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Battle of the Bots with Mariska Calabrese, beehiiv & Jakub Alexa, Omnivery
Email feels free, but the economics are brutal: zero-cost sending makes abuse infinitely scalable.
In this episode, Jacqueline sits down with Mariska and Jakub to unpack the "bot layer" that's quietly wrecking modern email: security scanners, crawlers, and malicious automation that inflate clicks, poison dashboards, and trigger the wrong automations. They get specific about why bad actors iterate faster than platforms, why "heuristic guesswork" leads to painful false positives, and how beehiiv opted for radical transparency by showing verified clicks alongside raw data. The conversation also jumps channels: Jakub argues RCS could undercut SMS on price and become the next high-volume abuse playground.
This episode was recorded in October 2025. Any references to global events were included as illustrative context, not as commentary on current news.
Sponsor
Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom.
Timestamps
01:20 – Worst unsubscribe nightmares, Roman aqueducts, and unexpected heroes
05:40 – Why "free" email creates systemic abuse (and why volume hides the bad actors)
08:06 – How threat actors bypass trust indicators
11:02 – The reality check: protection isn't getting easier, it's getting more complicated
19:02 – Defining non-human interactions (NHI) and bot detection
24:12 – Bot detection: definitive data vs heuristics, and why false positives hurt more
26:20 – Elevating verified human engagement at Beehiiv
33:13 – RCS vs SMS: the pricing lever that could supercharge abuse
46:14 - Global privacy legislation and the future of trust
Connect & Subscribe
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.
Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode!
Questions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/question/
Confessions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/
View all episodes
By Juan Mendoza + Jacqueline Freedman
5
33 ratings
Email feels free, but the economics are brutal: zero-cost sending makes abuse infinitely scalable.
In this episode, Jacqueline sits down with Mariska and Jakub to unpack the "bot layer" that's quietly wrecking modern email: security scanners, crawlers, and malicious automation that inflate clicks, poison dashboards, and trigger the wrong automations. They get specific about why bad actors iterate faster than platforms, why "heuristic guesswork" leads to painful false positives, and how beehiiv opted for radical transparency by showing verified clicks alongside raw data. The conversation also jumps channels: Jakub argues RCS could undercut SMS on price and become the next high-volume abuse playground.
This episode was recorded in October 2025. Any references to global events were included as illustrative context, not as commentary on current news.
Sponsor
Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom.
Timestamps
01:20 – Worst unsubscribe nightmares, Roman aqueducts, and unexpected heroes
05:40 – Why "free" email creates systemic abuse (and why volume hides the bad actors)
08:06 – How threat actors bypass trust indicators
11:02 – The reality check: protection isn't getting easier, it's getting more complicated
19:02 – Defining non-human interactions (NHI) and bot detection
24:12 – Bot detection: definitive data vs heuristics, and why false positives hurt more
26:20 – Elevating verified human engagement at Beehiiv
33:13 – RCS vs SMS: the pricing lever that could supercharge abuse
46:14 - Global privacy legislation and the future of trust
Connect & Subscribe
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.
Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode!
Questions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/question/
Confessions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/
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