Tag Archives: delivery

Article first published September 2015, updated September 2019

“How can I help ensure my emails are being delivered?” The simplest question in email marketing might also be the one with the most complicated answer. As an email marketer, you want to provide killer content to your subscribers.

You want to see people sharing that content on Facebook and Twitter and talking about your brand. You not only want to see people opening your emails, but you want to see people engage with them in a meaningful way.

The kicker here is that it’s not just about creating beautiful, optimized emails. It’s also about better positioning your campaigns to reach the inbox, avoid spam filters, and then to get opened and acted upon by your subscribers. That’s where email deliverability comes in.

What is email deliverability?

Email deliverability is how you measure the success of your emails reaching the inbox without bouncing or being marked as spam. If you have issues with high bounces, flagging spam filters, or low engagement, you may have email deliverability issues.

In this post, we’ll take a look at nine things you may be doing (sometimes without even knowing) that are killing your email deliverability.

We’ll also explore some quick, easy-to-implement fixes that you can use to help build your sending reputation and improve email deliverability.

9 ways to kill your email deliverability

1. Leave your subscribers in the dark.

Sometimes, old adages are true; prevention truly is better than the cure. In the email marketing world, this means first building a solid, permission-based list where your recipients have expressly opted in to receive your emails.

But maximizing the potential of your subscriber list and the engagement level of your recipients requires more than just building a list of opt-in recipients—you want to start off on the right foot and send.

If someone signs up to receive emails from your brand and they don’t receive an email for six months, they’ve probably forgotten who you are and why they signed up to receive your campaigns. In email deliverability terms, waiting too long to send your first email is killing your chance of creating a good first impression in the inbox.

Instead, send an email at signup that encourages engagement and clicks and gets your recipients used to connecting with your brand in their inbox from day one.

Welcome emails should make your new subscribers feel like they belong there.

Source: Really Good Emails

Send consistently and regularly, though not too often. This can vary wildly depending on your industry and brand, though one email per quarter is probably too few and one a day, too many. With some testing, you should be able to find a sending frequency that works for you and your subscribers.

2. Send without custom authentication.

A large part of email deliverability comes down to taking every step possible to avoid being perceived as a spammer in the eyes of spam filters and your recipients.

One of the most definitive ways in which you can affect this is by authenticating your emails. Authentication allows ISPs to acknowledge the legitimacy of your email sends. By putting verified SPF and DKIM settings in place, receiving mailboxes have some verifiable information to cross-reference with your email campaigns and can more easily determine if your email is the real deal or fraudulent. Gmail cites authentication as one of their top recommendations for helping get your emails delivered to their users’ inboxes.

At Campaign Monitor, we automatically handle authentication for you, though we highly recommend you put authentication in place using your own SPF records and DKIM key for the best possible impact on your email deliverability. Usually, your network administrator will be able to help set this up for you.

By putting custom authentication settings in place, your emails are far more likely to be delivered.

3. Settle for single opt-in.

Confirmed (or double) opt-in means that, after people select to sign up for your email list, they receive a confirmation email they must use to confirm their subscription.

Confirmations are great options for a double opt-in.

Source: Really Good Emails

Not only does a confirmed opt-in help protect you from erroneous signups and spambots, but confirmed opt-in lists see better results with almost every engagement metric, other than the sheer number of sign-ups in comparison to single opt-in lists.

Confirmed opt-in lists are more engaged from the start and, by using confirmed opt-in, you can more effectively build your sending reputation by sending to a more engaged and active list.

4. Send from a free domain email address.

Every part of your campaign needs to authoritatively communicate to your recipients and spam filters that you are who you say you are.

Using a from address that’s a domain other than your own is a big no-no. Similarly, using a free domain email address such as Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail is also a bad idea. Yahoo, Gmail, and other ISPs will automatically mark your emails as spam if you send commercial or bulk email to an email address at their domain, from the same domain, under revised DMARC policies.

Instead, use an official company address that clearly communicates who you are. Virgin uses newsletters@virginexperiencedays.co.uk for their Experience Day campaigns—this lets people not only know whom they’re receiving the email from (Virgin), but what they’re receiving (a newsletter), and which part of the business they’re receiving the email from (Experience Days).

As a global brand with products and services spread across many industries, using a send-from address tailored to this particular part of the business is integral for strong email deliverability.

Be sure to use an address at a domain or authenticated sub-domain that you own and that your recipients expect to hear from. Not only will this help prevent ISP filters from blocking your emails, but this will also be instantly recognizable to your recipients and help build the sending reputation for your domain.

