SOP #54 — Email List Verification That Cut the Price 12%

SOP #54 — Email List Verification That Cut the Price 12%

Newsletter business, 180k subscribers, $14k/mo, listed at 30x. The list was the asset, so we verified it:

1. Demand 90 days of ESP (email service provider) stats — open rate, click rate, unsubscribe, bounce.
2. Run the list through a verification tool on a sample of 5,000. Pass if under 8% invalid. Result: 23% were dead or invalid.
3. Check the active-30-day segment vs total — pay for engaged subscribers, not the raw count. Result: only 61k opened anything in 90 days.
4. Confirm deliverability — check domain on blacklists and the sender reputation score.

Outcome: real asset was 61k engaged, not 180k. Revenue was fine but the growth story was inflated. Repriced from 30x to 26x. Saved $33,600 on the multiple.

Save this — run it every deal.