If email deliverability concerns you, then you must be looking for a way to improve email deliverability as well. This article covers everything you need to know about email deliverability.
What is Email Deliverability?
Email deliverability is a much-used term used widely in the email marketing side of the digital marketing section. Email deliverability is a metric that decides whether an email will end up in the recipient’s inbox.
Email deliverability might sound like a simple term, except it’s not. It is a combination of many inside factors such as sender’s domain, service provider, email list quality, frequency of email, IP reputation, and obviously sender reputation.
Oh yes, don’t just mix it up with email delivery. Both might be related terms, but funny enough they aren’t the same thing. Let the first learnings be about the difference between email deliverability and email delivery.
Difference Between Email Deliverability and Email Delivery
Sounds like these names are made to be confusing people, right? Involving email as the primary elements, these two terms actually have separate meanings.
The percentage of emails received by the mail service is being called email delivery. As a marketer, you need to know is if email bounces can hurt your sender’s reputation. So you better be setting up a return path to receiving info about email bounce.
Don’t let the names fool you. Email Delivery and Email Deliverability are two different things:
And there is email deliverability which is the percentage of delivered emails that actually ended up in the inbox. Information about email user engagement of email content is provided via inbox providers.
Even with a good email delivery rate, you can have bad email deliverability. Suppose Gmail accepted your email but put it into the spam folder. With that, you have a good delivery rate and bad email deliverability.
Ensuring the deliverability of the majority of the mail you send is a huge part of email marketing. Looking for a tool to do the hard lifting for you to find the deliverable email? Try an email verification tool where that provides you with a clean list with which you can run a successful email marketing campaign without being scared of bounce spikes.
Common Email Deliverability Problems
Is email deliverability hurting your valuable email marketing campaigns? Well, there might be many factors involved in ruining your key to the fortune. Things like bad list quality or low engagement can cost you good. Let’s get to know the culprits first.
Want to improve your email deliverability rate? The first thing is you need to do is to have a look at authentication methods such as SPF and DKIM. Also, make sure to have a DMARC record setup which happens to be an email authentication to protect your domain from email spoofing.
Combining total engagement, open rates, and click rates together, your inbox providers will measure how recipients engage with your email content. This information matters to the inbox providers to decide whether your email will be marked as good or for good as spam.
Deliverability issues can be occurred because of bad email list quality as well. If inbox providers decide to put you on blocklist via analyzing your activity, your email can end up in the dump of the spam folder.
Email blocklists are actually managed by blocklist providers and ISPs, so it’s all about keeping your hands clean and workaround to save yourself from these scary monsters. If somehow your email is added to any of these blocklists, your email will go straight to the spam folder and left you wondering what went wrong.
There is more to the email deliverability factor. Metrics like sender score, domain reputation, and IP reputation matter when it comes down to email deliverability. Make sure to follow the best practices to keep your email marketing campaigns doing the best.
Single or more reasons combined can cause problems regarding email deliverability. So when having an audit, make sure to cross-check all these factors and look for any possible error that may hurt your next email marketing campaign.
Why is Email Deliverability Important?
Now you know the basics of email deliverability, let’s dig up about its importance.
Marketing Value
Email marketing is proven as a working marketing strategy for a long time. In these days of email, marketers and businesses are keen to spend their cash on email marketing. As a marketer, you have to adore your customer’s desires and act accordingly.
So if your target is to reach the potential audience, email deliverability is quite the factor that determines whether you’re winning or failing.
The Challenge
Let’s just get real: it’s not that easy.
If there’s one thing that you can be sure of, it’s that the inboxes of customers and clients are going to be seriously busy places. This makes them extremely competitive.
With almost 4 billion email accounts worldwide and hundreds of billions of emails sent and received every day, there’s no doubt that getting your emails noticed and standing out from the competition can be a serious challenge.
Not only that but more and more email servers are working to add increased safeguards. This can be incredibly useful in filtering out harmful and useless spam, but it means that there is also a chance that your emails can get caught in that same net if you don’t take the time to improve your deliverability.
If you want to be able to find your space in the inboxes of your clients and customers, you’re going to have to earn it.
