Unwrapping Holiday Email Deliverability

Hey everyone, and welcome to this workshop, unwrapping Holiday, email deliverability, the secrets and strategies that cut through the holiday flurry. I’m Amanda, your host for today’s session, and I am thrilled to be here with a Campaign Monitor team. I’ve spent the past decade helping both B2B and B2C organizations improve their email performance through smart deliverability practices. So today’s topic is really one that I’m super passionate about, and I’m really glad that you’re all joining as we head into what is arguably the most exciting, most competitive, most thrilling, however you wanna categorize it, time of the year for email marketers.

Mailbox providers are getting more strict and cracking down, and we’re all vying for customer attention, and it’s harder than ever to capture attention. So today we’re really gonna unwrap some strategies, best practices, and just proven techniques that will really help your email program outshine, this holiday season so that you can really stand out. So let’s go through the quick look on the agenda for today. First, we’re gonna start by exploring the holiday inbox, what really happens behind the scenes during this high traffic season.

We’re gonna look at some factors that really influence inbox placement and how to optimize each one. Then we’re gonna quickly walk through a month to month holiday deliverability roadmap, and you’ll walk away with a good understanding of what to do October, november, December to really prep and build a sustainable email program. And after that, we’re gonna go into my favorite part. We’re gonna be sharing six high performing creative campaigns that you can employ, deploy yourself this holiday season.

And finally, we are gonna wrap everything up today and talk about tracking and monitoring your email program all season long, how to interpret the metrics and really, which are the metrics that mattered. So, without further ado, let’s go ahead and dive in. And before we dive into holiday deliverability, let’s just take a second to talk about why emails still matter so much and why it’s not going anywhere. The ROI of email marketing continues to outperform every other digital channel for a number of industries, as you can see on your screen.

It’s not just a marketing stat that is, you know, shown for fluff. It’s just a reflection of how personal and powerful and profitable the email channel truly is. And even as new platforms come and go, email really just continues to be a consistent channel that drives results for companies. And it’s really how brands are building relationships with their customers.

So today’s entire session is really about protecting that because when you land in the inbox, you’re not just improving your email deliverability, you are really just strengthening one of your most valuable business assets. And now let’s talk about the holiday inbox. This is where opportunity meets overload between October and December. Inbox volume doesn’t just go up, it triples.

And the biggest surge is really happening between the Thanksgiving and Christmas rush. That’s when brands are flooding inboxes with Black Friday. Cyber Monday offers shipping reminders, last minute deals, and for good reason because that small six to eight week window of time can account for 20 to 30% of annual revenue for many businesses. But on the flip side, you have mailbox providers, MVPs, as we call them, that know what’s coming to and during this window.

And it’s just, it’s a way for them to protect from like the influx of spam or maybe poor quality email. So on the bright side, when you do do email, right, the payoff is massive, and the performance tied to the holiday season, specifically around click-through rates on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, they skyrocket to 13% compared to the usual 1.2%. So when we think about strong email deliverability, what you do to prep for game time, the Super Bowl of any email program can really make or break or year end success. I love this quote, the marathon is one or lost in the months before you tow the starting line.

The success of your holiday campaigns, it’s not determined by the week of Black Friday or Cyber Monday or Thanksgiving or Christmas or any other holiday. It’s determined by what you’re doing and your email behaviors in the months leading up to it. The senders who are following best practices, who are warming up their domains, who are cleaning their lists, and who are building a steady engagement flow, are the ones who are crossing the finish line strong. Now, this is one of the most important distinctions to understand, especially during the holidays when inbox competition is at its peak.

So email delivery simply means that your message made it to a mailbox provider, again, like a Gmail, an Outlook, a Yahoo, and that it wasn’t blocked outright. So I guess think about it like your email arrived to the post office, that’s a great first step, but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that your message reach the mailbox itself. So email delivery on one hand is your email is received by the mailbox provider. And on the other hand, we have email deliverability.

Does it land in the inbox folder or is it getting tucked away in spam? Or is it getting tucked away within a sub folder within the inbox folder? Like a primary, the promotions folder tab. So think about it in the holiday context, you’re sending out a holiday card delivery means that it reached the house, but deliverability is ultimately the gift inside it, made it to the mantle instead of being tucked away and lost, and you know, the pile of unopened mail.

And that’s where we’re here to share how you can strengthen that today. So let’s talk about the three pillars that make up strong holiday deliverability. First and foremost is authentication. This is your SPF records, your DIM and your DM A C records.

