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Email has been one of the most reliable revenue streams for e-commerce businesses for many years now. They recruit copywriters, create flows, test subject lines, divide lists and pay for cutting-edge tools that get more out of each subscriber. 

There is, however, a quieter issue lurking under all those efforts: Not all customers even receive the emails directly in their inbox. 

That problem was the starting point for , a tech firm designed for Klaviyo users and ecommerce brands looking to make their campaigns visible to customers as they check their inbox. Founded by the owner of a coaching firm who noticed the problem in his earlier practice, Mailmend launched in late 2022. 

The company’s email list, marketing infrastructure, and promotional offers were in place, but more and more of these emails were going into Gmail’s promotions tab. Many brands don’t use that tab as their secondary inbox, but rather as a holding area that customers don’t check regularly. 

But instead of considering it a minor inconvenience in deliverability, founder saw it as a revenue issue. He closed other projects and recruited engineers to create a business around a single question: What happens when emails to e-commerce are not only delivered, but displayed right into the inbox? 

The Promotions Tab Has Become a Silent Revenue Leak

For most e-commerce teams, an email is simply written, scheduled and sent. Very few people know where that email will go after reaching the customer. That distinction matters. There are times when a brand could be promoting a campaign and it doesn’t make it to the main inbox, which would still be a loss in its effort to capture attention. 

This results in an annoying situation in the long run: companies invest in email software, creative teams, and marketing, but a chunk of their audience is never reached in reality. Mailmend’s view is simple. E-commerce brands don’t always require more emails, larger lists or more marketing. In many cases, improving visibility is the first problem they need to solve. 

It uses its algorithm to “reframe” e-commerce emails that are more likely to be read in the primary tab, the company says. 

Mailmend doesn’t aim to replace your email team or to be the one that writes your entire email strategy; Instead, the company focuses on a part of the system many ecommerce merchants overlook entirely: inbox placement. 

Why Mailmend Is Gaining Attention From E-commerce Brands

Mailmend’s clients are ecommerce giants like Dr. Squatch, Dossier, StickerYou, Overnight Oats, BYLT Basics, ORLY, NYDJ, Tracksmith and Good Ranchers. 

In the year 2025, Dr. Squatch, one of the brands Mailmend has worked with, was recently acquired by Unilever. It is not just about the brands Mailmend has worked with, but the change it has sparked in e-commerce marketing. Brands have been optimizing the content of their emails for years. 

The next benefit might stem from optimizing if those e-mail messages are ever noticed. This is particularly relevant in a market with a high cost to acquire a customer, and where owned channels have gained in value. 

Email remains one of the few channels where brands don’t rely entirely on social algorithms and paid ad auctions. However, the upside is diminished when the inbox is the obstacle. After the problem is solved, Mailmend says some brands make 50–100% more from email after fixing the issue. 

The number will differ depending on the brand, the quality of the lists being used and the approach taken in each campaign, but the bottom line is that there is a significant impact on performance with inbox placement. According to the company, Google’s algorithms change constantly, and Mailmend says it has remained effective through 48 updates  

The Bigger Lesson for E-commerce Founders

The growth of Mailmend is an example of a larger lesson for e-commerce operators. Growth doesn’t always come from expanding a channel. It’s about discovering the potential within the channel that is already in action. 

A brand may not need to send more campaigns. Instead, it may need to make its existing campaigns more visible to customers. It does not necessarily require changing email platforms or rebuilding an entire strategy. In many cases, the issue lies in how those emails are being categorized and displayed by inbox providers. That is where Mailmend positions itself, not as another email marketing platform, but as a technology layer focused on helping brands recover the attention and visibility they may already be losing. 

The company is now considering expanding its e-commerce lineup to three to five new products, with AI expected to be at the heart of it. It’s a more ambitious goal of making it a layer of tech for e-commerce businesses that would like to boost their performance without just boosting their marketing efforts. 

The founder’s takeaway is straightforward: before assuming an email strategy is failing, brands should first determine whether customers are actually seeing the emails being sent. In many cases, the real limitation may not be the campaign itself, but the visibility of the campaign inside the inbox.