The trend of consolidating tech stacks is growing. Businesses like the idea of simplifying solutions and saving costs by bundling services under one umbrella.
While this approach might seem convenient, it’s not the end-all-be-all solution. Consolidating your email security tech stack comes with a handful of downsides, especially when it comes to email security and deliverability.
When you consolidate, you might be sacrificing specialized features and expert support that niche providers offer—and you don’t have much flexibility to mix things up when you’ve gone down the less is more route.
Imagine this: Your IT team just completed a major overhaul, consolidating all your tech solutions into a single, streamlined platform. At first, everything seems simpler and more efficient. But soon, you start noticing that your emails aren’t reaching inboxes, and security breaches are creeping in.
The problem? Relying too heavily on a one-size-fits-all solution for your email needs.
Below, we’ll walk you through why consolidating your email tech stack might not be the best move. Instead, sticking with niche experts (like Valimail) can provide you with the specialized solutions and support needed to maintain top-notch email programs.
The new trend: consolidating tech stacks
Consolidating your tech stack means integrating multiple software solutions and services into a single platform. Instead of using different specialized solutions for various functions, a consolidated tech stack aims to centralize everything under one roof.
This often involves choosing a comprehensive solution that promises to handle all your business needs, from email marketing and customer relationship management to security and analytics.
Reasons for consolidation
Many businesses are drawn to the idea of consolidating their tech stacks for several reasons:
- Cost savings: Consolidation can often lead to lower costs by reducing the number of subscriptions and licenses you need to purchase.
- Simplified management: With all solutions integrated into a single platform, managing your tech stack becomes more straightforward. You have one interface, one set of login credentials, and a unified system for updates and maintenance.
- Streamlined operations: A consolidated tech stack can reduce the complexity of managing multiple solutions, making operations more efficient and potentially speeding up workflows.
- Vendor relationships: Dealing with fewer vendors simplifies communication and contract management, making it easier to negotiate and manage service agreements.
Potential downsides of consolidation
While consolidation might seem appealing, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. There are a handful of downsides to consider:
- Loss of specialization: One of the biggest risks of consolidating your tech stack is losing specialized features and functionalities of niche providers. Generalized platforms might not match the depth and precision of tools designed specifically for certain tasks.
- Security risks: Relying on a single provider for all your needs can create a single point of failure. If your consolidated platform is compromised, it could expose your entire operation to risks.
- Reduced flexibility: Consolidated platforms often limit customization and flexibility. You might find it challenging to adapt the tool to meet specific needs or to integrate with other specialized services.
- Potential for vendor lock-in: Once you’ve committed to a single platform, switching away from it can be difficult and costly. You may become dependent on the vendor’s roadmap and support.
9 reasons you should keep your email tech stack diverse
Relying on a single platform for all your email needs can be downright risky. Maintaining a diverse email tech stack allows you to leverage the specialized strengths of niche providers, helping you maintain robust security, flexibility, and performance.
Here’s why you should keep your email tech stack diverse:
1. Improved security
When it comes to email security, one size does not fit all. Keeping your email tech stack diverse lets you tap into specialized security solutions to combat specific threats. Niche providers like Valimail offer advanced authentication protocols that go beyond the basics, providing robust protection against phishing, spoofing, and other malicious activities.
Think of it this way: a general email platform might catch the common cold, but specialized solutions are like expert doctors for those rare, tricky diseases (or phishing attempts, in this case). They know exactly what to look for and how to treat it.
For example, Valimail offers sophisticated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC management that guarantees only legitimate emails are delivered.
A diverse tech stack means you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket. If one security measure fails, you have others in place to catch and mitigate threats. This layered approach reduces the risk of a successful attack to better secure your communications and data.
2. Better deliverability
Specialized providers like Valimail are experts in navigating the complex email deliverability landscape. They understand the intricate rules and algorithms email providers use to filter messages.
Solutions designed specifically to optimize deliverability help guarantee your emails not only get delivered but also land where they’re supposed to—right in the inbox.
When email providers see that your domain is consistently authenticated and secure, they’re more likely to deliver your emails to the inbox rather than the spam folder. This boosts your open rates and engagement, making your email campaigns more effective. Plus, with real-time monitoring and reporting, you can quickly address any issues affecting deliverability.
A diverse tech stack with specialized solutions guarantees emails are not just sent—they get seen. And in the world of email marketing, that makes all the difference.
“Adding Valimail to our suite of monitoring tools directly increased our email deliverability. We were no longer lacking data as to how our email configuration was being received by those we send to. Huge win for us! It was easy to implmement, customer support was extremely responsive when we had questions, and it was exactly what we needed for ease of use when we needed it most.”
Tom Thomas, Founder and CEO at Votegrity
3. Flexibility
Every organization has unique needs and challenges, and a one-size-fits-all approach often fails. Diversifying your email tech stack helps you find specialized solutions that offer the flexibility and customization required to meet your specific needs.
Whether it’s customizing authentication protocols to align with your security policies or tweaking deliverability settings to optimize your email campaigns, niche solutions provide the level of control you need.
A diverse email tech stack allows you to easily integrate various specialized solutions. Need a particular feature that’s not available on your primary email platform? No problem. You can easily add a niche solution that provides that functionality—guaranteeing your tech stack evolves with your business.
Flexibility also means being able to respond quickly to changes. Whether it’s a new security threat or a shift in email marketing strategies, having a customizable and flexible email tech stack allows you to adapt on the fly.
4. Staying ahead
A diverse email tech stack helps you leverage the latest advancements and stay one step ahead of emerging threats and industry changes. And when you rely on niche experts, you benefit from their focused innovations and insights.
