AI platform- SaaS
Arcads AI
Discover how MailSoar got Arcads delisted from SURBL and Spamhaus, restoring 100% inbox placement and tripling open rates.
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Bounce Rate
Arcads is a fast-growing AI platform that enables users to generate ad creatives in seconds, serving both individual creators and B2B advertising teams. Like many SaaS platforms, Arcads relies on email at scale for onboarding, notifications, and transactional communications. The challenge: recovering from a double blocklisting.
- Industry
AI - SaaS - MarTech - B2B2C.
- Challenge
Severe spam placement at B2B and B2C destinations, poor domain reputation, high bounce rate, blocklisting at SURBL and Spamhaus.
- Solution
Subdomain segmentation by email type, list cleaning, engagement-based warmup, ISP outreach, blocklist mitigation.
- Outcome
Blocklisting lifted, emails restored to the primary inbox.
Open rate up 3x. Subdomain segmentation by email type,
List cleaning, engagement-based warmup, ISP outreach,
Blocklist mitigation.- Duration
Initial fix in 3 months; ongoing partnership for the last 3 years.
1M emails / month
Inbox Placement
Unique Open Rate
Bounce Rate
Arcads is a fast-growing AI platform that lets users generate ad creatives in seconds.
As a high-growth AI platform serving both B2B advertisers and individual creators, Arcads relies on email at scale — for onboarding, notifications, and transactional communication.
So when rapid signup growth brought in bots and invalid addresses, the fallout was severe.
Poor domain reputation led to listings on two major blocklists, SURBL and Spamhaus, resulting in severe spam placement across both B2B and B2C destinations.
At the time, Arcads was sending under 1M emails/month through Brevo.
Arcads' case is a blocklisting event triggered by uncontrolled list growth:
• Bots and invalid signups: rapid growth attracted bot registrations and invalid addresses onto the list, without validation to filter them out.
• Poor list management: no systematic cleaning process let bad addresses accumulate and keep degrading engagement signals.
• Listing on SURBL and Spamhaus: the accumulated reputation damage escalated into listings on two major blocklists — a severe status where many receiving servers reject or spam-folder mail outright, regardless of content.
• A single domain for mixed use cases: notifications weren't segmented by email type, so any one category of send could drag down deliverability for the entire domain.
The concrete result: an inbox placement rate of only 15%, a unique open rate of 8%, and a bounce rate of 15% — a near-total loss of the email channel.
MailSoar segmented Arcads' notifications across multiple subdomains by use case, cleaned the list, and started a proper engagement-based warmup and triggering strategy.
In parallel, MailSoar reached out directly to SURBL and Spamhaus with evidence of the fixes and recent results, securing Arcads' delisting from both.
Beyond lifting the blocklisting, Arcads got a deliverability foundation built for its growth stage: open rates 3x higher, bounce rates down from 15% to 0.3%, and far fewer support tickets tied to transactional emails landing in spam.
Three years on, MailSoar remains a trusted partner, keeping Arcads compliant as its user base — and email volume — continue to expand.
What we did
How MailSoar Helped Arcads Get Delisted From SURBL and Spamhaus
A 5-Step Deliverability Recovery Plan
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Deliverability Audit
Identification of the exact cause of the blocklisting, tracing the reputation damage back to bot signups, invalid addresses, and unsegmented sending.
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Subdomain segmentation, list cleaning, and engagement-based warmup
Notifications were split across multiple subdomains by use case, the list was cleaned, and a fresh engagement-based warmup was started to rebuild reputation on clean footing.
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Blocklist and ISP remediation
MailSoar contacted SURBL and Spamhaus directly with evidence of the improvements and recent sending results, securing removal from both blocklists.
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Volume increase and re-engagement
With reputation restored, sending volume was ramped back up gradually, paired with re-engagement tactics to reactivate dormant but valid subscribers.
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Maintain compliance and deliverability
Ongoing monitoring to keep Arcads compliant with evolving mailbox-provider requirements and to catch any early sign of reputation drift before it becomes a problem.
Deliverability of Arcads email. We went from a very poor domain reputation to solid inbox delivery, very happy with the collaboration.
The results
From 15% to 100% deliverability: the metrics that made the difference
Frequently asked
Can a domain recover after being blocklisted by both SURBL and Spamhaus?
Yes — but it requires more than waiting it out: fixing the root cause (list quality and segmentation), demonstrating the improvement with real sending data, and proactively contacting the blocklist operators. That combination got Arcads delisted from both SURBL and Spamhaus, taking inbox placement from 15% to 100% and cutting the bounce rate from 15% to 0.3%.
