Company

Eventbrite is a global self-service ticketing platform for live experiences that allow anyone to create, share, find, and attend events. Eventbrite has been using Bird since March 2020 and has customized its use of the platform over time to help boost email deliverability and improve the time it takes to identify and resolve deliverability issues.

Challenge

As a global company using email for all aspects of business, Eventbrite relied on email as a mission-critical channel for event creators and attendees, but also re-engagement campaigns. Sending timely confirmation emails with QR access codes to events is crucial, and Eventbrite relies on Bird to help ensure tickets reach the inbox. 

The team needed help to address the below challenges:

• Seeding emails was a manual process - Eventbrite’s platform managed various service-related emails across multiple teams. Providing accurate deliverability metrics for each email required a manual seeding process. This task had to be considered a regular part of their workflow, taking time, involving code changes to update seed lists, and being subject to release schedules.
  
  

• There was a large activation barrier for teams to track deliverability analytics - Many teams were reluctant to manually seed their emails as the process was outside of their domain, resulting in a lack of deliverability metrics. Consequently, only a few high-priority emails were seeded as a result.
  
  

• They relied on generic deliverability metrics - Their current tool did not provide accurate metrics as a result of using seed lists. Their deliverability tool used seed lists, but the team didn’t, so they couldn’t get the data they needed. Plus, a lack of education about how to use/set up these meant an extra obstacle was in their way.
  
  

• It took too long to identify issues - There were large gaps in the team's understanding of their deliverability. This meant Eventbrite had an incomplete picture of email performance and couldn't take prompt action.
  
  

• They had a poor inbox reputation - The difficulty in tracking, identifying, and promptly resolving email deliverability issues resulted in a negative impact on Eventbrite's inbox reputation. Additionally, customer experience teams were unable to determine the status of emails for creators and attendees, causing internal frustrations.

Solution

The Eventbrite team partnered closely with the customer and technical teams at Bird to gain all the support and expertise needed. This included:

Moving to Bird Deliverability Analytics

Eventbrite needed a tool that allowed them to rapidly seed different emails or campaigns independently. They also wanted to stick to their current way of reporting to analyze the results of their email campaigns.

Eventbrite switched to Bird Deliverability Analytics, a tool for both deliverability specialists and customer experience teams. After switching to Bird Deliverability Analytics, the Eventbrite team was able to set up seeding for a campaign in a matter of minutes instead of the hours or days it took previously.

This functionality “makes [Deliverability Analytics] a great tool to rapidly gain deliverability metrics, allowing for faster and better decision making.” As a result, the Eventbrite Email Team now has detailed and near real-time data on how their emails are inboxing across the entire business - without needing to interrupt their engineering sprints.

Create a better process for seeding

The lack of team motivation to manually seed email campaigns was a challenge. Using Bird Deliverability Analytics, teams could easily set up seeding in minutes, which required far less effort.

The Automatic Inline Seeding (AIS) tool can be set up from the API or UI and allows teams to seed email campaigns without building a seeding pipeline or relying on individual business units to manually seed emails. Teams can leverage AIS as a “set-it-and-forget-it” configuration and always have their most up-to-date deliverability information available in the Bird dashboard.

"The Bird team has stood out from day 1 for their support and guidance. From technical support to deliverability reporting and business reviews, they have been really helpful and on top of our expectations."

– Juan Pablo Marsano, Sr. Engineering Manager

Migrating to the Bird ESP

Eventbrite wanted to move to a new ESP that had the functionality they needed to track their deliverability metrics, as well as provide a solid infrastructure for email sending. Eventbrite wanted to ensure customers received their tickets promptly and reliably without putting further pressure on the customer experience teams. Plus, they needed a system that supported creators and gave them updates in real-time.

Eventbrite thoroughly analyzed the main players in the ESP market and decided on Bird for the robust mix of features and services offered. The fact that Bird delivers more messages to the inbox than any other provider, not just to the recipient but to the actual inbox, was a key deciding factor.

“Bird provided the services and features that we were expecting from one of the top players of the email industry, and did not disappoint us.”

– Juan Pablo Marsano, Sr. Engineering Manager

Faster decision making

It was important to Eventbrite that emails were getting to customer’s inbox, and they could track the emails journey from the moment it left their ESP. The customer experience team lacked a lot of deliverability data, making it hard to track campaigns. Using the deliverability services, Bird offers means that customer experience teams can rapidly verify the status of emails assisting both creators and attendees.

“Bird not only helps us provide a holistic experience for our event creators and attendees but also provides us with reliable metrics of our email ecosystem.”

– Juan Pablo Marsano, Sr. Engineering Manager

Results

Eventbrite has been using Bird since March 2020 and has customized its use of the platform over time to help boost email deliverability and improve the time it took to identify and resolve deliverability issues. Eventbrite chose to consolidate its emails through Bird for the robust mix of features and services offered. The fact that Bird delivers more messages to the inbox than any other provider, not just to the recipient but to the actual inbox, was a key factor in deciding.

• Eventbrite can set up seeding for a campaign in a matter of minutes instead of the hours or days it used to take.

• Fewer hours spent on email operations - saving hours for the customer experience and email teams.

• Better deliverability - emails are now landing in the inbox, and the Eventbrite team is provided with reliable metrics of their email ecosystem.

• Visible deliverability metrics are available for all teams - placing less pressure on customer experience and technical teams.