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Everest (Return Path + 250ok)

Everest (Return Path + 250ok)

Overview

What is Everest (Return Path + 250ok)?

Everest is an integrated email success platform providing crucial insights and deliverability guidance so users can reach more people, increase engagement, and improve efficiencies of their email programs. Everest helps to improve email deliverability by getting complete visibility into email…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

ReturnPath and 250ok are email deliverability tools that have been widely used by businesses and marketers to ensure effective …
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Return Path

10 out of 10
January 20, 2022
Incentivized
Return Path is used by our marketing organization. Return Path is leveraged to monitor deliverability using tools such as Inbox Tools such …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 20 features
  • Email deliverability reporting (21)
    8.2
    82%
  • Dashboards (22)
    7.3
    73%
  • Standard reports (20)
    6.8
    68%
  • Custom reports (16)
    4.7
    47%
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Pricing

View all pricing

Elements

$20

Cloud
per month

Elements Plus

$525

Cloud
per month

Professional

Custom Pricing

Cloud

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.validity.com/everest/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $20 per month
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Features

Email & Online Marketing

Using software to manage lists, send emails, automate email campaigns, and track results.

6.1
Avg 8.2

Reporting & Analytics

Users can report on and analyze usage, performance, ROI, and/or other metrics of success.

6.3
Avg 7.9

Pre-Send Testing

This set of features allows marketers to test out and preview various elements of their emails before sending out email campaigns. URL validation, inbox display, and email review are some of the activities included in pre-send testing.

8
Avg 8.5
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Product Details

What is Everest (Return Path + 250ok)?

Everest is an integrated email success platform providing crucial insights and deliverability guidance so users can reach more people, increase engagement, and improve efficiencies of their email programs.

Everest helps to improve email deliverability by getting complete visibility into email marketing metrics and sender reputation, understand the audience and deliver content that is timely, personalized, and functions flawlessly on any device, and get a holistic view of a company's email program with the insights, guidance, and exclusive data you need at your fingertips – all in a single platform.

Everest is built by the combined forces of Return Path, BriteVerify, and 250ok. Bringing together 20+ years of email marketing experience and continuous learning from thousands of customers into a unified platform.

Everest (Return Path + 250ok) Features

Email & Online Marketing Features

  • Supported: Ability to test dynamic content
  • Supported: A/B testing
  • Supported: Email deliverability reporting
  • Supported: List management

Reporting & Analytics Features

  • Supported: Dashboards
  • Supported: Standard reports
  • Supported: Custom reports

Pre-Send Testing Features

  • Supported: URL Validation
  • Supported: Image Validation
  • Supported: Inbox Display
  • Supported: Spam Testing
  • Supported: Email Previews
  • Supported: Assign Reviewers

Additional Features

  • Supported: Competitive Intelligence
  • Supported: List Validation
  • Supported: Reputation Monitoring
  • Supported: Engagement Analytics
  • Supported: Customized Alerts

Everest (Return Path + 250ok) Screenshots

Screenshot of Inbox Placement
Understand inbox placement rates by mailbox provider.Screenshot of Competitive Intelligence
Get visibility into what your competitors are doing well, including subject lines, sending patterns, and more.Screenshot of Design Tests
Collaborate, design, and test your email content across devices and mail clients.Screenshot of Reputation Monitoring
Get the most visibility into your sender reputation.Screenshot of Engagement Metrics
Go beyond the basic data provided by your email service provider. Get a holistic look at all the engagement metrics matters to your email program.Screenshot of List Validation
Verify the addresses on your lists aren't dead, wrong, or dangerous before mailing them and protect your sender reputation.

Everest (Return Path + 250ok) Video

Everest Overview

Everest (Return Path + 250ok) Competitors

Everest (Return Path + 250ok) Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported LanguagesEnglish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese

Frequently Asked Questions

Everest (Return Path + 250ok) starts at $20.

SparkPost, Kickbox, and GlockApps are common alternatives for Everest (Return Path + 250ok).

Reviewers rate Spam Testing and Email Previews highest, with a score of 9.

