Recent Writings and Events

I don’t know about you, but we’re more than 6 weeks into 2026 and I can’t figure out where all the time has gone. It’s been a much busier January than I’m used to. I’ve been working on a lot, including a project I’ve been trying to get off the ground for a while. I’m really excited it’s finally taking shape and I hope to be able to share it with folks in the next month or so.

Meanwhile, there’s some things I want to share with you.

Back in November 2025 I did a keynote for Mauticon. The video of that talk: The Future of Deliverability: Recipient Rules was just posted to Mautic’s YouTube channel. Also, they’re an open source project and are facing some funding challenges in 2026. They’re looking for community support to help cover the shortfall.

I wrote a guest blog post for the Certified Sender’s Alliance and they published it earlier this week. Everyone is looking for a crystal ball into the future, and CSA was no different. The post, titled Email in 2026: Evolving Technical Requirements, Individualized Filtering, and AI Integration has some predictions about where I think deliverability is going. As I shared on LinkedIn, the AI piece was the challenging bit to write. Even as I was drafting the post, Google announced Gemini was being integrated in to Gmail. So, yeah, I gave up trying to predict AI’s impact on the inbox. Do visit the CSA blog and give it a read.

Today Bram Van Daele from Engagor.ai wrote a good post about bounce handling standards and why there aren’t really any. I’m thrilled with the post, honestly. Brad managed to present the issue clearly and logically in a way I’ve wanted to for a long time. But I tend to be overly wordy and complicate things. This is definitely going in my reference library.

We’re also both going to be speaking at the Deliverability Summit in Barcelona in April. When I headed over to LinkedIn just now I saw Andrew posting they were almost out of tickets so if you want to go, better hurry.

I have a whole list of topics to blog about and even some partial outlines, but I’m happily swamped with client work and developing this new program right now. I am trying to reserve some time for blogging, though, as I really do miss writing here.

Not Business as Usual
Upcoming webinar on Gmail and inbox signals

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I cannot count the number of times I hear someone complain that they didn’t change anything and now their email isn’t delivering and why did this happen all of a sudden and how can they be blocked now when they weren’t blocked 3 months ago. Nothing changed, so why all of a sudden is mail failing?

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Upcoming events for Laura

speakingIconForBlogWe’re more than halfway through April. Good: Taxes are finished. Bad: Wait? We’re well into Q2? How time files. With that realization, it seems like it’s a good time to share some of the places and events I’ll be at in May.
Salesforce Connections in Atlanta, GA. May 10 – 12. I’m a panelist for Deliverability Unplugged: How to Stay out of Email Jail and Other Best Practices on May 11.  I’m sharing the panel with Mickey Chandler from SFMC and Melinda Plemel from Return Path. The session will be moderated by Rebecca McAdams from Forrester Research. Bring questions. I don’t think you really want to just listen to us show you slides, so come bearing questions.
As an aside, Salesforce is offering a discount of 50% off registration for Connections16 through April 22 if you use the promo code EQUALITY. Good on Salesforce for this.
Email Innovations Summit in Las Vegas, NV. May 17 – 18. Understanding your IT Department: What Non-Technical Brand Managers Need to Know about Email Security, DMARC , ISPs and Delivery. I’ve been working on this talk and, wow, there’s a lot of info I want to share. It should be a fun session, so stop by.
You can get a 15% discount off the cost of registration for Innovations by using my speaker code SPKATK

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Prepping for EEC


Tomorrow I head off to New Orleans to the EEC conference. It’s my first one and I’m really looking forward to meeting some of the people I only know online.
I’ll be speaking on two panels on Friday:
All You Ever Wanted to Know about Deliverability (But Were Afraid to Ask) at 10:50. This is your chance to ask those questions of myself and other experts in the field. I always enjoy Q&A panels and actually hearing from folks what their big deliverability questions are. (and remember, if you have a question, you can always send one to me for Ask Laura)
and the closing Keynote panel
ISP Postmasters & Blacklist Operators: Defending Consumer Inboxes at 1:10. I’m on a panel with various ISP postmasters, blacklist operators and we’ll be talking about what it’s like dealing with the deluge of mail. For instance, there is a huge outbreak of bot-spam at the moment, and a lot of the filters are struggling to keep up. In fact, I’m a last minute replacement for one filter company as they are in all-hands-on-deck firefighting mode to keep their customers safe.
Hope to see you there!
 

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