Think of it as having insider access to the latest gadgets and upgrades. While a consolidated platform might take longer to incorporate new features, specialized providers can quickly adapt and implement the latest advancements. This agility means you’re always equipped with the most up-to-date solutions to protect your domain and optimize your email performance.
Specialized providers often participate in industry forums and standards organizations (such as M3AAWG and DMARC.org). Their active involvement in shaping email security standards helps them stay well-informed about upcoming changes and best practices, allowing you to proactively adjust your strategies.
Staying ahead of trends also means being prepared for new threats. Cybercriminals are constantly devising new tactics, and having a diverse tech stack with specialized solutions helps you stay resilient. For example, Valimail continuously updates its security measures to combat the latest phishing and spoofing techniques.
5. Reducing the risk of single points of failure
Relying on a single provider for all your email needs might seem convenient, but it comes with a significant risk: creating a single point of failure.
If that one provider experiences an outage, security breach, or other issues, your entire email system could be compromised. Diversifying your email tech stack helps mitigate this risk.
Just as diversifying investments reduces financial risk, using multiple specialized solutions reduces the risk of a complete system failure. If one solution encounters a problem, others can continue to function smoothly.
Distributing your email functions across various niche solutions helps create a more resilient system. For example, while Valimail handles email authentication and security, another provider like Twilio might manage your marketing campaigns, and another might focus on analytics and reporting.
6. Leveraging expertise
Each niche tool is developed by experts who are deeply knowledgeable in their specific area, offering insights and innovations that a generalized platform might lack.
It’s like assembling a dream team of experts. Instead of relying on a jack-of-all-trades, you get the best in each field, working together to provide a comprehensive and robust email solution. This specialized knowledge translates into better performance—each solution is optimized to handle its specific function with precision and efficiency.
Leveraging expertise also means benefiting from ongoing education and support. Specialized providers stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends, regulatory changes, and emerging threats. They continuously update their solutions and share valuable insights with their clients, helping you stay ahead of the curve.
“Email authentication can be tricky, especially with things like the SPF lookup limitation. But with Valimail, we were able to implement with a high level of confidence. We explored other options but there weren’t any other key players in the marketplace that seemed to do everything that we were looking for from visibility to automated record management and overcoming the lookup limit across all of our identities.”
Geoff Stone, Hybrid Cloud Solutions Team Lead at Dormakaba
7. Advanced features
When you rely on a single, consolidated platform for all your email needs, you may miss out on the advanced features offered by specialized providers. For instance, Valimail offers sophisticated email authentication protocols, detailed reporting capabilities, and real-time monitoring beyond generalized platforms’ basic functionalities.
Specialized email solutions are designed to handle complex requirements and provide features that a one-size-fits-all solution simply can’t match.
“After evaluating a few different vendors, the security team knew that Valimail was the right choice for their business needs. We looked at a few others, but none of them were direct competitors. They provided tools but not an enterprise solution for the management of the entire process.”
Vivek Raman, Head of Security at Yelp
8. Dedicated support
One of the standout benefits of maintaining a diverse email tech stack is having access to dedicated support from specialized providers. When you work with niche experts, you’re not just getting a solution—you’re gaining a partner deeply invested in your success.
Specialized providers like Valimail offer dedicated support teams who are experts in their field. These teams understand the intricacies of email authentication, deliverability, and security, and they are available to help you navigate any challenges you encounter.
Whether you’re dealing with a complex DKIM configuration, troubleshooting deliverability issues, or need guidance on implementing DMARC, having access to specialized support gets you the help you need, when you need it.
When an issue arises on an all-in-one email solution, you might find yourself stuck in a queue, waiting for generic support that covers a wide range of topics but lacks deep expertise in any one area. In contrast, with specialized providers, you receive focused, knowledgeable assistance tailored to your specific needs.
Beyond reactive support, specialized providers often offer proactive assistance. They monitor your email performance and alert you to potential issues before they become significant problems. This proactive approach helps maintain high deliverability and security standards.
9. Vendor shopping
When your email solutions are compartmentalized, you can choose the best providers for each specific need and switch vendors as necessary to find better solutions, pricing, or features without overhauling your entire tech stack.
By avoiding consolidation, you give yourself the freedom to evaluate and select vendors based on their performance, cost-effectiveness, and specific features. This flexibility allows you to build a customized tech stack that perfectly fits your organization’s needs.
Think of it like shopping for groceries. If you only shop at one store, you’re limited to their selection and prices. But if you shop around at different stores, you can pick the best items from each place to get the highest quality and best value.
The same principle applies to your email tech stack. Some solutions you can actually try for free with no strings attached, like Valimail Monitor.
Stick with email experts like Valimail
A diverse email tech stack equips your organization with the solutions and expertise to stay ahead. Instead of consolidating your email solutions into a single platform, consider the benefits of partnering with niche experts.
Valimail brings specialized knowledge, new technologies, and dedicated support to keep your email operations secure, reliable, and efficient. Here’s how:
- Robust security: Protect your domain from phishing, spoofing, and other malicious activities with advanced authentication protocols.
- Improved deliverability: Land your emails in inboxes (not spam folders) with solutions designed to optimize deliverability.
- Flexibility and customization: Tailor your email authentication setup to meet your unique needs with Valimail’s customizable solutions.
- Expert support: Rely on our team of email authentication experts for guidance, troubleshooting, and optimization.
- Advanced features: Access sophisticated reporting, real-time monitoring, and proactive security measures to keep your email system running smoothly.
Don’t fall into the trap of consolidation. Choose specialized providers and enjoy the benefits of a diverse and powerful email ecosystem.
Get started now with Valimail (for free), or schedule a demo with one of our experts to see how our solutions can help you build and maintain a robust email tech stack.