The most common users of Everest (Return Path + 250ok) are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(51)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

ReturnPath and 250ok are email deliverability tools that have been widely used by businesses and marketers to ensure effective communication with their customers and avoid negative consequences. These tools offer a range of features that help users monitor and manage their email deliverability, measure the success of their campaigns, and adapt to changes in email consumption habits.

With ReturnPath, users can monitor their email deliverability, track the success of their campaigns, and make necessary adjustments to optimize their email templates across platforms. This tool ensures high deliverability rates with minimal bounce rates and helps improve inbox placement for email marketing efforts. Additionally, ReturnPath is leveraged by marketing organizations to diagnose and resolve inbox issues at different ISPs, particularly with Microsoft - Hotmail and Outlook.

250ok, on the other hand, allows users to identify and manage email deliverability issues in one account. Users rely on this tool to review their email campaigns, track engagement metrics, and address potential issues with ESPs. It provides a comprehensive view of deliverability issues across clients and helps monitor inbox rates of email campaigns.

The Everest suite, which combines ReturnPath and 250ok into one platform, offers various features for tracking email performance, analyzing sender score, and measuring message effectiveness. This suite is utilized by professionals in the deliverability team to generate reports and provide support for issues such as spam IP score trends, complaints metrics, and spam traps.

While some users find certain aspects of these tools to be valuable in improving their email deliverability and campaign performance, others have expressed underwhelming experiences. Additionally, there have been concerns raised about contract terms and customer service provided by ReturnPath leading some users to discontinue using the product.

Overall, ReturnPath and 250ok serve as crucial resources for businesses and marketers looking to maintain strong email deliverability practices. These tools enable users to overcome challenges related to inbox placement, spam scores, sender reputation, and engagement tracking in order to optimize their email campaigns and ensure effective communication with their customers.

Valuable IP reputation insights: Several users have found the IP reputation insights provided by Return Path to be valuable. They appreciate the consulting and advice offered, as well as the individualized attention given to understand their products and services.

Convenient integration with Exact Target: Many users like that Return Path is embedded in their instance of Exact Target, allowing them to review their entire email program without needing to use a separate tool. This convenience is seen as a positive aspect.

Useful inbox placement insights: A number of users find the inbox placement insights provided by Return Path to be useful. They appreciate the data that informs them about their inbox placements, spam, missing emails, and complaints. This information is seen as valuable in determining their progress.

Ineffective email verification for small company domains: Some users have reported that Return Path's email verification service is not effective for small company domains, leading to improper verification. This issue has been mentioned by multiple reviewers.

Issues with customer support: Users have experienced significant issues with the customer support provided by Return Path. Many users have stated that the support team lacks knowledge and struggles to address certain issues.

Lack of clear explanations in the 250ok dashboard: Users have found the 250ok dashboard to be lacking clear explanations for its tracking and monitoring tools. As a result, many users often resort to self-help resources for guidance on how to use these features effectively.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 27)
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Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Pieces of the product are good, some are ok and some are underwhelming. The Everest suite is a roll-up of several email SAAS firms into one new home, we used some but not all before. First-year of the new company was fine, with reasonable pricing and apparent terms. However, we didn't notice hidden in a linked doc in small print a 60-day notice clause. When they got in touch to renew 45 days before the contract ended (as had happened for the previous 5 years) we asked to shrink our service. This is not allowed under the terms unless you cancel 60 days before the end and then renew afresh. So we were forced to renew as the previous year, the end of a 6-year relationship and terrible CS. Don't use these guys, they are sharky at the extreme and not apologetic about it. They are clearly maximizing the bottom line by getting ready for some form of exit event. We have handed in our notice (365 days ahead now) and won't be using these again ever.
  • Email Validation
  • Having the only Hotmail certification program
  • Acting a partner
  • Clear contract terms
Email certification works on Micorosft base email validation, with the world moving to Gmail it's simply less useful.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Everest Return Path at ShopStyle to monitor email deliverability of our daily sale alerts and marketing newsletters. It is an essential part of our email program as it helps us ensure our emails do not get marked as spam by the various ESPs. We experience send/deliverability issues relatively frequently with Microsoft (Hotmail, Outlook), and Return Path helps us identify these issues and remedy them by optimizing our emails and sending IP addresses to improve our email campaigns.
  • Ensure deliverability
  • Optimize inbox placement
  • Measure email campaign performance
  • Pricier than the smaller providers out there.
  • A/B testing functionality works OK but not great.
  • Issues with dynamically generated email content.
Everest Return Path is essential to any email marketing program (for both marketers and engineers alike). Everest Return Path is one of the most well known and recognized names in the email deliverability space, so reputation is not a question. The product offering/features are robust - however this may be a drawback for smaller companies who want to implement and/or integrate Return Path with other marketing tools (e.g. Salesforce, SendGrid).
January 20, 2022