Perspective
If you’re trying to be successful at email marketing, that perspective of your audience is what matters there most. Sending emails to people that are not interested cause nothing but a waste of resources.
Sending email without people’s permission will hurt your marketing stats and spam detection comes with that too. Email deliverability saves you from this problem and helps you better understand who your ideal recipient should be.
13 Method to Improve Email Deliverability
Our basic knowledge gathering process is done. Now, let’s talk about some proven methods of improving email deliverability.
Healthy Email List
A healthy email list is the ultimate powerhouse of having good email deliverability. If you’re emailing bad contacts, you’re more likely to get marked as spam. So all you do is keep your email list as healthy as possible.
Maintaining a healthy email list is actually very easy. The most important factor of maintaining a good email list is to verify each and every email address you got on the list. If there is no bounce-back reported via the email verification tool, you’re good to go.
What is an Email verification tool, you may ask? An email verification tool is a piece of software that lets users check if an email is valid or invalid. You can verify each email at once or at a bulk rate as well.
There are a thousand others email verification tools out here, You can either verify email one by one or just use the bulk email verifier. The bulk email verifier is very fast and provides all the important metrics you will be needed for your next email campaign. So start cleaning your email list and maintain a healthy one to keep up a good email deliverability rate.
Never Buy an Email List
Starting out an email campaign? Build an email list on your own first. Never buy an email list and start sending out emails. These emails might be valid, but the recipients are not expecting to receive messages from you.
So, there is no way these recipients are going to open your email. Some may do, but the failure ratio can hurt your marketing very much. Plus, some can even report you as spam as they don’t know and they’re not expecting anything from you anyway. The less the open rates get, the lower your sender reputation goes.
Buying an email list and starting the marketing right away is tempestuous, but it leads you nowhere anyway. So don’t waste your resources on a bought email list. Take some time and grow an email list organically.
An organic email list may not be huge, but it can generate amazing leads compared to the large one you bought. It’s better to be there when someone is expecting, neither is it a waste of time. Email marketing works the same way.
Engaged Subscribers Management
So you already have a healthy amount of subscribers already, now what? Well, it’s your time to rise and shine with those existing subscribers and make them your regular email follower. Plus, it has the secret recipe of what we’re looking for – improved email deliverability.
If you’re sending emails to the existing recipients who love your email already, there must be a rare occasion where you face email deliverability issues. Because those people are already expecting an email from you and the deliverability is proven before.
So working with engaged subscribers can save you a lot of resources and make your email deliverability rate fly. There is nothing better than interacting with people that actually care about your interaction.
There is a catch though. If you’re interacting with your best people, you must ensure to provide the best content possible. As they’re your supreme devotee, you should treat them as so. You can even make a custom email list specially made for the most engaging subscribers and reward them for their extra affection. This way you let them know that you care about them as they do about you.
As proven already, 91% of consumers tend to like the brand which provides personalized content and offers. So it’s never late to reward those who deserve it and utilize your marketing game.
Simplify the Opt-Out Process
If you’re thinking that giving subscribers the option to unsubscribe is a bad idea, you’re actually thinking wrong. Providing the option to people who are not interested s a good idea. It has a great positive impact on your email deliverability as well.
Think of it this way: you send a “not-interested” subscriber a message on regular basis. It’s already bad if the recipient doesn’t even bother to check it thinking as is irrelevant. It’s worst if the recipient ends up marking your message as spam.
Some spam reports are on the way and your email marketing strategy can go downhill in no time. If so many people report your message as spam, the inbox providers and ISPs will take notice and put a spam tag on your mail.
Don’t think it’s a foolish way to let the people unsubscribe from your email list. It’s actually very clever to let the people take the easy way out. This way you can ensure betters stats and improve email deliverability effectively.
No matter what your email is about, always add the “unsubscribe” option to the messages you send out. It’s better to have less engaged subscribers than to have a huge delivery rate with barely any interaction. Don’t force people to be in flow with your content.
In case they want to check out their email from your list, make it happen easily. This way the recipients have the easy way out and your email deliverability doesn’t get affected.
No Spamming Please
It’s rule number one for any digital form of communication, but let’s mention it once again: DO NOT SPAM.
