How a US Social Casino Platform KNTX Recovered Its Email Deliverability with Folderly

About KNTX and Brand X

Industry: Social Casino / Free-to-Play Entertainment

KNTX is a digital entertainment company operating several social gaming products focused on the US market.

One of its platforms – referred to in this case study as “Brand X” for confidentiality reasons – provides free-to-play social casino entertainment using virtual game currencies for adult users (+21) across a number of US states.

As the platform scaled its lifecycle marketing and engagement programs, email became a core communication channel used for onboarding sequences, product updates, promotional campaigns, loyalty initiatives, and ongoing user engagement.

With a growing database of more than 500,000 users, maintaining reliable inbox placement and strong engagement metrics became increasingly important for the marketing team.

At scale, even a small drop in deliverability can significantly reduce engagement and the effectiveness of marketing communication. 

The Breaking Point

By early 2023, Brand X’s email program began producing performance signals the team couldn’t fully explain.

Open rates had been declining steadily for months, reaching 13%, while click-through rates had dropped to 0.01%.

Promotional campaigns that previously generated strong engagement were now producing almost no measurable response.

To understand the problem, the team conducted a manual inbox placement test.

The results revealed a clear deliverability issue:

“We knew something wasn’t working, but the scale of the problem became clear only after we ran proper inbox placement testing.”

Anastasia Petrenko
VP of Marketing, KNTX

Two main causes were identified.

First, Brand X’s sending infrastructure had accumulated reputation issues due to sending emails to an unvalidated database containing outdated or unreachable addresses.

Second, parts of the email content included structural and language patterns that mailbox providers sometimes flag as high-risk within large-scale promotional email programs in the social gaming category.

The combination created a negative reputation loop: poor deliverability reduced engagement signals, which in turn reinforced spam filtering.

The Hidden Problem: 20% of the Database Was Unreachable

Before beginning infrastructure recovery, Folderly analyzed Brand X’s user database using its email validation system.

The analysis showed that approximately 20% of the database consisted of addresses that were either undeliverable or high-risk.

These included:

“We realized a meaningful portion of the database couldn’t reliably receive our emails. Continuing to send to those addresses was negatively impacting our sender reputation.”

Anastasia Petrenko
VP of Marketing, KNTX

Folderly recommended removing undeliverable contacts from the active email database.

For users that were difficult to reach through email due to provider-level restrictions, the team shifted communication to alternative channels such as push notifications, in-app messaging, and SMS.

After the cleanup, Brand X’s email database consisted entirely of validated, reachable contacts – creating the foundation required to rebuild deliverability.

The Solution: Infrastructure, Reputation, and Content Alignment

With a clean database in place, Folderly and the KNTX marketing team launched a four-month deliverability recovery program built around three main initiatives.

1. IP Reputation Recovery and Expansion

Folderly evaluated Brand X’s sending infrastructure across major mailbox providers and reputation monitoring networks.

A structured IP warm-up strategy was implemented to gradually rebuild sender trust through:

• controlled sending volumes

• engagement-focused segmentation

• suppression of high-risk contacts during the recovery phase

In parallel, a secondary sending IP was introduced to distribute sending traffic and protect reputation stability during high-volume campaigns.

This multi-IP setup helped reduce deliverability volatility and improved long-term sending resilience.

2. Content Strategy and Template Rotation

Folderly audited Brand X’s existing email templates and identified several patterns that mailbox providers often flag in large-scale promotional email programs.

Working together with the internal marketing team, Folderly redesigned email templates to:

• reduce spam-trigger language patterns

• improve text-to-image ratios

• optimize HTML structure for major mailbox providers

A template rotation strategy was also implemented.

By varying subject lines, layout structures, and sender name formats, Brand X reduced template fingerprinting by spam filters and improved long-term deliverability performance.

3. Infrastructure Alignment and Continuous Monitoring

Folderly also worked with the technical team at KNTX to review and align the platform’s email authentication infrastructure.

This included proper configuration of:

• SPF

• DKIM

• DMARC
  
  

Continuous monitoring was implemented across sending domains and IP addresses to detect issues early, including complaint spikes, bounce anomalies, and sudden changes in inbox placement.

“Folderly worked closely with our team throughout the process – reviewing campaign performance, adjusting strategy based on data, and helping us build a system that would continue working long after the initial recovery.”

Anastasia Petrenko
VP of Marketing, KNTX

Results: Four Months of Measurable Improvement

The results below reflect Brand X’s email program performance after four months of working with Folderly.

The increase in click-through rate – from 0.01% to 3% – reflects not only improved inbox placement, but also a healthier database, stronger sender reputation, and optimized email infrastructure.

“In free-to-play social gaming, email remains one of the most powerful retention channels. When deliverability drops, engagement drops with it. Restoring that infrastructure had a direct impact on our marketing performance.”

Anastasia Petrenko
VP of Marketing, KNTX

Today, Brand X operates with a fully validated email database, stable sending infrastructure, and monitoring systems designed to sustain deliverability at scale.