Get our guide to avoiding spam filters to ensure your emails get delivered.

5. Write unclear or spam-flagging subject lines.

Your subject line is the welcome mat of your email and, often, issues with subject lines are as simple as this: If your subject line makes your email look like spam, then people and the spam filters ISPs put in place to protect them will probably think that it’s spam.

Avoid ALL CAPITALS, excessive and unnecessary use of punctuation (!!!), and use symbols and SP$C!AL CH@RCT3RZ sparingly, and only when relevant.

Also, ensure that your subject lines match the content of your email—no one wants to be promised a trip to a theme park and end up at the dentist.

An “RE” or “FWD” prefix when there’s been no such previous contact or email exchange is misleading. Similarly, does your email require “urgent action” and is your offer “exclusive” and “one time only” designations? If not, leave them out.

Best practices for the rest of your email copy also ring true for your subject lines. Be concise, as many email clients may truncate subject lines with too many characters. Use personalization, be creative with your copy, and be clear with your subscribers about what the email contains.

6. Design emails with too many images.

A historic spam technique was to send emails that contain just one image or many images and very little text in HTML emails in order to bypass spam filters that were based primarily on spam keywords.

Spam filtering is now based much more on sending reputation than content, though image to text ratio does still carry some weight with spam filters and is something you’ll want to spend time getting right.

Emails with very little copy and many images, or simply composed of one large image, can be hallmarks of spammers. By composing similar emails, you can run the risk of your email being flagged as spam.

Remember, many email clients or devices aren’t configured to display images by default. If your email is composed almost entirely of images that aren’t displayed by a recipient’s email client, this renders the content of your email unreadable and certainly not something your client can interact with easily.

Too many images can look spammy.

Source: Really Good Emails

Instead, design your emails with this in mind and ensure you balance your images and copy so that your email makes sense and is engaging in the event of the images not being displayed. Always use alt text for your images, so, even if they don’t render, your subscribers will have some context for what the images are.

7. Use URL shorteners.

The use of URL shorteners is a notorious technique used by spammers to hide the nature of URLs they link to and, as such, rank high on reasons spam filters can block your emails, even if the links themselves are legitimate.

Avoid using URL shorteners and, also, avoid inserting the full URL link as text in the body of your email. Instead, create a hyperlink with the appropriate text and ensure all your links go to legitimate domains and are valid and functional. By replacing URL shorteners with clear and attractive CTAs, you’ll also drive traffic and see more click-throughs on your sends. This is another piece of the sending reputation pie that can further boost your email deliverability.

8. Make it difficult to unsubscribe.

While an unsubscribe link must be included in every email sent through Campaign Monitor, we also recommend that it be simple and easy for your recipients to find.

Hiding your unsubscribe link in a wall of text with an 8pt font will only serve to frustrate your recipients, should they be attempting to unsubscribe. In our experience, the more difficult you make it to unsubscribe, the more likely your recipients are to mark your email as spam.

Roku does an excellent job of making their unsubscribe link easy to find. Instead of including it in a large wall of text, they set it apart from the other information so users can find it and click it, should they wish to remove themselves from the list.Your unsubscribe link doesn’t have to be a primary focal point, but it does have to be easy to find.

Source: Gmail

Make your unsubscribe option clear and easily visible and, better yet, add a permission reminder message alongside it to remind people where they signed up or gave you permission and point them towards unsubscribing if they’re no longer interested in receiving your emails. Your recipients will appreciate this honesty and clarity, and an unengaged recipient choosing to unsubscribe is always preferable to receiving a spam complaint.

9. Send to unengaged recipients.

In email deliverability terms, low open rates are a clear signal to ISPs that your recipients are not engaged with you, your brand, or your content. That lack of engagement is a factor in the delivery of future emails and can even lead to your campaigns being blocked. Think of it as a snowball threatening to become an avalanche—your low open rates mean that ISPs block your future emails, which leads to even lower open rates, which, in turn, leads to a further lack of engagement.

Considering taking action with a list that you’ve nurtured and grown over a long period of time may be difficult, but what’s worse is this: You could be damaging your sending reputation by continuing to send to people who’ve never opened your emails, and you’re paying for the privilege.

Instead, check in with your least engaged subscribers by sending a re-engagement campaign asking them to confirm they wish to remain on your list. If you send an email every day or every week you can send a re-engagement campaign every 3-6 months.