Think of you as a subscriber who will receive these emails, would you like them? If you don’t like your email from a recipient’s perspective, don’t send it. Always avoid sounding way too robotic or obvious when writing a copy.
Plus, email servers report emails with errors as spam. Email is just another way of conversation. So don’t make it sound spammy. Stupid mistakes like writing in ALL CAPS, wrong pronoun, spelling mistakes, or even HTML errors can cost you badly. Check your email spam score before sending an email.
So whenever sending the next message, make sure to keep it neat and clean. Engage your subscribers the way you would like to be engaged as a subscriber.
Be Consistent
As an email marketer, you won’t like to confuse your subscribers by sending emails from different emails from time to time. Not only you’ll have less delivery rate, you can even get marked as spam by the recipient.
To improve your email deliverability rate, stay consistent with that one email address. It’s an easy way for the recipient to understand where the email is coming from.
Another common mistake is to change the sender’s name. Changing the sender’s name confuses your recipients. Stick with any name choose and stick with it for the next time. If you switch between your name and company name, it can be confusing on the recipient’s end.
Using the same name and address every time you send out emails is very crucial to email marketing.
Segment It
Want to build trust with your IP? Just sending satisfying emails to subscribers is not enough then. If your emails are doing well, then you increase the engagement even more through segmenting your content.
Using segmentation in email content provides many benefits. You can simply divide your list into groups based on their actions. This way you provide the right content to the correct people. And yes, these all help to trust your IP that you’re all in it for good.
Clean It Up
The email list requires updates as well. So it’s wise to clean up your email list now and then. Unused or invalid emails can cause trouble, so make sure to clean email on a regular basis.
You can simply update your whole email list to the email verification tool and you’ll get a cleaned list within a moment. email verification tool cleans out all the unreachable and unused emails from an email list making your email deliverability a sure shot.
Monitor Everything
You’re not fully into it if you’re not checking out analysis and reports regularly. Don’t get hurt by any negative issues, be alert following it and act accordingly. Be consistent in checking out metrics like open and click-through rates, unsubscribes, and even spam complaints.
ISPs measure the email destination via engagement metrics, right? So you should follow them as well and keep the heads up. Negative impacts like bounce rates or complaint rates are a clear sign that you are not doing it right.
Make sure to set up a feedback look to keep the spam complaints in check. Ignoring this kind of feedback leads to more chaos. So it’s better to monitor every metric and act accordingly even if the needed step is a huge deal.
Don’t Attach PDFs
You may think attaching PDF to your mail makes things easier for customers. No matter what the occasion or issue is, always ignore sending any kind of attachments to an email campaign. If you need to send PDF anyway, try to include it within the email body. This way your mail looks less spammy and it has better deliverability.
Subscription Confirmation
While signing up using the email address, mistyping is a common occasion. So putting an extra step like email confirmation before adding an email to the list is a good idea. The invalid or wrong email ends up in the list all the time. So implementing a double opt-in tool into the signing process is always an appreciated step.
Having the option of confirming email before subscribing benefits both the marketer and customers. First of all, you get no wrong email as a marketer. Plus all the subscriber that tends to put that extra effort is more likely to result in active engagement which can be beneficial in the long run.
IP Credibility
Spam has been a never-ending problem. ISP’s filters are constantly fighting against spam. IP of incoming is a great factor regarding email deliverability. So an IP having enough credibility to ISPs plays a huge role in email deliverability.
So how can you build your IP credibility? Strategically. Start slow with your email campaign and send small batches of email to engaged subscribers. You can warm up email and when you become relevant to subscribers, your IP gets marked as a good one to ISPs.
Consistent Schedule
Maintaining consistency with your email sending schedule is easy but an effective step that can be taken to improve email deliverability. Bombarding subscribers with emails is not an ideal solution. So it’s better to stick to a consistent schedule.
Send email periodically. After maintaining a schedule a few times, your subscribers will already develop a sense of receiving your email following that schedule. So yeah, maintaining a consistent schedule help to improve email deliverability.
Conclusion
So now you know everything need to know about email deliverability. The next will be planning according and making proper use of your resources.
