Word to the Wise

We make email better.

We make email better.

Word to the Wise helps email marketers create more effective email messages, programs and infrastructures. We advise you how to skilfully navigate the constant business, technology, and policy challenges so your messages reach your customers.

We can help you with your email strategy, deliverability challenges and many other email issues.

What others say

Don’t just take our word for it - hear from some of our satisfied clients.

I had the pleasure of working with Laura Atkins on a webinar and white paper about B2B deliverability—an often overlooked but critical topic. She is the best in the business, bringing unparalleled expertise and clarity to a subject that isn’t widely covered.

Working with her was seamless, and her insights were invaluable. I highly recommend her to anyone looking to improve email performance!"

April Mullen

April Mullen

Brand and Content Director and #emailgeek

Laura and Steve have helped me with my deliverability issues many times and they are really good at explaining and translating technical jargon into layman’s terms. Even without the technical knowledge you will walk away understanding the problem and knowing how to fix it.
Kim Derkx

Kim Derkx

Email Marketing Manager

As a newbie in the deliverability space and fresh off of a transfer from account management to deliverability support, I knew that I needed to begin connecting with folks who were well respected in the industry for their knowledge and expertise.

Laura Atkins had spoken to my team as a guest speaker during a group training exercise, and it was then that I reached out inquiring about connecting 1:1. Much to my delight she agreed to mentor me over the next few months and used a ‘deliverability 101’ training program approach.

Not only is Laura a wealth of knowledge but she’s approachable, kind, and meets you where you are. Not long after this mentorship ended I was promoted to Senior at my last company. I’ve since expanded into deliverability consulting and carry the Wise Words of Laura wherever I go!

Hanna Fray

Hanna Fray

Senior Deliverability Consultant

Laura has become a trusted 3rd party for us when we need an external expert to collaborate with us. Her wealth of expertise in both deliverability practices and technical aspects of email setup means that she is able to provide guidance both on specific uses and more holistically across our systems as needed.

Laura is also skilled at putting complicated technical matters into easy to understand concepts and I never fail to learn something new when working with her.

Alice Spencer

Alice Spencer

Senior Manager, Deliverability Services

I went into the mentoring with a very broad “teach me the world” request and Laura was able to zero in and focus on key elements that have given me foundational models onto which I can use to build my deliverability expertise. Laura was very generous with all the information and references she shared so that I could continue to look into topics and ideas after our call.

She provided resources and examples for me to use as guides in my work and developing my career and profile. She was very supportive and was not only able to provide me with knowledge, perspective and feedback about deliverability, but also where I could improve and grow with my skills and how I can go about doing so.

Jen Nespola Lantz

Jen Nespola Lantz

VP of Industry Relations and Deliverability

We worked with Laura on a few best practices documents for our company. Not only did the documents turn out great but what really impressed me was her ability to relate her industry experience and knowledge to the project.

It didn’t stop there… She also provided additional assistance, best practices, and industry expertise outside of the agreement terms in other areas she saw we needed help.

Amazing work and willingness to go above and beyond to make her clients successful!

Dan Demas

Dan Demas

Vice President, Customer Success

My organization recognized deliverability issues pertaining to our B2B email sends. We did some digging on our own, but realized we needed additional insight from an expert to validate our hypothesis.

Laura investigated and found the root cause of the issue and provided suggestions on what our options were. She worked with our specific constraints and modified her recommendations to meet our specific needs and challenges.

In the time we worked together, we could see a shift in our deliverability and our email program flourished as a result."

Kali Fencl

Kali Fencl

Senior Content Marketing Manager

I was a team of one at a company with a complex email program sending hundreds of millions of email a week.

Laura helped us get a handle on our program as a whole, identified which programs were driving our reputation and delivery, provided guidance on switching to dedicated IPs, and ultimately helped dig us out of our deliverability crisis. She was adept at communicating complex concepts across the company, from our engineering team up to the CEO, and everyone felt confident in our deliverability going forward.

Maggie Glascott

Maggie Glascott

Lifecycle Marketing

Before working with Laura, I was entirely self-taught in email deliverability. Through our mentorship sessions, she not only helped assess my existing knowledge and fill in critical gaps, but also deepened my ability to think about deliverability from a business perspective.

Beyond the technical expertise, Laura helped me connect with the broader industry and gave me the confidence to share my insights and contribute more meaningfully to the field.

Her mentorship was invaluable in shaping my career and inspiring me to take the next big step forward.

Mike Auldredge

Mike Auldredge

Deliverability Services Manager

Recent Articles

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Hot Take:

Anyone who has to know exactly what the rules are for inbox delivery is trying to figure out how close they can get to violating the rules without negative consequences. Senders that comply with the spirit of the rules don’t care what the specifics of the rules are.

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Our friends in the Email Geeks slack have recently started seeing sporadic rejections due to invalid Message-ID headers.

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We’ve written about RFC 8058 “one-click” unsubscribe and how it’s part of the requirements for bulk senders wanting to deliver mail to the major consumer mailbox providers.

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About that cold email

Over the years I’ve made the decision to stop working with certain types of senders. Most recently it’s been the decision to not work with companies sending cold email. I even wrote a blog post back in 2018 about my frustration with clients who were upset their cold email was going to the spam folder. That was the beginning of the end for cold emailers as clients. I did continue to try and work with those senders, but they were incredibly frustrating engagements. I’d offer all my best practices, even try and work out how they could continue to use their purchased lists. They simply didn’t listen, they just didn’t want to hear that deliverability isn’t just about numbers and they couldn’t metric their way into the inbox. What they really wanted was me to tell them the One Weird Trick that would get their mail into the inbox.

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You can't DKIM sign a cabbage

The DKIM specification and implementations of DKIM signing and validation code make some unstated assumptions about the environment they’re running in.

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