Customer story
Zillow
The largest real-estate marketplace in the US moved its email to Bird and lifted open rates 161% in the first month — with the reliability to deliver time-sensitive notifications the moment they matter.
Sector
Real estate
Channels
Headline
161% increase in email open rates
The challenge
Time-sensitive email that has to land in the moment.
Zillow Group is a leading online real-estate marketplace, with more than 110 million US homes in its database. Home ownership is a long-term process, and much of Zillow's success comes from nurturing relationships with users wherever they are in the buying cycle — which makes email one of its most important channels.
The team needed a solution that could address three things.
- Delivering emails reliably. Time-sensitive messages have to reach the inbox when they matter. Delayed even by a few hours, they miss the window and become useless to recipient and sender alike.
- Handling email surges. Volume spikes around time-sensitive events like weekend open houses and busy buying cycles, so the platform had to absorb sudden bursts on demand.
- Tracking key metrics. The team needed to measure opens, clicks, and unsubscribes to build a comprehensive view of customer behavior.
The solution
A reliable API, and room to scale.
Zillow migrated to Bird in 2015 and leveraged its deliverability and analytics solutions, customizing the platform over time to improve deliverability, monitor customer behavior, and scale out. They now send, on average, 200 million emails a month. Bird's robust API ensures time-critical messages — like notifications for a weekend open house — reach users in time to act, and absorbs the volume surges those events create.
“Bird's API and reliability have been solid. That's allowed our team to focus on building the features that are differentiators for Zillow's business.”
Justin Farris, Senior Product Manager for Growth, Zillow
Analytics & Signals
From notifications to engagement intelligence.
Zillow uses email to deliver the notifications its users rely on — new listings, activity on flagged homes. With Bird's Signals, the team analyzes user patterns, like signs that someone has bought a house or stopped looking, and removes unengaged users from a segment. That lifts deliverability by cutting unread rates, deletes, and spam complaints, and surfaces re-engagement moments — such as a lease approaching expiration.
“Email is the easiest and fastest way to help our users in the moment. It's part of our overall mission to empower users with the information and tools they need to be smarter about home buying.”
Tara Clark, Director of Email, Zillow
The results
161% more opens, in the first month.
With Bird, Zillow has a centralized platform that lets anyone track deliverability and analytics, measuring open rates, click rates, unsubscribes, spam flags, and more — and shape customer conversations around them. Open rates rose 161% within the first month, and the team can confidently scale sending through its busiest periods.
161%
Increase in email open rates within the first month of using Bird.
200M
Emails sent every month across notifications and lifecycle campaigns.
110M+
US homes in the Zillow database that its email program keeps users close to.
“It's been a collaborative arrangement where we build a solution together — Bird provides the technical infrastructure on which Zillow layers value.”
Tara Clark, Director of Email, Zillow
Carry-forward reference from bird.com. Metrics and named quotes reported by Zillow.
Send on the same email infrastructure.
A reliable API, deliverability analytics, and Signals — built to scale through your busiest sends. A test API key is yours immediately.