Return Path

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Return Path is used by our marketing organization. Return Path is leveraged to monitor deliverability using tools such as Inbox Tools such as Reputation Monitor, Inbox Preview, Inbox Monitor, etc. Reputation Monitor, I leverage to measure reputation of the organization IP addresses. It helps isolate where the deliverability issue is. Reputation Monitor also provides the IP Sender Score which is like a credit score for your IP. I also use Return Path to confirm inbox placement and how the emails render across different browsers/devices.
  • Reputation Monitor - provides Sender Score
  • Inbox Tools integration within your ESP (ease of use)
  • Certification
  • Certification pricing - if too high some could do without
Return Path is a must to monitor deliverability.
Akande Davis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Everest (Return Path + 250ok) within our organization to focus on upping deliverability, cleaning up our lists and sender reputation, and becoming more familiar with how our emails are performing within individual email inboxes and email providers. We also use the platform to test out our email design and what is working/not working and what could be flagged as a spam issue.
  • List validation
  • Design testing
  • Inbox placement
  • Onboarding process with reps
  • Upstart timeline for new customer
  • Clearer instruction for each module
Everest (Return Path + 250ok) is well suited for companies leveraging a marketing automation platform and is in the mid-market to enterprise segment. Everest (Return Path + 250ok) is not suitable, or really ideal, for smaller companies with database sizes less than 50k-100k that are not in the mid-market to the enterprise segment.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We are currently using Everest to manage our email deliverability and expand the audiences that we contact daily. By doing so, we're able to maximize the number of folks we can mobilize to vote for Democrats or donate to help elect more Democrats. Ahead of the 2020 election, we also used Return Path to implement a successful customer reactivation program to bring folks back into the fold ahead of a very important moment for our organization.
  • In-depth data on user engagement with email campaigns
  • Spam and design testing for a huge number of email clients
  • Detailed deliverability tracking and support
  • Slow and somewhat sticky migration progress
There is so much good, digestible data in Everest! We loved using Return Path's dashboards to get a quick gut check of how our programs are performing day-to-day -- but migrating to Everest has allowed us to get an even more in-depth analysis on our sends when needed. We've used the tool for everything from tracking our Gmail deliverability to testing new wrappers and designs to make sure our emails won't land in spam. I could not say enough good things about this platform.
Mark Robert Anderson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
ReturnPath as its formerly known has been an important connection to understanding the relationship we've had with ESPs over the years. While we as a business are focused on how we communicate to our customers, the insight and consultation ReturnPath has provided help us contextualize how we also communicate with the ESPs, by proxy whether in positive or negative ways. It's often a misconception, from colleagues at all levels of business, that we have direct control or even able to communicate with Hotmail and Gmail, etc. directly, we don't. We're building a reputation (IP reputation) with the ESPs, only by trying to build a relationship with our customers. ReturnPath opens that door, in understanding, giving us the insights, we need to interpret how our strategy at large can have meaningful and sometimes unintended consequences, by being solely driven by the customer contact strategy or ROI.
  • IP reputation insights
  • Consulting and advice
  • Inbox placement insights
  • Using more of their tools.
Every new or established brand should be using Everest. It doesn't matter what you're trying to say in your emails—if they're not reaching the inbox, no one is listening or reading. Everest gives you the insight you need to understand your inbox placement, reputation and so much more.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Validity Everest (Return Path + 250ok) is used to manage all email marketing deliverability, inbox placement, spam traps/black lists, and feedback loops. It's used across the enterprise for all marketing-type emails that are sent to various stakeholder groups. It solves the business problem of not knowing if your emails are getting through spam filters, ISPs, inbox placement issues, etc.