If you send an email once a month or less frequently, you can send an annual re-engagement campaign. Anyone who hasn’t opened an email or clicked a link in 12 months or more should be removed from your list, as permission to send emails has expired and you run the risk of low open rates, high bounce rates and spam complaints, all of which damage your sender reputation.

Such a campaign is a great way to reach out to your inactive recipients and get them regularly reading your emails. Let people know that you understand that they haven’t been active recently and remind them why they should be reading your emails. Highlight your great content, be open and clear about your sending frequency, and invite them to continue receiving your emails, only if they want them.

After you’ve done a re-engagement campaign, you’ll be able to easily identify any recipients who are genuinely unengaged so that you can remove them from your list. By amending your list so that it’s full of active recipients, you’ll see greater levels of engagement and, in turn, receiving ISPs will notice a higher volume of emails being opened and clicked compared to emails sent. Build and maintain your sending reputation to positively affect your email deliverability in the future.

Bonus: Improve your email list with these metrics.

Unfortunately, many email marketers don’t know that their campaigns aren’t working until it’s much too late. This is something that could easily be avoided by simply monitoring a few key email metrics once you’ve sent off your campaign to your subscribers.

Monitoring your email metrics is vital to your email campaign success.

Source: Campaign Monitor

Most quality email service provides its clients with email insights and reporting. These tools allow you to carefully monitor key email metrics to help you determine what’s working and what isn’t. When it comes to the success of your email campaigns, you’ll want to keep an eye on the following metrics:

  • Open rates
  • Click-through rates
  • Delivery rate
  • Unsubscribe rate
  • Spam rate
  • Bounce rate

While there may be plenty of other metrics available to you, these are some of your most vital. Why? Because they tell you how active your list is and how well they’re engaging with your content.

Trends you’ll want to watch for include:

  • A decrease in open, click-through, and delivery rates
  • Increases in unsubscribe, spam, and bounce rates

These trends will show you who’s interacting and who isn’t. This is a vital piece of information when it comes to maintaining your email list hygiene. Once you start seeing those negative increases, you know it’s time to start removing unhappy customers or those who simply aren’t receiving your messages or interacting with them.

One of the best ways to do this is by sending out a regularly scheduled email campaign asking your users to update their preferences or “click” to remain on the mailing list.

 Email list hygiene is vital to your marketing success, so keep it full of people who want to be on the list.

Source: Really Good Emails

With a campaign like this one from Framebridge, those who click on the CTA will remain active on your list. However, those who ignore the CTA or email entirely should be flagged and removed immediately, as they clearly have little to no interest in following through with your brand.

Wrap up

Email deliverability is an ever-changing aspect of email marketing and should be on the mind of every marketer. By implementing some of the following recommendations, and better positioning your campaigns for success, you should see improvements in the delivery of your emails and an improved ROI for your email marketing.

Recommendations to keep in mind:

  • Stay relevant in your subscriber’s inbox by being consistent with your messages.
  • Custom authentication is your friend.
  • While single opt-ins are okay, double opt-ins make sure your list is comprised of the right subscribers.
  • Where you’re sending from matters—free domains aren’t so reliable.
  • Avoid spam-flagging subject lines.
  • Images are great, just don’t overload your reader.
  • URL shorteners should be avoided.
  • Make the options to unsubscribe as simple as possible.
  • Maintain email list hygiene.
  • Monitor your email campaigns success.

Are you in need of a refresher on email marketing metrics? Then check out our short guide on 17 metrics every marketer needs to know.

 

This post has been updated as of June 2019

You may have read our post about best practices for email campaigns, where we share that a large amount of your success is dependent on the quality of your email lists.

Email marketing really is all about the quality of your subscriber lists and how you maintain them over time.

You can test your subject lines, optimize your email for mobile and authenticate your sends, but the long and short of it is that if your email mailing list is not built and maintained correctly, your email campaigns may never make it into the inbox to get opened and clicked.

So how does the quality of your lists affect the delivery of your emails and engagement, and what can you do to ensure your lists are in the best shape they can be?

In this post, we’ll focus on how your email lists affect the deliverability and engagement of your campaigns and provide actionable tips to get your emails delivered to the inbox.

Learn to build an email list in minutes by watching this video:

Start at the source

Is your list being built in compliance with permission and best practices in mind?

At Campaign Monitor, we require all your recipients to have expressly opted-in to receive your emails or to be your paying customers.

Building a solid opt-in list is the first step towards campaign success—if you play loose with the rules by adding general contacts, or from a contest without a mailing list opt-in checkbox, not only do you risk your sending reputation and the success of your campaigns, but you also risk punitive action and the possible closure of your account.

