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What’s Up THIS WEEK?? 📬 Your Deliverability Rate Is Lying to You, Does Podcasting Advertising Work? Backstreet Boys? TV Recos? | Ep. 495

Episode 495 • 21st April 2026 • Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson • GURU Media Hub

Jay Schwedelson: We are back for what's up this week from the Do This, Not That podcast. This is our short episode where we break down what's going on in business and marketing and life. So let's jump right into it. Everybody is confused about email marketing and how many of your emails should be going to the inbox versus the junk folder and spam folder.

Jay Schwedelson: Here's the truth, here's the wild stat. So some new data from Validity came out. It shows that on average, about 83.5% of all email - business, consumer, nonprofit, whatever - 83.5% go to the inbox. You're like, well, when I go in my tracking report, it shows me 98% deliverability, and this is where people get confused.

Jay Schwedelson: Deliverability is to the mailbox level. After the mailbox, the mail gets sorted, okay? Some goes to the inbox, some goes to the junk folder, spam folder, whatever. So number one. There is email that you're sending out that will not go to the inbox, and that's okay. You need to manage that expectation internally that some of your email is not gonna go to the inbox.

Jay Schwedelson: Nobody's gonna have a hundred percent deliverability to the inbox. I don't care who you are, and according to this data, about one in six emails, okay, are not gonna go to the inbox and it's okay. The other one is the promotions tab is part of the inbox. So if your emails are going in there, that is part of that 83.5% that are going to the inbox.

Jay Schwedelson: So it's this management of expectations and understanding the difference between emails delivered to the mailbox versus the inbox - and some going to the junk or spam are okay. You don't want a lot going there, but it's okay. Alright, let's get into some other data that came out about podcast advertising. Podcasts are exploding.

Jay Schwedelson: Okay. The IAB just now released data showing that 58% of Americans are now monthly podcast listeners. I imagine all of those people are ignoring this podcast. Um, but I don't know, maybe they're not - maybe a handful are listening to this. But as it relates to ads, if you're a marketer and you really haven't thought about running ads on podcasts, I think that you're missing out. This is not like the days of just radio back in the day. Okay. Podcast ads are doing really, really well, and according to Ad Results Media, they just came out with data. This seems high to me, but what do I know? 75 to 88% of listeners take action after a podcast ad.

Jay Schwedelson: That in itself - that seems a little bit high to me. I don't think when I'm gonna do my ad reading in a little bit, you're just gonna stop and you're gonna immediately react to it. But I will say that, and we've run a lot of podcast ads for our agency clients, they are very effective. But you have to do this one thing.

Jay Schwedelson: The one thing is you want your podcast ad to be host-read, meaning when I have an ad on my podcast, you hear me kind of read the ad or it's coming from my voice. And the data supports it according to Nielsen. Okay. Their Ad Effectiveness Report that just came out - 68% higher brand recall when you have a host-read ad than a pre-recorded ad.

Jay Schwedelson: So host-read ads are dominating. As a matter of fact, 62% of all podcast ad revenue is now coming from host-read ads. So yeah, we should be thinking about all this stuff. Another super random tactical thing that you can test in the world of email marketing that came out from my group at World Data Research this past week is that subject lines that lead with a behavior or outcome or a statistic are leading to open rate increases of about 19% overall. What do I mean by that? So when your subject line is either - for consumer or business-to-business - and the entire subject line doesn't tell anybody to do anything, all it is is a stat, it is actually leading to a much higher open rate.

Jay Schwedelson: So what does that look like on the consumer side? It would be something like "78% add this to the cart," "68.4% are skipping this," "now three hours is all that this lasts," okay? Or on the B2B side, you know, "64% of HR leaders stopped doing this" or "71% of pipeline stalls here," "82% of your data is outdated." Whatever it is, you take a hero stat that's gonna be then reiterated internally, and that's your entire subject line. You're not saying this is about a webinar, you're not saying it's about a guide, you're not saying it's about a sale. If you just do that, it's a great, easy test - something to try that's working really, really well right now.

Jay Schwedelson: Something I think might be completely irrelevant that I saw come out just in the last few days is that Instagram is now adding the ability to edit your comments. So now if you make a comment on a post, you can edit your comment within 15 minutes. I don't know why we care, but do we care about that? I guess so.

