Blog
Notes from the
honest side of email
Deliverability, honest analytics and outreach craft — written in plain language, with no growth-hack snake oil.
Earlier articles
253 articles
CopywritingAnalysis7 min
AI text detectors still can't reliably catch AI cold email, and neither can your prospects
2026 research on AI-detection accuracy and recipient trust points the same way: the real lever was never sounding human. It's being relevant to the recipient.
ComplianceAnalysis5 min
Chick-fil-A's loyalty app got hit by the same attack twice. Here's why it keeps working
A credential-stuffing attack hit Chick-fil-A One accounts for the second time in three years. The technique behind it also targets sender and mailbox logins.
StrategyAnalysis10 min
Cold email vs. LinkedIn outreach in 2026: what each one's actually good for
A fair 2026 comparison using real benchmark data: LinkedIn's reply rates look better, but the funnels aren't measuring the same thing. Here's the honest read.
ComplianceAnalysis5 min
"GDPR-compliant" stopped being a universal badge in 2026
The UK's Data (Use and Access) Act and a growing US state patchwork mean the same contact data can be compliant in one market and not another.
ComplianceAnalysis7 min
The 2026 DMARC adoption numbers: 52.1% have a record, ~9% are actually protected
EasyDMARC's 2026 report puts DMARC adoption at 52.1% of top domains, up from 47.7% — but a record isn't protection. Here's what the enforcement gap means.
CopywritingAnalysis6 min
Does urgency in a cold email subject line actually work?
The real psychology behind scarcity and urgency language, why it works on shelves and often backfires in an inbox, and where the line actually is.
ComplianceAnalysis7 min
A €45 million EU AI Act fine headline is circulating. Here's what's actually confirmed
Compliance blogs report a €45M AI Act penalty over training-data errors — unconfirmed by any official decision, though the fine authority behind it is real.
StrategyAnalysis6 min
40% of enterprise apps will ship an embedded agent this year — governance isn't the easy part
Gartner's forecast that 40% of enterprise apps will feature task-specific AI agents by end of 2026 is on track, but uniform governance is what actually fails.
ComplianceAnalysis7 min
France just made 'did they open it' illegal to track without asking
France's CNIL closed its July 14 transition window for email tracking pixels — senders now need real consent to know who opened a message.
Deliverability8 min
Gmail reject vs. quarantine: what you actually see when compliance fails in 2026
Non-compliant bulk mail to Gmail can hit permanent rejection, temporary throttling, or silent spam-foldering — three failures that look nothing alike in your logs.
DeliverabilityAnalysis6 min
Gmail's spam-complaint bar just got stricter: 0.1% is now the enforced number
Google Postmaster Tools' new verdict flags a spam rate above 0.1% as high — a number that used to be just a recommended target. What changed since our 0.3% piece.
ComplianceAnalysis7 min
Before it was one click: the messy history of the unsubscribe button
From no opt-out at all, to a buried footer link, to a required header Gmail renders itself: how the unsubscribe button became what it is today.