Email deliverability is one of the most important aspects of email marketing. It is essential to ensure that your emails are delivered to the intended recipient’s inbox and not their spam folder.
This can be a difficult task as there are many factors that can affect email deliverability. In this article, we will discuss some of the most important do’s and don’ts when it comes to email deliverability.
Do use a reputable email service provider
There are a number of reasons why you should use a reputable email service provider (ESP) for your email marketing needs, as opposed to a free webmail service like Gmail or Yahoo Mail.
First and foremost, a good ESP will have the necessary infrastructure in place to ensure that your emails are delivered to your recipients’ inboxes.
This includes things like maintaining a good sending reputation with email providers, using proper authentication methods, and having robust anti-spam filters.
Another reason to use a reputable ESP is that they can offer you a number of features and tools that can make your email marketing more effective.
For example, many ESPs offer templates and drag-and-drop editors that make it easy to create beautiful emails, as well as tools for segmenting your list and managing your contacts.
Finally, a good ESP will provide you with excellent customer support in case you have any questions or run into any problems.
They can also help you troubleshoot any deliverability issues that you may be having.
Do maintain a healthy email list
The best way to maintain a healthy email list is to regularly clean it. This means deleting any inactive or unengaged subscribers. It also means removing any addresses that have bounced or generated complaints.
In addition to cleaning your list, you should also segment it. This way, you can send targeted content to different groups of people. For example, you might have a segment for people who live in a certain city, or people who have made a purchase from your store.
As well as creating email lists based on demographic attributes, you can also test segments based on user behavior – which opens up further possibilities for email personalisation.
Finally, you should make sure that you are regularly adding new subscribers to your list. This will help to offset any people who unsubscribe or who get removed for being inactive.
When adding new subscribers, ensure that you are complying with GDPR.
Do monitor your sender reputation
Sender reputation is the reputation of an email sender, as gauged by various email receiving systems, based on the IP address the email is sent from, domain name, envelope sender address, message content, and other factors.
The sender’s reputation may be good, neutral, or bad.
A sender with good reputation is more likely to have their email delivered to the inbox, while a sender with bad reputation is more likely to have their email delivered to the spam folder.
A sender should monitor their reputation to ensure that their email is being delivered to the inbox. There are various tools that can be used to monitor sender reputation, such as SenderScore.org and Return Path’s SenderBase.
Do warm up your emails
Email warmup is the process of gradually increasing the volume of email traffic sent from a new or previously inactive email account.
The goal of email warmup is to establish a good reputation with email providers so that your messages are more likely to be delivered to the inbox.
Email warmup is important because it can help improve your email deliverability and ensure that your messages reach your intended audience.
It can also help you avoid being flagged as a spammer.
There are also several email warmup services like Lemwarm that can help you boost your email reputation or even recover it after getting hit.
Do keep an eye on bounce rates
Email warmup is the process of gradually increasing the volume of email traffic sent from a new or previously inactive email account.
The goal of email warmup is to establish a good reputation with email providers so that your messages are more likely to be delivered to the inbox.
Email warmup is important because it can help improve your email deliverability and ensure that your messages reach your intended audience.
It can also help you avoid being flagged as a spammer.
While you can’t completely get rid of email bounces, you can at least minimise their number as much as you can. Generally a “good” bounce rate is considered to be lower than 3%.
Do validate your emails
Email validation is the process of making sure an email address is valid and exists. This can be done by checking the syntax of the email address, looking up the domain to see if it exists, and verifying that the mailbox exists and is accepting mail.
Validating your emails can improve your deliverability by ensuring that your messages are not being sent to invalid or non-existent addresses. This can help reduce your bounce rate, improve your sender reputation and generally help you get more out of your email marketing campaigns.
There are many email validation tools available, such as:
Do run spam checks
There are a few reasons why you should always check your emails for spam words:
- To avoid having your emails marked as spam: If your emails contain spam words, there’s a higher chance that they’ll be flagged as spam by email providers. This can result in your emails being automatically sent to recipients’ spam folders, or even getting blocked entirely.
- To improve deliverability: Even if your emails aren’t marked as spam, using spam words can still negatively impact your deliverability. This is because spam words can trigger spam filters, which can prevent your emails from reaching recipients’ inboxes.
- To protect your reputation: If you’re regularly sending emails with spam words, your sender reputation will suffer. This can make it harder for your emails to get delivered in the future.
There are a few different spam word checkers that you can use, including:
- Mailtrap: Mailtrap is a spam checking tool that allows you to test your emails before sending them to real recipients. This can help you avoid using spam words without impacting your deliverability.
- IsNotSpam: IsNotSpam is another spam checking tool that can help you avoid using spam words in your emails.
- Spam Assassin: Spam Assassin is a tool that can be used to check emails for spam content. It can also be used to filter spam emails out of your inbox.
Don’t use false or misleading information in your “From” or “Reply-To” email addresses
If you do not display accurate information in your “from” or “reply-to” address, your email may be considered spam by email providers.
This can affect your deliverability, as your emails may be sent to spam folders or blocked entirely.
Additionally, recipients may be less likely to trust your emails if they cannot see who they are coming from.
A good email signature can also go a long way and make a great first impression.
Don’t use ALL CAPS
When you use all caps in an email, you are essentially shouting at the recipient. This can come across as aggressive or even rude, and it can make it difficult for the recipient to read your message.
Additionally, all-caps emails can trigger spam filters, which can result in your message being blocked or sent to the recipient’s spam folder.
Don’t include attachments in your emails unless absolutely necessary
Email attachments can be a major contributor to poor email deliverability. There are a few reasons why this is the case:
- Attachments can add a lot of unnecessary weight to an email, which can make it more difficult for email servers to deliver the email.
- Attachments can trigger spam filters, which can result in the email being delivered to the recipient’s spam folder instead of their inbox.
- Some email providers do not allow attachments, which means that the email will not be delivered at all.
- Some email attachments can contain viruses, which can infect the recipient’s computer if they open the attachment.
- Email attachments can be a security risk, as they can be used to bypass security measures and gain access to sensitive information.
In general, it is best to avoid sending attachments in cold emails unless absolutely necessary. If an attachment is absolutely necessary, it is important to first reach out to the person and ask if you can send it over so the attachment no longer comes in a cold email.
Don’t send emails that are primarily image-based
Sending image-based emails can affect your deliverability in a few ways. First, many email clients will automatically block images from unknown senders.
This means that your recipients will not be able to see the images in your email unless they manually unblock them. Additionally, image-based emails can often be flagged as spam by email filters.
This can lead to your emails being automatically sent to recipients’ spam folders, or even being blocked entirely.
Finally, image-based emails can take longer to load, which can be frustrating for recipients.
Don’t send emails with embedded JavaScript or other code
One reason you shouldn’t send emails with embedded javascript or other code is that it can be used to exploit vulnerabilities in the email client.
This can allow attackers to execute arbitrary code on the user’s machine, potentially leading to a compromise of the user’s system.
Additionally, email clients may not properly handle code embedded in emails, leading to rendering issues or other problems.
Conclusion
There are many factors that come into delivering emails, but the most important are: only sending messages to validated emails, maintaining a healthy email list, checking your emails for spam words, and using email warmup.