  • Feedback loops
  • Deliverability reporting
  • Inbox placement reporting
  • DMARC reporting
It does a good job of helping an email marketing team better understand what happens to the emails they send once they leave their email service provider. From reporting on deliverability by inbox provider (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.) to helping shed light on your overall sender reputation and managing DMARC compliance, it's a robust toolset that is constantly used.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Used by the marketing department only to track all aspects of email deliverability for our sends through Pardot, Marketing Cloud, and Salesforce. We also used it for list cleaning and email analytics (emails opened by device, location, etc.)
  • Track emails opened by device.
  • Track emails opened by location.
  • Email deliverability by server.
  • More support.
  • More access to email information.
  • Uploading lists can be time consuming.
An overall great tool for tracking email deliverability and making sure you are utilizing email best practices to ensure your emails are hitting the inbox instead of the promotions or spam folders. The onboarding team is very helpful at assisting and providing their knowledge and skills to help you improve your email campaign deliverability.
Brett Schenker | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have to monitor a lot of email sent out of our system and 250ok gave us an easy birds eye view of deliverability issues across clients and narrowed down for specific clients.
  • Inbox Placement measurement
  • Deliverability by domain
  • Clues as to possible causes of deliverability issues
  • There's some data that their sister company ReturnPath has that they're missing
If you're having deliverability issues, 250ok is one of the systems I recommend to check out to resolve them. If you have to manage a lot of senders, it features excellent reporting and alerts to let you know where you have problems. I don't think you can be a serious sender without a monitoring service like this.
Kevin Hickey | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We leverage Return Path for certification, deliverability, and ISP remediation of our email marketing. Unfortunately, it was first implemented when we had delivery issues during critical Q4 holidays. However, now deliverability is being proactively managed on a daily basis.
  • Sender certification
  • Inbox monitoring
  • ISP remediation
  • ESP integration
  • Customer reporting
ReturnPath does a great job with account setup, sender certification, inbox deliverability monitoring, and ISP remediation when needed. One improvement would be with the customization of their platform to the granularity of our business. The biggest difference is always how their customer success teams proactively manage and support our business.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
This is specifically used by the Email Marketing department. Return Path is used as a supporting email delivery tool for sender reputation, inbox placement, and getting the details of each domain in case there is an inbox placement issue. Its dashboard gives us a quick view of performance and issues, based on which we calibrate the email content, email sending list, suppression, etc for better email delivery health.
  • Inbox placement data using seed list: It tells you about your inbox placements, spam, missing, and complaints. Very useful data that tells you that you are on the road!
  • Sender score for all I.Ps: Tells you quickly about your I.P score, helps you work fast as you know everything is fine, saves a lot of time.
  • Online support: Support from specialist, have an expert to guide in tough times to suggest options or to support your action strategy.
  • Email verification service does not work well with small company domains, i.e. if the domain is not Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc. and the email belongs to some xyz.com, it does not verify properly.
  • For a few issues, the support team does not have a clear idea of how to deal with the issue, their knowledge is same as that of our knowledge.
  • For inbox delivery data the percent system is based on seed list and not our actual list.
Scenarios where Return Path is well suited:
1. Large email database.
2. Regular and large size email delivery/blast.
3. Email list with probable hygiene issues with collection, update preferences, segmentation, etc.
4. Email is important to business.