That’s never the outcome you want for your email campaigns. If you’re ever confused about what counts as opt-in permission or are unsure about your particular sending scenario, we have helpful resource guides, or you can simply ask us before sending.

If you were to send to email addresses that weren’t sourced with direct, express and clear opt-in permission, you would not only by breaking policies and risking account closure, but you could be adversely damaging your sending reputation and your business.

That kind of damage will follow you, and is not limited to your sends with a particular email service provider (ESP) such as Campaign Monitor. Coming back from the negative effects of such an issue is difficult, lengthy and can be the difference between the failure or success of your future email marketing efforts.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and their associated spam filtering systems closely monitor the impact and engagement levels of your email campaigns. Even a single bad send to a non-permission based list can destroy the deliverability of your future emails, when you are not compliant with industry standards and sending what is considered spam.

Don’t take the chance – play by the rules and ensure that all of your subscriber data is sourced with the direct and express opt-in permission of your recipients. It’s good for you, and it’s good for your recipients – it really is that simple! We recommend using a sign up form to collect opt-in permission.

Permission is not evergreen

So you have a list of opt-in list newsletter subscribers. The next question would be, how old is your list, and how regularly and consistently have you been in contact with those subscribers?

Quite simply, subscriber lists older than two years are not permitted for sending through Campaign Monitor and most other reputable ESPs.

Beyond that, we find that lists that have not been consistently sent to in the last 12 months can see significant issues with engagement and deliverability, as well as spam complaints from subscribers who have simply forgotten who you are and how or why they signed up.

The low open rates and high bounce and complaint rates you are likely to see in a list that has not been regularly contacted can negatively affect your email deliverability and as such, you’ll want to take some steps before sending to lists that haven’t been regularly engaged with.

Err on the side of caution with older lists that have not been sent to in a while. Never send to addresses older than 2 years, and with lists up to 24 months old, begin by sending to your recipients from the last 12 months and look at the results.

Verify your older lists with a third party service such as Kickbox or Briteverify to clean out inactive or erroneous addresses before sending. The nominal cost of cleaning your list is preferable to damaging your sending reputation and will help ensure that your list is best positioned for success.

When building an email list, don’t wait until you reach a certain subscriber number before sending campaigns – start engaging with subscribers straight away and send regular content to your growing list. Lists that are dormant see diminishing returns when it comes to engagement and you may lose some of your recipients to apathy.

ISPs will notice this kind of activity and also place weighting on the cadence of your sending – if you have not sent mass marketing emails in a year and then send an email to 100K recipients, that could be a red flag right out of the gate. When many of those recipients then bounce or mark your emails as spam, you will likely incur blocks and see other deliverability issues.

If you’ve had a significant lapse in sending or are switching ESPs, begin by sending to your most active subscribers and, you guessed it, look at those results. If you see a large number of bounces or spam complaints, you may want to verify the remainder of your list or take extra steps to mitigate the potential for further issues.

Monitor and maintain

Even the best email lists can go bad.

People who subscribed legitimately can become uninterested in your emails over time. Your send frequency or volume may not be the right fit for some subscribers, your content may not be on point or as sharp as it once was, or some email addresses on your list could have simply fallen out of use.

Your email list is an investment that can reap dividends for years to come, but it requires some maintenance to reach and maintain its zenith.

Monitoring your lists and looking for changes in key performance metrics like open rates, click-throughs, unsubscribes, bounces and other indicators is important in identifying issues and helping maintain balance and quality in your subscriber list.

An upwards swing in complaints with an upload from a new data source might mean that your sign up form isn’t quite compliant or requires some clearer messaging.

A heap of bounces from erroneous addresses might mean that your contest form has been targeted by spambots or by people with no intention of being added to your mailing list.

Dwindling open rates over successive sends may point to a need for tightening up your content, a lowering of send frequency or it may perhaps indicate that your list is in need of a spring cleaning.

The key here is to monitor your results and then to take action or reach out to your ESP for guidance when you identify that something is wrong.

Open rates very rarely improve on their own. Think of your potential engagement issues as having a snowball effect. Low open rates or high spam complaint rates are a clear signal to ISPs that people don’t want your emails – as a result, they can block or filter your later sends which can lead to even more engagement issues.

Furthermore, those engagement issues are usually an indicator of a problem that will want to be addressed promptly – whether it be with the source or management of your lists, your campaign content or something else entirely. Ignoring the issue and hoping your spam complaint rates will lower or that your open rates will improve over time is not the best approach.

