You’re familiar with the routine. Once again, one of your customers did not receive the receipt, confirmation, sign-up key, or other desired email. On the other end of the line is an irate customer. “What happened to my order confirmation?” “Did you receive my email?” After much back-and-forth, one of your sales representatives has figured out what’s going on. “They did not receive an invitation to the user group,” she explains. “They said it ended up in spam.” The phone starts ringing again as she says this.
Does this ring a bell? If your customers aren’t receiving transactional emails, it’s possible that your email program needs to be updated. We’ll start by distinguishing between email delivery and email deliverability, and then we’ll go over the four most common deliverability issues and how to avoid them.
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What exactly is email deliverability?
Email deliverability is the frequency with which an email arrives in the inbox of a subscriber. It’s also known as inbox placement, and it’s the ultimate metric that everyone cares about because it’s how your messages get opened.
Whether or not you make it into the inbox (or the spam folder) is determined by a variety of factors, including your overall sender reputation, IP address reputation, whether or not you have the proper SPF and DKIM DNS records in place, and more. It’s the difference between your email reaching any of your subscribers’ email boxes at all and reaching the one you and everyone else care about: the inbox.
What exactly is the distinction between email deliverability and email delivery?
Don’t be fooled by the names. Email delivery and email deliverability are not synonymous:
Email delivery is the percentage of emails received by your Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) mail servers, such as Gmail or Yahoo. Soft and hard bounces are emails that do not make it to the server and can harm your sender reputation, so make sure you have a return-path set up to receive that bounce information.
The percentage of delivered emails that make it into the inbox is referred to as email deliverability. In addition to your sender and IP reputations, as well as your email authentication records, inbox providers will consider how users interact with the content of your emails to determine whether your emails belong in the inbox or the spam folder.
A sender can have both a high email delivery rate and a low email deliverability. Outlook, for example, may accept your email but direct it to the spam folder.
An email program is one of the most valuable tools available to an organization because it can assist you in achieving a high deliverability rate, which is the rate at which your email is successfully delivered to the inbox of your target audience. However, if your program is not executed correctly, it may result in low deliverability rates, fewer customers, and delayed orders or services.
Typical email deliverability issues
A number of factors, such as missing email authentication, low engagement, or poor list quality, can all have a negative impact on email deliverability. Improving your email deliverability frequently begins with determining what is wrong, which is frequently a combination of two or more of the above.
If you want to increase the deliverability of your emails, consider using authentication methods such as SPF and DKIM. Another popular check is to make sure you have a DMARC record set up, which is an email authentication measure that protects your domain from unauthorized senders who spoof their emails to appear to be from you.
Inbox providers will also take into account how users interact with the content of your emails. Your email engagement rate is a composite of total engagement: open rates and click rates are both positive engagement signals that inbox providers consider when deciding where to send your emails.
Deliverability issues can also be caused by poor email list quality. Some inbox providers will perform a domain blocklist lookup, and if your domain is on an email blocklist like Spamhaus, your message may be routed directly to the spam folder, if they accept it at all. Blocklist providers and ISPs maintain a list of spam traps, which are email addresses that aren’t operated by real people and are intended to catch senders who use poor sending practices. If one of these ends up in your email database, your emails will be blocked and will never reach their intended recipient.
Other metrics, such as sender score, can have an impact on your deliverability because they consider both your domain reputation and your IP reputation. These metrics are influenced by your sending behavior. If your email marketing campaigns adhere to the best practices outlined in this post, you’ll be well on your way to avoiding major issues.
Tips for Increasing Email Deliverability
So, what can you do to improve your email’s deliverability? Here are a few pointers:
Tip #1: Maintain an up-to-date mailing list.
Wine, all four Golden Girls, and Hello Kitty merchandise are examples of things that age well. What about your email list? Not at all.
Older mailing lists may contain out-of-date, abandoned, or uninterested recipients, which can have a negative impact on email delivery and deliverability rates. In recent years, ISPs have shifted their focus away from traditional spam filters and toward user engagement – that is, how your subscribers interact with the emails you send them. These interactions assist them in determining whether emails should be delivered to our inbox or redirected to our spam folder.