Scenarios where Return Path is less appropriate :
1. Small, well-maintained email database.
2. Small-sized email blast—non-promotional, limited.
3. Small budget organization, no major email dependencies for business promotion.



Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Return Path is used by the deliverability team to provide reports and support about deliverability issues such as spam IP score trends, complaints metrics, and spam traps.
  • Accurate data on reports
  • Professional, and easy UX and design
  • Fast data exports
  • Lack of monitoring tools such as seedlists
  • Easy IP management (adding-removing)
  • Spam traps report per sending domain
Clients really enjoy the way the dashboard shows information. It's easy to understand and allows better decisions to be made based on the info provided.

Technical support is sometimes slow fixing issues and needs to be pushed in order to get the ticket request checked, especially when the request also needs to be escalated to developers.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Return Path within the Marketing department mainly for monitoring and managing email deliverability, general IP reputation trending, and inbox rendering. As part of our SFMC implementation, we leverage both the Inbox Monitor and Inbox Preview functionality mostly. We had some email delivery issues during the early stages of our SFMC implementation. Using the Return Path data and Sender Score trending we were able to turn that around and see more consistent inbox placement. Inbox Monitoring also helps us catch issues as they arise and address them quickly before deliverability issues affect all our users. As we develop new email templates and update our branding, the Inbox Preview tool has been an essential part of reviewing and checking emails before they go out to our guests.
  • Provides good visibility to inbox placement trends
  • Good preview rendering for major email clients
  • Good UI, easy to access major functions and tools
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud integration makes inbox monitoring and rendering previews easy
  • Some domain summary data inconsistent with seedlist detail
  • UI feels a little dated
  • Reporting options are limited
  • As part of the SFMC integration, Return Path support issues and question go through Salesforce, not Return Path
  • Inbox Preview rendering could be more robust and extensive
  • Would like to see Dark Mode previewing rendering
Return Path definitely helps provide directional guidance on where/how emails are being delivered, and it certainly provides some feedback and insights when there are delivery issues. I would not say that it is 100% accurate, though, on Inbox/Spam/Missing placement details for all ISPs. It certainly helps identify issues, though I would not use it as proof that we were fully put into the inbox (or spam folder).

The inbox preview and rendering features are good, and I love the integration with Marketing Cloud. There are other rendering preview options available in the market, and this offering is solid. Just not the strongest. The direct integration with Marketing Cloud certainly makes it easy to use.

Budgets permitting, using Return Path as part of a larger portfolio of tools for inbox placement monitoring, blacklist checking, email rendering, etc. would be advised. But it certainly works well as a starting point.
July 09, 2020

Return Path Review

Patrick Lewis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My organization uses Return Path to increase email deliverability, as well as monitor our spam scores. We also use Return Path to preview our email templates across different platforms so that we can optimize our email across inboxes. Return Path is not used across our organization, just our Digital department uses it.
  • Does increase deliverability
  • Seems to have good previews of emails in various inboxes
  • Has a good inbox monitor
  • Price point is high
If deliverability is a major concern and you don't have an inbox preview then it's a no brainer, as long as you can afford it.

