--- title: "TeamOut" id: "22544" type: "case_study" slug: "teamout" published_at: "2026-09-07T15:39:33+00:00" modified_at: "2026-09-18T12:02:51+00:00" url: "https://www.mailsoar.com/case-studies/teamout/" markdown_url: "https://www.mailsoar.com/case-studies/teamout.md" excerpt: "TeamOut was experiencing a severe deliverability issue with two main symptoms: Low open rates on marketing campaigns, including onboarding and related automations. Transactional emails related to the platform landing in spam, and sometimes triggering incorrectly — generating a significant volume..." taxonomy_esp: - "HubSpot" taxonomy_industry: - "Events" taxonomy_issue: - "Bad Sender reputation" - "Low open rates" - "SPF Alignment issues" --- SaaS - HRTech # TeamOut TeamOut was experiencing a severe deliverability issue with two main symptoms: Low open rates on marketing campaigns, including onboarding and related automations. Transactional emails related to the platform landing in spam, and sometimes triggering incorrectly — generating a significant volume of support tickets. [Talk to a deliverability expert](https://meetings-eu1.hubspot.com/lawrence-heslin/site?utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=casestudy) Inbox Placement 50%95% Unique Open Rate 15%35% In BriefTeamOut is a Y Combinator-backed startup operating at the intersection of corporate travel and event management. The company helps businesses plan and book team off-sites by providing access to private venues and tailored retreat experiences. As the company scaled, TeamOut faced growing challenges around email deliverability and sender reputation, making email performance a critical factor for its continued growth. IndustrySaaS - Events - HR. ChallengeLow open rates - Transactional email Spam. SolutionRecovery of domain reputation - Open rate doubled for marketing campaigns on HubSpot. OutcomeDomain reputation recovered; no more support tickets related to spam placement or misfired transactional notifications; open rate doubled on HubSpot campaigns. Duration3 months. ~1M emails / month Inbox Placement 50%95% Unique Open Rate 15%35% IP/Domain reputation RedGreen The ClientThe ChallengeThe Diagnosis TeamOut is a YC-backed SaaS scale-up and two-sided marketplace connecting companies with venues for team retreats — hence its B2B + B2C targeting: B2B for client companies, B2C for attendees and venue partners. Like many fast-growing post-YC scale-ups, TeamOut ran two high-stakes email flows: — marketing via HubSpot and • transactional via Postmark — without a dedicated deliverability setup, scaling send volume faster than its email infrastructure. TeamOut's case combines several classic symptoms of bad sender reputation, compounded by technical gaps and poor list hygiene: • No subdomain segmentation: marketing and transactional traffic shared the same sending reputation. • SPF alignment issue: a misconfiguration inherited from legacy infrastructure, not aligned with current authentication requirements — a direct driver of spam placement and SPF/DMARC authentication failures. • No link branding: no custom tracking domain. • No warmup at account start: volume ramped up without a gradual warmup period, prompting mailbox providers (Gmail, Outlook...) to treat the sends as suspicious. • Wrongly triggered transactional notifications. • No recent list cleaning (list hygiene). • Poor shared IP pool quality. By sharing an IP with other senders whose practices were inconsistent TeamOut inherited a degraded reputation independent of its own sending practices. TeamOut was experiencing a severe deliverability issue with two main symptoms: • Low open rates on marketing campaigns, including onboarding and related automations. • Transactional emails related to the platform landing in spam, and sometimes triggering incorrectly — generating a significant volume of support tickets. MailSoar implemented a subdomain segmentation strategy to separate marketing and transactional traffic, while fixing the underlying technical issues (lack of a custom tracking domain, incorrect SPF configuration inherited from legacy infrastructure). An engagement-based warmup was then rolled out on HubSpot, alongside an audit of transactional template performance that helped identify the root cause of the misfiring notifications affecting the user experience. ## What we did ## Proven email performance improvements A 4-step deliverability rebuild 1. 