Jay Schwedelson: Maybe if you misspelled something - I misspell things all the time - or maybe you wrote something on somebody's thing that you liked or you're interested in and you're like, why did I write that? I need to edit it. I need to take it down. I guess that's fine. Uh, but apparently this has been something everybody wants.

Jay Schwedelson: So Instagram just came out with that. Alright, before we get into some nonsense news that's going on, I want to note this podcast is sponsored by CallRail. Look at me, I'm doing an ad read. Problem is I'm not actually even reading the ad 'cause I don't need to 'cause CallRail rocks. Here's the thing about CallRail - people get confused.

Jay Schwedelson: I think CallRail is all about making phone calls. It's not. It's really about attribution tracking. It's really about using AI to figure out what is working in your marketing - what is working when people fill out your forms, when they're in the chat box on your website, when people are leaving voicemails, when people are calling in, when people are doing anything.

Jay Schwedelson: CallRail is the thing that allows you to figure out all your attribution and how it's actually working. Get rid of this last-click, last-touch attribution garbage. They're giving a free trial for listeners of this thing. If you've never checked out CallRail, they have 220,000 customers using it - companies of all sorts of sizes, different things, amazing things.

Jay Schwedelson: Go to callrail.com/do-this. That is callrail.com/do-this. It is a free trial for listeners of this show. You gotta check it out. They are crushing it. I'll tell you what's not crushing it. Let's get into some nonsense. So, WrestleMania - I don't know if it just happened or it's happening this week. I don't know.

Jay Schwedelson: I actually went to WrestleMania too, so I like wrestling. So the WWE came out though, and the tickets for WrestleMania - how much do you think the tickets are for WrestleMania according to USA Today? $850 to go see a bunch of dudes wearing inappropriate clothing, jumping on each other and yelling at each other's faces.

Jay Schwedelson: I mean, I like wrestling, I do - genuinely, I do. I can go deep on wrestling. But $850 is wild because, like, for example, I was looking at tickets to go to different concerts. Luke Combs - okay, WrestleMania is $850. What do you think the average ticket price is for Luke Combs, who I happen to like? $200 to $300.

Jay Schwedelson: Still expensive, but come on, $850? I would go to Luke Combs all day over WrestleMania at that price. How about Bruno Mars? $250 for an average ticket. The weird thing about Bruno Mars - I really like Bruno Mars's music. I don't know why, but I don't have any interest in going to a Bruno Mars concert. Why is that?

Jay Schwedelson: It's almost like it's background music for you. When I hear Bruno Mars - is that bad? Am I gonna get a lot of hate on Bruno Mars? I like Bruno Mars a lot. It just feels whatever. The craziest thing though - how about Backstreet Boys? Very into Backstreet Boys. Their average ticket price is $533. Can you believe that Backstreet Boys are getting double the ticket price of Bruno Mars?

Jay Schwedelson: That's wild. I don't know why that's so wild to me, but it is. And then - um, you didn't ask - you wanna know what I'm watching on TV right now? I will break it down. Here it is. I'm watching the second season of Beef on Netflix. Very good show. You do not need to see season one of Beef - every season is different.

Jay Schwedelson: It's kinda like White Lotus - everything just starts over again. Beef, Netflix, great season. Okay. I am now also very invested in the Real Housewives of Rhode Island. This is a new series on Bravo. They just started out. It is a disaster, Bill. Okay? These people are not making Rhode Island look good at all.

Jay Schwedelson: If I lived in Rhode Island, I'd be very pissed about what they're making Rhode Island look like. But the show is great. And then the last one - because a lot of people wrote me on my newsletter and I said, have you never watched this? - I am now watching Dark Matter on Apple TV+, which I know has been around for a little bit.

Jay Schwedelson: This is a fantastic sci-fi show. Very excited about this. Um, so yes, that is what's going on with me. Listen y'all, I want to partner with you. You don't know what I do for a living - I have an agency. I work with brands. We help them drive net new registrations, customers, all the things. We do consulting work, we do design work.

e second half of the year and: 2027

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495. What’s Up THIS WEEK?? 📬 Your Deliverability Rate Is Lying to You, Does Podcasting Advertising Work? Backstreet Boys? TV Recos? | Ep. 495