If you have no problem with being marked as spam or bounces and you already have inbox previews, you likely wouldn't need it.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Return Path on a daily basis across a large range of email marketing tasks. The best and most important usage of Return Path is domain monitoring. It does not matter how well your emails render or how amazing your marketing copy is if the content never reaches the inbox of your customers.
  • Inbox Monitoring
  • Device Previews
  • Spam Recognition
  • User Analytics
  • Device Previews use old Litmus API and therefore slow, would be nice to have a quicker interface
  • No content builder integration, system relies on emails to be sent to platform often increasing development times
  • Old user interface, interface has been the same and clunky for many years
I would always recommend Return Path but with a caveat that there are many other tools out there. Return Path is a great amalgamation of a few tools but doesn't excel in any one area. If you only have a budget for one email marketing tool Return Path is it! If you want the full suite, you'll have to tack on 250ok, Litmus for better previews and content builder, etc.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Return Path in a few different departments. Our "broadcast" team uses it to track the technical performance of individual messages, inbox placement across different marketing efforts, and to monitor our "sender score" to ensure across various domains. Our Marketing team uses it to track the effectiveness of various messages by subject line and sender. Our web team uses it to track trends across all of our messages with regard to time, domain, and messaging.
  • Clean interface with a user-friendly summary line.
  • Easy to identify performance across email domains.
  • Great insight into performance by geography.
  • A good tutorial on how to leverage it would be helpful. Navigating is easy, but there's a lot of information and it takes a while to understand what everything means.
  • The reporting feature is intimidating, creating anew one isn't as user-friendly as the rest of the interface.
  • I understand what seeds are, but for new users, a very basic tutorial on what they are and why they are used would be helpful. Right now you have to have a baseline understanding of them before using it.
If you have anything to do with email, it's a vital tool. Whether there is a technical question about a send or a creative one about how a message performed, Return Path can give insights in a quick and user-friendly manner without much effort. However, if you are unfamiliar with the nuances involved with email, like the importance of weighting by an email provider or domain, it can be intimidating or misinterpreted.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using it for our B2B and B2C side of the business. It helps us track email deliverability, domain health, and email provider deliverability.
  • Ease of use.
  • DMARC tracking.
  • Seed list tracking.
  • It's not as robust as ReturnPath.
  • You have to keep buying add-ons.
  • They finally got email verification.
250ok is suited for smaller B2B or B2C email deliverability.
Joe Hallissey | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We selected 250ok to identify email deliverability issues. Before 250ok, we used a variety of free and paid tools but wanted to manage everything under one account. Currently, we use it primarily to review email campaigns before we send, track engagement, and review potential issues with ESPs. In the future, we plan to increase usage to include DMARC monitoring as well.
  • They provide a wide-ranging tool to view your email templates in many different email clients under different circumstances. We used this tool to identify specific issues we couldn't test that a small subset of users had complained about.
  • The Seedlist Optimizer Tool does the legwork for you to identify which ESPs are used the most and gives you a custom seed list for testing.
  • The Campaign Diagnostics report shows immediate feedback after sending on how your email is performing and where you can improve in the future.
  • Within the 250ok dashboard, there are a few different types of tracking and monitoring tools that aren't explained well within the product. Their uses were explained during onboarding but we continue to go back to the self-help to confirm best practices. I hope they work on more contextual help to improve this experience.
  • While the product does work if you have shared IP addresses, it took us some time after launch to filter out other's email data that get included during monitoring.
Compared to other options, we found that 250ok had a good balance of features for the price, continual improvements and new features, and an actual support system. 250ok is a perfect platform for an SMB to use to actively monitor their email deliverability and identify areas where they could improve to reach their lists.
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are currently using Return Path within our Undergrad Admissions department with some integration going into some graduate and adult populations. This is being used to try and have better inbox placement for our email marketing efforts. We were having very low open rates and high spam rates so this is addressing that issue.
  • Shows spam rates
  • Identifies problematic subject lines for email marketing
  • View examples of how different email clients will show your email
  • It doesn't necessarily help emails to be pushed through spam filters
  • Some of the features for viewing email are naively available in Marketing Cloud
  • Hard to differentiate some of the features
Return Path would be very well suited to a director level position that is solely tasked with looking at email marketing. It is somewhat less appropriate if you do not have the time to really analyze the results that it provides. This is more of a monitoring tool than a tool that proactively fixes problems on its own.
Kevin Scally | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
250ok is used by our Marketing Infrastructure team. We have several team members who are logging in and reviewing the results. We use it to address email deliverability and inbox placement. Before using 250ok, we could only see metrics like opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes. Now we're able to see ISP-level insights on inbox placement.
  • Provides a seed list so you can weight the ISPs that are important to you
  • Provides visual reporting so you can see how your email program is performing overall
  • Support with knowledgeable team members
  • Does not specifically identify which email addresses are spam traps
  • This is software as a service, so it's not managed and you need to have team members who can make adjustments to your email program
  • Would be nice if 250ok had a direct relationship with ISPs and could reach out on your behalf
250ok is suitable for email senders who are on a dedicated IP address. Also, if you have emails from many different sources, this would be a good tool to get an idea of what is being sent on your behalf so you can identify spam/phishing using your name. If you are using a tool where you are on a shared IP address, there would likely be fewer applications for 250ok.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Return Path as an addition to our email deliverability tools and reporting across the entire organization. It is a very capable platform to test and to analyze inbox placement using seed lists. It is easy to track sender / IP reputation with this tool as well as improve those for better deliverability across all ISPs. The reports are quite detailed and the platform itself is very intuitive.
  • Inbox placement monitoring.
  • Domain / IP reputation monitoring.
  • Email deliverability troubleshooting.
  • Export of automated reports to external users, not only admins.
  • The tool is quite expensive.
  • The UI could use a refresh.
  • Certification is overrated and isn't required as long as you follow ISP guidelines.
Return Path is very helpful if the ESP you're using doesn't have deliverability reporting or provides insufficient data. RP is handy in inbox placement testing and reputation monitoring but the tool itself can't resolve deliverability problems as many would think. There is no magic pill. Email deliverability strongly relies on end user engagement (opened email, clicked, moved from spam, added sender to white list) and certification has no influence over user behavior or quality (or lack thereof) of your email content.
March 22, 2016

