Customer Story
How SparkToro built its affordable, scalable email ecosystem
Find out why SparkToro will never need an email service provider other than Mailgun by Sinch.
Customer Story
Challenge: Find a flexible email platform on a startup budget
Solution: Build a scalable email system with Sinch’s transactional email services
Results: A low-maintenance – yet powerful – email system that allows for easy scalability at a great price
“I can’t think of a time in five years that I’ve ever had an issue where something wasn’t sent because of Sinch’s email services. It just did what it was supposed to do.”
Casey Henry
Chief Technology Officer
Unlike large corporations, small and medium-sized businesses don’t always have the time or budget to hire agencies – let alone conduct customer interviews and sift through mountains of data.
That’s why Casey Henry and Rand Fishkin co-founded SparkToro in 2018. Their mission is to give under-resourced businesses an affordable way to get to know their target audiences.
To keep their platform cost-friendly, Casey, SparkToro’s Chief Technology Officer, needed a tech stack that could integrate with other technology as the company grew.
When it came time to select an email platform, Casey was familiar with Sinch’s transactional email services from his previous work at larger companies. He knew it was customizable, scalable, and affordable.
Casey started with a free plan that allowed him to test out the platform and start building API calls right away. He could verify that the email platform met all SparkToro’s requirements before committing to a paid plan.
Since Sinch’s email platform is made for developers by developers, it had everything Casey needed to code a sophisticated system for all transactional and onboarding emails. Once the system was up and running, Casey could focus on other parts of the business.
“I wrote your code five years ago,” he said, “and I don’t think I’ve touched it since.”
With webhooks, the SparkToro team can give customers control over the types of emails they receive, and they can use that customer preference data to adjust their transactional and marketing workflows.
Through both webhooks and the Send API, the Sparktoro team created an internal preference system to give customers more control over the types of emails they receive. Plus, it provides Sparktoro with a real-time look at their overall usage and what was and wasn’t working.
Not only does the data allow them to improve email performance, but it also saves them money and helps maintain their sender reputation.
With a 99% server uptime, email deliverability is one less thing Casey has to worry about.
And the best part? It’s the only solution Casey will ever need for transactional and onboarding emails.
“When you’re starting at a startup,” he said, “you don’t want to have to redo your billing or mailing system as you get traction.”
As SparkToro grows its customer base, so will their email volume. Thankfully, Casey knows that the system he built with Sinch can handle anything he throws at it.
