Discussing many aspects of email marketing we claim each of them to be one of the crucial things. But the truth is that there are no less important elements. If you have a bad copy, irrelevant subject line or “dirty” list of addresses, you will never have the opportunity to reach heights in your marketing campaign. This article is dedicated to theemail deliverability. You cannot disagree, that no matter how good your message is, the problems with reaching the inbox make all your efforts and money spending useless.
Recommendations to Increase Deliverability
We want to share with you 10 recommendations to help in fixing any possible problems or level up your rates. Every tip is a result of analyzing the work of experts in the online marketing. So you can be sure that implementations of any of them will definitely bring some benefits to your campaign.
- IP Credibility. The spam problem is the one we all suffer from. As mailbox users, we can daily receive a bunch of junk mail we do not want to receive. As marketers, we can suffer from constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated spam filters that can block our own campaign in some cases. But it’s not a dead end and we can escape from being detected as spam. Build the credibility of your IP.
Start with a few people who are sure interested in your letters and are engaged in what you offer. With time you will be able to raise the number of receivers and maintain your reputation, what will help to increase email deliverability. Also do not forget to check it from time to time, for instance with the help of MX Toolbox.
- Provide double opt-in and simple opt-out processes. This is how you can seriously decrease the number of complaints and level up the number of received letters. This is a mutual benefit for you and your audience. You can be sure that you are trying to reach the right people. Receivers, in their turn, are informed on what they will get from you.
Another thing is an opt-out feature. Along with opt-in, it provides freedom and safety. In case the person is not interested in your newsletters, he or she can simply unsubscribe and be sure you will not disturb them anymore. In this situation, the person stops receiving unwanted messages and you stop reaching the person, protecting yourself from bounce rates and spam complaints. Also, there will be less need for email deliverability monitoring.
- Use suppression lists. This means you create a list of people you want to exclude from your email list. Why? Because some your receivers have become inactive and their inactive behavior damages your deliverability rates and sender’s reputation. Considering this topic, you need to pay attention to who you send letters rather than how many. There are no strict measures on what receivers can be called inactive. But the main principle is the more often you deliver your emails the shorter period of absence any activity should be.
- Clean your email lists. Here is the difference between suppressing and cleaning: in the first case you remove addresses but keep them in your database for future revision. But cleaning of your email list means you will permanently delete the email. Along with suppression, this approach is aimed at obtaining a quality database.
You do not have to delete each inactive address on your own. Use the service that is called to solve any list management issue like Proofy. With its help, you will be able to test email deliverability, monitor whether all addresses in your list are valid and make sure that your reputation is out of danger.
- ISP Distribution. This point is aimed to increase your understanding of inbox placement. This does not deal with deliverability directly but will help you in your strategic planning in general. Various ISPs have their own filtering systems and you may face difficulties with deliverability in one case, while in another you will be welcomed. So you need to watch your metrics and their behavior and adjust your own approaches. For instance, you can change the terms you add addresses to your suppression lists and so on.
- Accurate sender’s info. Your reputation and improving email deliverability process depends on how good you follow the regulations from the CAN-SPAM Act. One of the points there is the accuracy of your sender name and other info you provide. Reveal the real data of who you are and what company you work for. Stick to one style, preferably professional version of your name and do not change it to remain recognizable.
- Ask for whitelisting. This approach not only will help in increasing deliverability, but also will show that you take into consideration the opinion of the receivers. What does it mean? Basically, you ask the person to add your address to his or her address book. The more people whitelist you, the higher reputation you will receive from ISPs. Despite this is not the main metric, in that case, you will still be among “favorites” and your letter will reach the destination more often. But in what cases receivers will more likely whitelist you? Here are some of the terms for email deliverability testing:
– the low number of complaints from other receivers;
– quality content and relevant topic;
– presence of SPF, DKIM, and DNS;
– decent level of email frequency.
- Stick to the golden mean when it comes to sending emails. We all have been in situations when we were so interested in company, brand or product that opted in for their newsletters without any doubts. But as soon as you have subscribed for their emails, you noticed that the company overflows you with numerous letters, messages, and notifications so your inbox quickly becomes full. This is so annoying, right?
But another extreme is when a person subscribes for your blog post notifications and then does not hear anything from you for ages. And once you appear they may already forget you. Such cases are the source of spam complaints and low open rates. Both cases are harmful to your reputation. To solve the problem, work on a sending plan when you will deliver no more than 4 letters per month.
The definite amount depends on your audience and your goals, but according to researches of email deliverability best practices, it is better to avoid delivering over 8 letters to each recipient monthly.
- Create a schedule and follow it. The previous point brings us to the next step – scheduling your emails. There is no any fit-for-all answer on how many and how often to reach out. It is better to follow principle not to overflow the receiver’s inbox with your messages. You will reach the balance and find your own golden mean only if you will test various approaches. You may start with 1 letter per month and then gradually level up the number of letters you deliver per month. The main point here is tracking the receiver’s behavior.
- Segment your emails. The normal practice is to differentiate various emails and use different IPs and domains for their distribution. Wonder how to improve email deliverability with this tip? The thing is that along with promotional letters and newsletters you need to send notifications like transactional emails. And it is better not to mix them with promotional messages.
The open rates of the transactional notifications are higher comparing to promotional ones. So in case, your marketing emails will decrease the general deliverability rate, there is a danger the person will never receive the important transactional message. Remember, that for marketers the promotional messages are more important, while for our audience – the opposite.
How to Make Sure Your Improving Email Deliverability Techniques Work?
You must not only to implement all the given recommendations. Your next task will be to conduct regular email deliverability check. It can be done by monitoring the bounce and complaint rates. If your address lists are clean and collected via opt-in feature, you will have low rates in both cases. But with time even a good database can become contaminated.
Open rates, on the contrary, must be high and move up with every improvement. The convenient tool for campaign monitoring is Remail. This service was developed to ease the life of every online marketer and help in delivering campaign messages. However, this is more than just a “delivery-guy”. Plenty of monitoring and analyzing features will help you to stay informed about the condition of your campaign and fix anything if needed.
With Remail you will have “helper” in managing and optimizing your work. Users admit how handy the ready-made templates are and how helpful they are in quick campaign launching. But the main point here that every function and feature is designed to make your campaign better. The better your copy, sender’s reputation, and general approach are, the higher email marketing deliverability will be.
