How to align email deliverability and compliance goals with sales and company revenue objectives?
Michael Ko
Co-founder & CEO, Suped
Published 22 Jul 2025
Updated 19 Aug 2025
7 min read
Achieving email deliverability and compliance goals often feels like a constant battle against the immediate objectives of sales and revenue teams. While sales departments focus on hitting quotas and generating cash flow as quickly as possible, the long-term health of your email program, and by extension your domain reputation, can be overlooked.
This disconnect can lead to significant issues, from emails landing in spam folders to widespread blocklisting (or blacklisting), ultimately impacting revenue. My aim is to help bridge this gap, demonstrating how these seemingly opposing goals can be aligned for sustainable company growth.
Understanding the disconnect: Short-term gains vs. long-term stability
The fundamental challenge lies in differing time horizons. Sales teams operate on monthly or quarterly cycles, driven by immediate targets. This incentivizes them to close deals quickly, sometimes leading to the acquisition of sketchy clients or the use of aggressive email practices that generate short-term revenue but carry substantial long-term risks. It’s hard to argue against a measurable revenue source, even if it comes from a potentially problematic sender.
However, email deliverability and compliance are about sustainability and reputation. Inbox providers, like Yahoo and Microsoft, ultimately dictate what their ecosystem will tolerate. Acting against their wishes, by sending unwanted mail or failing to meet compliance standards, inevitably leads to consequences. This is where the inherent conflict arises, as short-term wins can undermine the very channels that drive future revenue.
Short-term sales focus
Immediate revenue: Prioritizes closing deals fast to meet monthly or quarterly quotas.
High volume: Drives sending as many emails as possible, regardless of recipient engagement.
Neglecting compliance: May overlook data acquisition quality or opt-out processes for quick gains.
Long-term deliverability focus
Sustainable revenue: Focuses on maintaining email channels for consistent, reliable outreach.
High engagement: Prioritizes sending relevant, wanted emails to engaged subscribers.
Proactive compliance: Ensures adherence to regulations, protecting sender reputation and brand.
The financial impact of deliverability and compliance
The financial ramifications of poor email deliverability are often underestimated. When emails fail to reach the inbox, marketing and sales efforts are wasted, directly impacting pipeline generation and conversion rates. This isn't just about lost sales; it also involves the time and money spent on supporting spammers and protecting legitimate customers on shared IP addresses.
A single two-day blocklist (or blacklist) event at a major mailbox provider can cost millions in lost mail and opportunities. This turns email deliverability into a crucial risk management function. The challenge is often finding hard data to back any argument for compliance when pitted against immediate cash flow. While bringing on a sketchy client might offer a quick revenue boost, losing that client shortly after due to compliance intervention highlights a significant conflict of interest.
This situation often comes down to an incentives problem. Sales commissions are frequently based on the amount written on the contract, with little accountability for what happens post-sale. If a salesperson can close a deal that puts them over quota, even if the customer is problematic and churns within 60 days, their incentive structure rewards this short-term gain over long-term stability. This emphasizes the need for a higher-level view within the organization, beyond just meeting monthly quotas.
The true cost of poor deliverability
Failing to prioritize email deliverability and compliance can lead to hidden costs that far outweigh short-term revenue gains. These include diminished brand reputation, reduced customer trust, increased support inquiries from frustrated users, and the potential need for expensive remediation efforts to recover from deliverability issues. It's a strategic misstep that impacts the entire customer lifecycle and revenue funnel.
Strategies for bridging the gap
Aligning email deliverability and compliance with sales and revenue objectives requires a strategic approach, starting with strong support from the top. When leadership genuinely prioritizes email health, it opens dialogue with sales teams and establishes a company-wide commitment to sustainable practices. This ensures that the benefits of robust deliverability, such as reaching prospects effectively and maintaining a positive sender reputation, are understood across all departments, not just within the email or compliance team.
