CIO Bulletin

OPTIZMO Technologies, LLC: Providing suppression list management solutions for advertisers, networks, and mailers

Warren Buffet once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” While the world-famous investor may not have been talking about email senders, his words ring true for your sending reputation.

Thankfully, you don’t have to wait 20 years to build your reputation as a sender, but you could quickly lose it in a heartbeat. Careless sending practices—like emailing unsubscribed recipients— can quickly put you on the naughty list of ISPs, affecting your deliverability and ability to land in the inbox.

Suppression list management gives you control of a vital aspect of your email marketing and comply with the CAN-SPAM, which sets up the rulebook for commercial email in the U.S. If you have had any of your marketing email recipients unsubscribe (opt-out), they must be put on an email suppression list and removed from future marketing mailings to stay compliant and avoid various legal penalties and FTC fines.

One of the best firms to help with your email suppression list management is OPTIZMO Technologies. OPTIZMO has been focused on delivering email compliance solutions and support to advertisers, networks, performance agencies, and email marketers since its inception in 2009. OPTIZMO provides automation software for optimizing sensitive consumer data collection, storage, and distribution in a secure environment delivering unparalleled performance analytics and visibility into how third parties interact with your data.

Perhaps the only genuinely independent suppression list management system, OPTIZMO is entirely neutral and unaffiliated with any mailer, network, or other technology platforms. This allows them to focus on delivering the most robust email compliance solutions in the industry and make them available to every client with no potential conflicts of interest.

With the email marketing industry’s growing need to produce a fast, intuitive platform that supports a fresh, innovative approach to email suppression list management and compliance, OPTIZMO continues blazing the way forward in Data Management SaaS technology.

In conversation with Khris Thayer, CEO, and Co-Founder of OPTIZMO Technologies

Q. What makes OPTIZMO an expert in the email compliance and online marketing space?

When it comes to expertise in email compliance and online marketing, OPTIZMO has been delivering email compliance solutions to our clients for over 13 years, giving us an extensive track record of success in the industry. The OPTIZMO team is also comprised of email and digital marketing industry veterans, some of whom have over 20 years of industry experience.

Our team members sit on various industry compliance boards and councils and deliver keynotes and presentations on email marketing and compliance at multiple industry events every year.

This wealth of professional expertise is combined with the most robust technology platform in the industry to make OPTIZMO the undisputed leader in the email compliance arena.

Q. How do you help customers with affiliate email programs?

Email remains arguably the most effective and top-performing digital marketing channel, more than 40 years since it was invented. One of the most powerful ways a company can leverage email marketing is to drive customer acquisition by developing a third-party or affiliate program. In this type of marketing program, a company engages with one or more marketing partners who will generate campaigns and mailings on the company’s behalf. Large affiliate programs can have hundreds or even thousands of affiliates generating marketing campaigns and generally being compensated for the sales or new business they drive.

While this type of program can be incredibly effective in growing a company and driving revenue, it also creates challenges around coordinating the activities of all those affiliate partners and ensuring they follow both brand guidelines and legal requirements and regulations. Successful email marketing in the U.S. means adhering to the CAN-SPAM Act. Among the guidelines outlined in The CAN-SPAM Act is the requirement that every email campaign include a mechanism for recipients to opt-out or unsubscribe from future email campaigns. When a recipient opts out of receiving an email about a particular company’s offer, this request typically extends to all affiliates who send out email campaigns on the company’s behalf. Similarly, if a recipient of a campaign from an affiliate opts out, they must also be suppressed from any marketing mailings by the company or any other affiliate.

This is where OPTIZMO comes in. The company’s SUPPRESS platform is an automated tool for collecting and storing all of the opt-out requests generated by every campaign for a particular company, brand, or offer from all mailing partners. Then, those opt-out lists are distributed to every affiliate to be suppressed before future mailings. In this way, SUPPRESS enables companies to build potentially extensive email affiliate programs while ensuring compliance with opt-out requirements and regulations and that campaigns are also brand safe.

Brief us about how SUPPRESS works.

The OPTIZMO platform’s development is driven by users, for users. The company’s flagship offering, SUPPRESS, leverages state-of-the-art technology to streamline, automate, and optimize the intricacies of collecting, storing, and distributing email suppression lists and consumer data throughout an entire ecosystem of channel partners and affiliates.

SUPPRESS collects and stores all of a company’s email opt-outs and unsubscribes on the platform, then distributes those opt-out files as suppression lists to email partners to ensure that every opt-out request is honored by the email program, in compliance with critical laws like the CAN-SPAM Act. This entire process is automated, making it easy for companies to build large affiliate and email partner programs while ensuring strict compliance with all relevant regulations.

Our clients rave about how effective SUPPRESS is at automating the entire suppression list while being incredibly easy to use. We also recently rolled out a new UI for SUPPRESS, providing even more powerful tools and analytics to help compliance monitoring even easier and more effective.

Q. How does OPTIZMO support SMS marketers?

Several years ago, many of our clients began asking if OPTIZMO could deliver a version of SUPPRESS geared toward SMS and text-message compliance. So, our development team built and launched SMS SUPPRESS to provide similar suppression list management tools and capabilities for companies that leverage marketing partners to deliver SMS marketing messages on their behalf. Laws in the U.S. (and many other countries) require that companies and marketers collect and honor opt-out requests from recipients of SMS marketing messages.

Much like email, an opt-out from one affiliate’s SMS campaign for a specific company may also need to be extended to all other affiliates running marketing campaigns for the same company. So, SMS SUPPRESS takes on the storage and distribution of these SMS suppression files, helping to ensure strict compliance with laws like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which sets guidelines for SMS marketing.

Q. How does your client support stand out from your competitors and other SaaS companies?

Delivering world-class client support is part of our company DNA. When OPTIZMO was founded, our mission was to stand out from the competition in two key ways:

Deliver the most robust and easy-to-use SaaS platform for email suppression list management that the industry has ever seen
Provide the most responsive and effective support in the industry

Everyone on our support team has years of experience in the email marketing industry. This means that they are not only experts in using SUPPRESS but also understand our clients’ businesses and the ins and outs of running an email marketing program.

While many tech companies can take days or longer to reply to support requests, we pride ourselves on incredibly fast response times. It is not uncommon for clients to receive a response from a support team member within 30 minutes after submitting a request or question.

Instead of receiving a response from an anonymous support rep (which happens with so many tech companies), our clients receive support from a dedicated team that knows our clients’ business needs, enabling them to provide truly personalized support.

While our technology platform leads the industry in terms of functionality and ease of use, we firmly believe that our team truly sets OPTIZMO apart from our competition.

Enabling OPTIZMO to provide unparalleled facilities to each and every client

Khris Thayer is the CEO and Co-founder of OPTIZMO Technologies, which he co-founded in 2009 to help companies more easily comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 by more effectively managing and distributing their email suppression lists.

Khris brings over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurial and corporate environments, including five years working in the venture capital arena, leading research teams, and developing strategies to successfully bring various SciTech and Consumer products to the market. His experience before OPTIZMO includes five years in telecommunications, overseeing the design and implementation of fiber networks and long-haul data transport systems for both Incumbent utility providers and competitive local exchange carriers. Over the years, he has built and overseen teams across the business spectrum, including engineering, product, sales, and client services.

Throughout his career, Khris has also been a motivational speaker, developing and launching various mentorship programs. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he is a supporter and active member of the local music industry.