Return Path Review

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Return Path allowed and provided me useful tools and tips on how to improve deliverability on campaigns. There were some great details that allowed me to provide great feedback and customer service to my client, but other times it was vague. Most of the tools I've used have been helpful and provide good insight/details. I've been typically told the same reason for blocks or spams at ESPs like Gmail and how they won't really give details on why.
  • General spam tools
  • Details on different ESPs
  • Spam checks
  • More detail/insights on spam
Return Path is a great tool that's given me useful information on my content and areas to improve for deliverability.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As part of the email marketing team at Life Time Fitness, we use Return Path on a daily basis. We use it to check the deliverability of our emails and make sure our emails are hitting the members' inbox. We currently have Return Path notifications set up that notify our entire team if inbox placement is <90%. That way, when this issue occurs, we can figure out why its happening and work to correct it.
  • Optimization - Return Path helps us to optimize our emails and continue to make them better.
  • Timely - We receive triggered notifications that help us fix an issue before it even occurs.
  • Data Driven - Return Path is perfect for analysts such as myself, and presents data in an easy to read way.
  • Training - It would be nice to have more training and more knowledge about what all Return Path has to offer.
Return Path is perfect for monitoring inbox placement and reputation. We pride ourselves on getting our members the right message at the right time, Return Path ensures that this can be followed through.
Joni Kalstrup | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Return Path is being used by the resale part of the Ticketmaster organization to help maintain strong deliverability of our emails, and to ensure we're employing white hat practices. We contracted Return Path to perform an audit of our email services as they were fragmented--across many different platforms with different business owners, with practices and processes put into place that were no longer relevant or beneficial to the company. Return Path helped us identify root cause issues for low performing deliverability, and once the issues were made evident, business and IT stakeholders were able to make adjustments that ensured our emails were following best practices. Today, I use it as a monitoring tool to ensure deliverability is high (typically above their customer average and in the mid to high 90s); and also to the shift in how consumers are consuming email: today our first screen is mobile (primarily smart phones) which means we are reevaluating the template and also how to measure successful campaigns.
  • Individualized attention. They really dug in to understand our products and services.
  • Easy-to-understand training and actionable items that you can sustain over a long period of time.
  • They're embedded in our instance of Exact Target, so I'm able to review the entire email program and don't have to open up a separate tool to gather this information.
  • Some of the functionality that Return Path offers was not yet available in the version they provide through Exact Target
* Ask what you're looking to achieve with your email program; what benefits/added value will Return Path provide that your current ESP cannot
* Ensure you're scoping the entire project, so that Return Path's efforts will provide valuable feedback
* I found them to be very transparent about their methodology and expertise, so lay what you need on the line and they'll be very open and honest as to if they can help you or not.
Dan Sixbury, PMP, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Return Path was used to help ensure that we were white listed with the various ISPs and to ensure that we had a high rate of deliverability with minimal bounce rates. We also used Return Path to proactively manage email delivery.
  • White listing as no other company was able to deliver the same level of white listing and partnership that Return Path was able to offer
  • A single portal that provides access to all of the monitoring and reporting in one place.
  • Technical account managers that can provide point of contact to trouble shoot issues with specific ISPs email delivery issues.
  • There are a number of ISPs that do not partner with Return Path, I think Apple me.com, Gmail, and several others which leaves room for improvement.
  • Although Return Path offers great features, they come at a price, and as our ecommerce site decreased in email requirements, our contracted costs with Return Path continued to stay the same or increase in price.
Some of the important things to know are: Will you manage and control the domain that you are sending email from? How many emails do you plan to send on a monthly basis / annual basis? Will the emails be transactional or marketing in nature? What is the value to the business for emails getting delivered and open by the customer versus if they are sent to a junk email, or not being looked at by your customers?
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