51:08 ) - – When to stop emailing cold leads
  


• (53:23 ) - – Welcome sequence tips for engaged subscribers
  


• (56:18 ) - – How to warm up a new domain
  


• (59:38 ) - – Final takeaways and advice

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:

Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive.

AirOps - The content engineering platform that helps marketers create and maintain high-quality, on-brand content that wins AI search. Go to airops.com/exitfive to start creating content that reflects your expertise, stays true to your brand, and is engineered for performance across human and AI discovery.

Visit exitfive.com/retreat to apply for Exit Five’s first-ever, in-person Marketing Leadership Retreat, March 18–20, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Join 100 CMOs and VPs of Marketing from companies like like Zoom, Snowflake, Manychat, Bitly, G2, HP, and more for two days of thinking bigger around a trusted group of peers in marketing. 

***

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