In today’s article, we will deep dive into email deliverability. We’ll show you how you can keep your emails away from the spam folder.

What is EmailAn email (or electronic mail) is a method of exchanging communications through the internet. It is one of the most used features on the web and the number one mean... Deliverability?

Email Deliverability is a metric. It indicates the number of emails that reached your recipients’ inboxes.

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Also known as Inbox Placement, it can be difficult to understand.

Email Deliverability depends on several factors. 

In simpler words, email deliverability helps you understand the location of your emails. It decides whether your email landed in your recipient’s inbox, spam or another folder. 

Why is it Important to Track Email Deliverability?

It is important to track email deliverability as it helps us know:

• If the subscriber is receiving our emails. Over time, you get insights that help you boost customer engagement. 
• To determine if our content is working or not. Tracking enables us to understand how our subscribers interact with our marketing material. If the emails are performing well, that means our content is being liked by th subscribers.
• If the lead is worth it or not. It helps us identify the quality of the lead. If the lead is worth nurturing, it’s sent to the sales team. If not, it’s sent to the marketing team.
• To know what’s wrong. It helps us understand why our recipients’ are unsubscribing. It helps identify common causes such as broken links or problems with the email content.
• To identify referrals. It helps us understand where our new customers are coming from. It helps discover our best customers and encourage them to refer more people. 

What Affects Email Deliverability?

Three factors affect email deliverability i.e sender’s reputation, infrastructure and authentication. Let’s take a look at them one by one.

#1. Sender’s Reputation

As a marketer, whenever you send emails, the mailbox provider runs a reputation check. If you have a good reputation, your email lands in your recipient’s inbox.

If not, it gets rejected at the gateway. Worse, it gets delivered to the junk/spam folder.

Here are a few ways to maintain a good sender reputation:

• Don’t appear in blacklists.
• Keep abuse complaint rates low. 
• Improve delivery by using reliable servers.
• Stay away from spam traps.
• Maintain a clean mailing list to reduce bounce rates.
• Send emails on a consistent and regular schedule. 

#2. Infrastructure

Creating and maintaining your infrastructure for email campaigns is expensive. Also, apart from being costly, it’s also complicated. Thus, it’s wise to use an email service to help you. Here are two infrastructural aspects that affect email deliverability:

• IP Address. Have a dedicated IP if you send time-sensitive emails. The same goes for high volume emails. This will ensure that your reputation depends on your actions. Thus, your chances of delivery in the spam folder are lower.
• Feedback loops for reporting complaints to ESPs. Users should get removed from the mailing list upon unsubscribing. 

#3. Authentication

It refers to the process by which mailbox providers verify if the IP address. It indicates that you have permission to send emails. Setting up authentication indicates that you’ve consented to ESP sending emails. Here are two main types of setting it up:

• Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM). Indicates that your organization owns this email address.
• Sender Policy Framework (SPF). It’s an email validation system that prevents spam by verifying your IP address.

You should use both together to improve email deliverability. 

Email Deliverability Best Practises

Here are 9 email deliverability best practices for you to keep in mind. They will ensure your emails make it to your recipients’ inboxes.

1. Have a Clean Mailing List. A large number of inactive subscribers impacts your email deliverability. Remove or suppress such customers. Clean your list regularly.
2. Avoid Spam Traps. Some email addresses look like real addresses. But, they’re used to identify spammers. Sending emails to such recipients’ lowers your deliverability rate.
3. Provide an Option to Unsubscribe. The option to unsubscribe should be active and visible. It helps maintain a genuine list of recipients’. If users are unable to find an option to unsubscribe, they will mark your email as “spam”. Thus, add it to the footer of the email. 
4. Personalise Your Emails: Your subscribers are less likely to unsubscribe if your emails send personalised emails. Send creative and engaging content. It should be relevant to your recipient. 
5. Be Creative. Your subject line should immediately capture your recipients’ attention. In fact, it should also evoke curiosity. You can be witty or enticing. The key is to make the subject line enjoyable.
6. Check Your Emails’ Legality. Ensure that your email marketing software complies with web laws and GDPR. But, if you’re making your own emails, then ensure you’re not breaking any laws.
7. Don’t Get Blacklisted. Your domain, server or IP address should not get caught up in sending spammy emails. You can get blacklisted for a variety of reasons. Thus, it’s important that you follow email deliverability best practices. 
8. Build Trust. Use a TLS to build trust with mailbox providers and users. 
9. Be Consistent With Your Email Design. Avoid making frequent changes to your email design. This reduces the chances of users getting confused and unsubscribing your emails. 

Email Deliverability Checklist

Use our handy email deliverability checklist to improve your deliverability score.

1. Keep your lists clean to reduce bounce rate.
2. Spam complaints = death for your list.
3. Be consistent with your volume.
4. Don’t get blacklisted!
5. Avoid spam traps.
6. Use DKIM to verify ownership of an email message.
7. Use SPF to verify your sender IP.
8. Opt for a dedicated IP address to send high volume emails.
9. Encrypt your email (using TLS) to build trust with mailbox providers and users.
10. Use a dedicated email address for time-sensitive campaigns.
11. Use shared IPs for everyone else.
12. Setup MX records for your sender domain.
13. Set up an abuse reporting mailbox.
14. Send relevant content that your subscribers want to read.
15. Track mailbox provider feedback loops.
16. Be consistent with your email design.
17. Be careful with URL shorteners.
18. Have a mobile-friendly design.
19. Don’t use free, personal email addresses for your campaigns.
20. Don’t send spammy content or subject lines.
21. Pay attention to the image/text ratio.
22. Always include a plain text version of your campaigns, along with the HTML version.
23. Use double opt-in for your lists.
24. Make it easy to unsubscribe.
25. Segment campaigns to give your subscribers exactly what they want.
26. Avoid using a “no-reply” sender address.

Top 5 Email Deliverability Tools

There are a lot of email deliverability tools available to marketers today. Most of these tools offer a free trial. Thus, it’s recommended that you can test the capabilities of that software. 

It’s wise to choose credible tools with a good reputation for IP addresses. Also, they should have features to match your requirements. 

You should consult email deliverability experts to help you optimise your campaigns. Here are a few of our recommendations:

1. Mailjet: It’s a popular tool for sending regular newsletters and transactional emails. Also, it offers a lot of features such as contact management and analytics. It’s affordable and easy to use. 
2. Mailchimp: It has all the tools you can imagine! Build beautiful emails and automate your campaigns using Mailchimp. It includes stunning templates, a drag and drop email builder and analytics. Mailchip also owns Mandrill. It’s one of the best email marketing tools to send transactional emails.
3. Sendinblue: It offers both marketing and transactional communication. Also, it has plenty of other features such as marketing automation and SMS messaging.
4. SendGrid: It’s one of the biggest players in the market. It specializes in marketing and transactional campaigns. Use their robust API to connect their features to your platform. Use their tools to design awesome emails and send them. 
5. Mailsenpai: It’s a high-performance email marketing software. It will help you increase your deliverability rate. Also, it simplifies newsletter management. They have three plans starting from €16.90/month making it the most affordable tool. It’s the best solution for all types of organisations. Also, their customer service is excellent. 

In Conclusion

Follow the steps mentioned in our article to improve your email deliverability. We hope our tips and checklist were useful and help you improve your delivery rates.

Don’t forget to check out our other articles! If you have any questions related to email deliverability, please leave them below!