If you keep these addresses in your list as an email sender, your emails may bounce or go to the wrong inbox. This can result in spam complaints, lowering your delivery rate and reputation. If your sending address and domain are consistently flagged as spam and receive little positive engagement, your emails will stop appearing even in the inboxes of those who want them, and your message will reach fewer people. This, in turn, can jeopardize your organization’s financial objectives.
To easily avoid these pitfalls, validate your mailing list, keep it up to date, and remove inactive subscribers. Email verification ensures that your emails are being sent to legitimate addresses and interested customers. These customers will interact with your communications, ensuring that your deliverability rates remain high and your reputation remains spotless.
Tip #2: Request that new subscribers confirm their email address before being added to your mailing list.
We’ve all spelled our email addresses incorrectly. Perhaps we’re not paying attention, or perhaps we’re in a hurry to get a hot-selling item. For a variety of reasons, it’s likely that at least a few of your customers will enter their email address incorrectly on your platform. Unseen communications and negative feedback can result from incorrect email addresses.
What is the solution? Use a double opt-in tool to validate the email address at the point of interaction. If you ask for someone’s email address when they place an order or sign up for an account, use double opt-in to send them an email confirming their subscription. The chances of you receiving an engaged customer with the correct email address are much higher, and communication between you and your customers will be much smoother and more positive for both parties.
Tip #3: Manage the expectations of your subscribers.
The expectations of recipients are central to email deliverability. During the sign-up phase of your subscriber, your customer needs to understand exactly what they are getting into. The closer you are to them, the better your results will be.
There are some dubious methods for expanding your email database that may get you more contacts but will harm your sender reputation in the long run. Why? Because these subscribers did not sign up to receive regular emails, they may disregard the message, mark it as spam, or unsubscribe. ISPs will notice your low engagement and downgrade your sender reputation, lowering your overall deliverability rate.
Clarifying your request for consent and informing your contacts about the type of content you’ll be sending them will help manage their expectations and maintain good email engagement. Non-engagers can be reduced by segmenting your audience based on how frequently they interact with your emails and tailoring your email frequency to each of these segments. And if you’ve done everything possible but a recipient still isn’t engaged, it might be time to let them go.
4: Keep an eye on engagement metrics and spam complaints.
Sometimes the truth is painful. One person may not mind receiving several reminders or offers from your organization, but another may complain about their overflowing inbox. But how do you know if your subscribers want and engage with your communications?
Open and click-through rates, as well as unsubscribes and spam complaints, can help you determine whether or not your emails are valuable to your audience. Because ISPs are now focusing on user engagement to determine where an email should land, it is critical to carefully monitor them to protect your deliverability. If your email campaigns have high negative engagement, such as bounce rates or complaint rates, it is a sign that you are not following best practices and may influence whether or not you make it into the inbox.
You should also set up a feedback loop (FBL) to track any spam complaints about your message. While Mailgun registers all of their IP addresses for feedback loops, you should double-check to ensure that you are signed up for all major email service provider FBLs. Ignoring feedback and receiving too many complaints can result in these providers blocking your emails, severely reducing your deliverability. Embrace the truth, embrace the loop, and reduce emails that customers find unnecessary.
Tip #5: Do not include PDF attachments in your emails.
You may believe that attaching a PDF to your email will make things easier for the customer. Perhaps your web developer is on vacation, and you are unsure how to host the file. Alternatively, perhaps your ERP generates a PDF invoice for your customers automatically.
Regardless of the reason, if you’re sending commercial email messages to your customers, make sure any attachments are removed. If you leave them in your email, you’re guaranteeing a trip to the spam folder and a lower delivery rate. Remove any attachments or, if necessary, find a way to send them within the body of your email. This results in less spam and better deliverability, which is a win in our book.
Important takeaways
Email deliverability is all about ensuring that your emails arrive in inboxes. If you want to ensure that your emails are seen and appropriately engaged with by potential customers, you must demonstrate to ISPs that your emails are wanted and prompt positive interactions from your consumer base.
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Up-to-date mailing lists, valuable content, and concise emails will help your emails land safely in your contacts’ inboxes and provide a solid foundation for your company to grow on.