DTC Podcast

Ep 617: How to Fix a Pooched Email Account: 10 Steps to Recover DTC Deliverability [TWBERP Preview]

June 5, 2026·27 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupThis Friday on AKNF we're handing over the feed for a special preview of The World's Best Email and Retention Podcast.Your email account doesn't break all at once. It rots. Open rates slide, a quarter of your sends quietly route to spam, your list keeps growing while the people who actually click disappear. Jordan Gordon calls that a pooched account, and in this episode he lays out the full ten-step recovery his team runs when a brand hands them one.If you own a DTC brand or run its email and retention, this is the playbook for the moment results go sluggish and your first instinct is to send more, the exact move that dug the hole.What's inside:How to tell whether you're in spam or your audience has simply checked outWhy opens are the weakest predictor of a future visit, and what to segment on insteadThe rewarm vs. soft rewarm decision, and how 5,000 addresses beat 150,000Why two campaigns a week plus real flows beats 22 sends a monthThe email-only promotion that rebuilds engagement and deliverability at onceTreating SMS like a paid channel with a real cost per clickThe stale-repeat-buyer metric that tells you recovery is workingWho this is for: DTC founders, operators, and email marketers inheriting or rescuing an underperforming Klaviyo account.What to steal: the open-rate floor, the two-campaigns-a-week cadence, and the stale-repeat-buyer segment you can build in Klaviyo this afternoon.Liked the preview? Subscribe to The World's Best Email and Retention Podcast.Timestamps:00:00 Fixing a Pooched Email Account03:02 Set Realistic Expectations for Recovery07:43 When to Rewarm Your Email List11:47 Why Opens Are a Bad Metric18:36 Email-Only Promotions to Boost Engagement24:25 The Stale Repeat Buyer MetricSubscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signupAdvertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertiseWork with Pilothouse - https://www.pilothouse.co/?utm_source=AKNF617Follow us on Instagram & Twitter - @dtcnewsletterWatch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video

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