Implementing a rigorous client vetting process is crucial to prevent problematic senders from becoming clients in the first place. This involves establishing clear criteria to reject leads that are likely to cause compliance or deliverability issues. The Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group provides valuable guidance on best practices for senders and ESPs, even if some of their documents are due for a revamp. By making vetting a leverage for sales, rather than a barrier, you can attract clients who value long-term inbox success.
Another powerful strategy is to align sales incentives with long-term customer success and email health. This could involve implementing a chargeback system where a portion of commission is lost if a client is churned due to compliance violations within a defined period. This encourages salespeople to prioritize the quality of clients over sheer volume, fostering relationships that last years, not just months. It ensures that the effort put into sales translates into sustained revenue.
Beyond incentives, fostering a company-wide culture of email health is paramount. This means making compliance a part of employee onboarding and an ongoing conversation, not just a one-time training. When new salespeople are hired, it's vital to establish from day one why compliance is important and the potential impact on the company if corners are cut. This helps embed a strong company DNA where ethical email practices are the norm.
Sales and onboarding teams, due to their close interaction with customers, can become invaluable resources in identifying potentially problematic senders. They are often the first to see red flags and can either route these customers to compliance (if something is fundamentally wrong with their sending) or to deliverability (if they need education in best practices or technical adjustments). Empowering these teams with the knowledge and tools to do this proactively can significantly reduce future issues.
Moving beyond fluffy compliance to data-driven insights can make the case for email health even more impactful. While obtaining concrete data on the cost of poor deliverability can be challenging, understanding the principles of why emails fail and how sender reputation is built can provide solid arguments. This includes educating teams on the importance of adhering to email authentication protocols like DMARC, SPF, and DKIM, which directly influence inbox placement and brand trust.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Ensure top-level executive support for deliverability and compliance initiatives to drive company-wide adoption.
Implement a robust client vetting process to prevent problematic senders from impacting your email ecosystem.
Align sales incentives with long-term customer success and email health, rather than just short-term revenue.
Provide regular, real-case-based training to sales and onboarding teams on email compliance and best practices.
Common pitfalls
Prioritizing short-term cash flow from sketchy clients over the long-term health of your email program.
Failing to communicate the financial impact of poor deliverability to sales and leadership teams.
Structuring sales incentives that reward quick deals without accountability for post-sale compliance issues.
Treating deliverability and compliance as isolated departmental concerns rather than a company-wide culture.
Expert tips
Frame deliverability as 'what the email ecosystem will tolerate,' emphasizing that inbox providers control sending aggression.
Quantify the cost of potential blocklisting events at major mailbox providers like Google and Outlook.
Leverage the marketing manager and IT manager as allies in advocating for email health within the organization.
Transform client vetting into a sales leverage, attracting better, more sustainable clients.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says a significant disconnect often exists between deliverability and sales, and that inbox providers determine acceptable sending aggression.
2019-01-14 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says it is useful to track the time and money spent supporting bad senders and protecting other customers, especially when dealing with shared IPs.
2019-01-14 - Email Geeks
Sustaining email success for revenue growth
Aligning email deliverability and compliance with sales and revenue objectives isn't a simple task, but it's essential for sustainable business growth. It requires a shift in mindset from short-term gains to long-term value, supported by executive leadership and reinforced through appropriate incentives and continuous education. By prioritizing email health, your company can ensure that every email sent contributes positively to your bottom line and strengthens your brand reputation.
Embracing this holistic approach means not just avoiding penalties, but actively cultivating a robust email program that consistently reaches the inbox, drives engagement, and ultimately fuels consistent revenue growth. This strategic alignment is a competitive advantage in today's digital landscape, ensuring your email channels remain powerful tools for business development and customer retention, as highlighted by resources on revenue alignment.
Yahoo and 
Microsoft, ultimately dictate what their ecosystem will tolerate. Acting against their wishes, by sending unwanted mail or failing to meet compliance standards, inevitably leads to consequences. This is where the inherent conflict arises, as short-term wins can undermine the very channels that drive future revenue.