Be proactive and ask for help if you need it. We want your email marketing campaigns to be a success and are happy to help wherever we can.

Re-engage for the win

A re-engagement campaign is one of the best options for a list suffering from issues with poor engagement, spam complaints or if you simply want to ensure that your list is full of your most active and engaged recipients.

The idea here is that you send a series of re-engagement campaigns to your inactive or disengaged subscribers as a way of both re-engaging those people and also identifying the people who are genuinely uninterested in your campaigns.

Re-engagement campaigns let your subscribers know that you understand they haven’t been active in a while and that you want to continue emailing them, only if they’re still interested. You want to remind your inactive recipients what they’re missing and give them a clear call to action so they can easily confirm whether or not they would like to remain on your subscriber list.

Although not a typical re-engagement campaign, check out this example from Rabbit that encourages subscribers to come back to the site and includes a one-question survey to get feedback.

In any re-engagement campaign, make sure to include a confirmation link for your recipient to indicate their continuing interest which would then automatically populate a list of confirmed and active subscribers in your account. Having confirmed their permission, those subscribers have demonstrated their continued engagement with your brand and you should see improved results that will help build the foundation of a strong sending reputation.

You would then want to remove anyone who chose not to confirm their permission via the re-engagement process from your lists. While it can be difficult to consider removing subscribers from your list, these uninterested subscribers can adversely affect your chances of getting your campaigns to your active recipients.

A one-time re-engagement campaign to an inactive list is a good start – a regular course of re-engagement every couple of months is even better. This can help you maintain your sending reputation and strong results but will also help you curb any decay in your list before it negatively affects your sends.

Best practices for running a successful re-engagement campaign

Email list hygiene is all about making every subscriber count. If you have users who are taking up list spots, but not engaging, action needs to be taken. We’ve shown that it isn’t always about removal, but instead reaching out.

When you reach out, you’re following email list hygiene best practices. You don’t have to get rid of inactive subscribers right off—instead, you can try and win them back. Let’s go over some great emails that show exactly how re-engagement campaigns should function.

Lowe’s

A re-engagement email example from Lowe's - How Your Email Lists Affect Delivery and Engagement

Source: Lowe’s

When you’re looking to reengage an inactive subscriber, you have to think about why they left in the first place. Maybe they felt the company simply didn’t have anything to offer them, at least via the email platform. This email from Lowe’s alerts subscribers to recent changes. This is always a good idea, as it revitalizes subscriber interest.

Felix Gray

Here's a re-engagement email example from Felix Gray - How Your Email Lists Affect Delivery and Engagement

Source: Really Good Emails

Since a re-engagement campaign should always remind the subscriber what they could be missing out on, it’s a good idea to note any unused perks they still have: in-store credit, coupons, or rewards points. In some cases, a customer may have forgotten their perks and could return to spend their rewards.

This is an opportunity to win them back. If they didn’t leave behind any credits or coupons that they’ll be missing out on, you could consider offering them a special deal to make a return a more alluring.

Boulevard

Here's an email example from Boulevard's re-engagement campaign - How Your Email Lists Affect Delivery and Engagement

Source: Boulevard Brewing Co.

If all else fails, don’t underestimate the value of simply asking your subscriber if they want to keep receiving emails. Sure, a good re-engagement campaign will offer incentives. There’s no guarantee these will work, though, so you can always reach out and ask your subscriber directly.

As shown in this example from Boulevard Brewing Co., the question doesn’t always have to be bland. You can integrate your brand’s elements into it and get creative. Doing this gives the email a little more character and a better presentation, which could entice subscribers to stick around.

Email list hygiene means knowing what email to send each subscriber at what time. If there have been updates since they last got in touch, an email discussing them could be best. If they have time-sensitive rewards that could expire, a friendly reminder is the best idea.

If all else fails, simply offering one last request concerning re-engagement can be the right move. Sometimes simply being asked is enough to make them return.

If you want to get really creative and try to salvage every subscriber as earnestly as possible, you can develop a full series of the emails like we showed in the last example.

Wrap up

Getting email deliverability right is like baking a multi-tiered cake. You can put on every layer of frosting and add the decorations, but if you use rotten eggs, your cake is always going to taste bad.

Your email list is the foundation of your email marketing and ensuring that you build and maintain your list carefully is imperative to the successful delivery and engagement of your emails.

Looking to re-engage your inactive subscribers? Learn to write the perfect email to bring them back.

This post was originally published in December 2015