1**Initial assessment on HubSpot & Postmark** Full audit of authentication records (SPF/DKIM/DMARC), IP/domain reputation, sending infrastructure, and historical engagement data across both platforms, to pinpoint the exact causes of lost inbox placement and misfired transactional triggers. 2. 2**Implementation of the action plan & best practices** Rollout of subdomain segmentation, SPF alignment fix, link branding (dedicated tracking domain), and correction of the triggering logic on the affected transactional templates. 3. 3**Expansion of marketing campaign reach & re-engagement** Progressive engagement-based warmup, contact list cleaning, and targeted re-engagement campaigns to rebuild sender reputation while growing the addressable base. 4. 4**Monitoring** Ongoing monitoring of reputation and deliverability metrics, with alerts to catch and fix any degradation signal before it impacts campaigns. [https://trustfolio.co/en-GB/profil/mailsoar-hr0DVt0nk/reference/kkXccP0mwap](https://trustfolio.co/en-GB/profil/mailsoar-hr0DVt0nk/reference/kkXccP0mwap) [in](https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-mazimann/) [Thomas Mazimann Co-founder & CEO, TeamOut](https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-mazimann/) > A successful consulting project to restore our deliverability MailSoar supported us on a consulting project to restore good deliverability for our marketing campaigns. Their intervention was successful: our deliverability has improved significantly. [https://trustfolio.co/en-GB/profil/mailsoar-hr0DVt0nk/reference/kkXccP0mwap](https://trustfolio.co/en-GB/profil/mailsoar-hr0DVt0nk/reference/kkXccP0mwap) ## The results Correcting the SPF alignment issue and separating marketing from transactional traffic by subdomain is what moved these numbers for TeamOut's HubSpot campaigns: 50% 95% Inbox Placement 15% 35% Unique Open Rate Red Green IP/Domain reputation ## MailSoar at a glance MailSoar is an international email deliverability consultancy specializing in inbox placement, sender reputation, email authentication and email infrastructure. 25 Experts Senior deliverability consultants 500+ Clients In 20+ countries 4.9/5 Trustfolio 200+ verified customer reviews **Services**[Find](/services-solutions/deliverability-audit/) (audit) · [Fix](/services-solutions/infrastructure-setup/) (recovery) · [Grow](/services-solutions/recommendation-implementation/) (scaling) · [Run](/services-solutions/ongoing-support/) (monitoring) **Expertise**SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI · IP and domain reputation · Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo **Platforms**All major ESPs, no platform migration required **Clients**SaaS, e-commerce, finance, publishing, MarTech, high-volume senders [→ Talk to a deliverability expert](https://meetings-eu1.hubspot.com/lawrence-heslin/site) [More about MailSoar](/about/) ## Frequently asked Can a single SPF misalignment drag down deliverability for both marketing and transactional email? Yes — when marketing and transactional traffic share the same domain without subdomain segmentation, an SPF alignment issue on one flow undermines authentication (and reputation) for both. That's what happened at TeamOut: fixing SPF alignment and separating traffic by subdomain was the turning point that took inbox placement from 40–50% to 95%+ within 3 months. Last updated: September 18, 2026 [Voir toutes nos études de cas →](/fr/cas-client/) ## Prêt à rétablir votre délivrabilité ? Un appel offert de 30 minutes avec un consultant senior. Vous repartez avec une solution concrète. [Je réserve un appel](https://meetings-eu1.hubspot.com/pierre-pignault/site-fr?utm_source=site&utm_medium=cta-deliverability&utm_campaign=booking) #### Ready for fast, measurable email performance? Emails in spam, a blacklisted domain, open rates dropping — tell us what's broken and get a straight answer in 30 minutes on how we can help. No commitment. [Talk to a deliverability expert](https://meetings-eu1.hubspot.com/lawrence-heslin/site) [Explore all client case studies →](/case-studies/) #### Ready for fast, measurable email performance? Emails in spam, a blacklisted domain, open rates dropping — tell us what's broken and get a straight answer in 30 minutes on how we can help. No commitment. [Talk to a deliverability expert](https://meetings-eu1.hubspot.com/lawrence-heslin/site) #### Ready for fast, measurable email performance? Emails in spam, a blacklisted domain, open rates dropping — tell us what's broken and get a straight answer in 30 minutes on how we can help. No commitment. [Talk to a deliverability expert](https://meetings-eu1.hubspot.com/lawrence-heslin/site)