They are proving to the mailbox providers that these messages are genuinely from you. They’re not an imposter, they’re not spam trying to sneak into the inbox. And so when your authentication is properly set up, mailbox providers can confidently say, you know, yep, this message checks out. And if your from address doesn’t necessarily match your verified domain identity, that’s, that raises some red flags, to MVPs.

And you know, it’s important to note that Campaign Monitor really makes this authentication super simple and secure. When you set up a custom domain campaign, monitor is automatically guiding you through these authentications, to make sure that everything is aligned perfectly with your sending domain. Next, we have reputation. Think of this as your report card.

If you have been treating your subscribers well all year, your ultimate reward is a prime spot in the inbox. And, and again, Campaign Monitor here really does help protect your reputation with smart sending tools that you know, the best email marketers are adopting, like list hygiene and, and how you handle your bounces and how you segment and, suppress contacts that might not be engaging with, your email programs. And then finally, you have engagement, and this is the heart of deliverability. Mailbox providers are looking with a fine tooth comb at how people are interacting with your emails.

What are they spending time reading? What are they clicking, what are they replying to? And all of these positive actions are super important. And this tells mailbox providers that, yep, this sender belongs to the inbox ’cause it’s the type of content that the recipient wants to receive.

And consistency is the bow that wraps it all together. And the mailbox providers are rewarding senders who are steady and predictable. Whether you’re sending, you know, a campaign once a week or you’re sending a campaign once a month, however, it is mailbox providers love a steady cadence of emails. So here’s where we start to kind of pull back the curtain on the science part of email deliverability and what email providers are actually looking for.

And it doesn’t happen outta luck. It’s not a lottery system, it’s based on your engagement. And so on the left side of the spectr you have the naughty list. These are the actions that hurt your sender reputation the most.

Even a tiny spike in spam complaints can cause the, the mailbox providers to tighten up and block future sends. So in the neutral zone, that’s where you have actions that are neither good or bad, they just don’t help you with either things like opening but not engaging or deleting emails right away or skimming without clicking. Unsubscribes also fall in this neutral bucket. They’re not necessarily harmful, but too many could indicate that you’re missing the mark or on, on the content that you’re sending your, your recipients.

This is positive email engagement. And what the MVPs are looking here are explicit, actions that show that your email wants to be received. So replies, forwards link clicks or subscribers adding you to their contact list as a safe sender. These are all things that signal to the MVPs that your message is a valuable and welcome.

It’s, Hey, DM me for this piece of content, and that triggers a influx of engagement and again, tells the email providers that your email belongs in the primary inbox folder. So, the science to, you know, email deliverability really kind of boils down to send emails that people want to open, send emails that people can engage with easily and feel are worth engaging with and sharing and, and really think about making the, the content kind of shareable, snackable, and relevant to your senders, to your recipients. So let’s talk about how do we avoid getting on the naughty list? And the first thing is content filtering.

Mailbox providers are using machine learning and natural language processing to scan through every single subject line and every line of content that you send. And they’re not just looking for bad words, they’re analyzing the tone and the structure and the intent behind your email. So starting at the basics or language, staying away from spammy or aggressive phrases with free or act now or don’t miss out, that could potentially set off alarms because they mimic the behavior of bulk senders, which makes mailbox providers cautious. The same goes for excessive capitalization or overuse of exclamation marks or a storm of emojis.

So instead we have just on the screen here, a couple of, options that you could swap these out for, you know, focus on clear conversational and messaging that’s on brand. Think of something like a little something on us or a holiday thank you from our team that feels a lot more human and thoughtful and authentic, than, you know, the language that you see on the other column. And that’s the kind of tone that builds trust. Now I will say there is an important caveat here.

I think truly div deliverability is all about balance and context. If your audience is expecting terms like sale or free or holiday deal from your brand and they keep opening and clicking and engaging with your emails, those words are not necessarily going to hurt your inbox placement. I think a simple rule to follow is, you know, you know your audience best use language that matches your brand voice and monitor the engagement metrics as you go. Now the next thing, you know, we covered language, let’s kind of shift to the structure of your emails, because formatting really does play a big role in email deliverability too.

And so the way your email is actually built, also signals if it’s a reputable sender. So first up is image only emails. If your entire message is just one big image with no text, that’s a major red flag for MVPs. Filters can’t necessarily read images, so they can’t verify if the content is legitimate.

The next thing I wanna cover is links too. Many links, broken URLs or using link shorteners like Bitly or, you know, some native ones, can also trigger some spam filters because, believe it or not, they’re common tactics that are used by malicious senders. So, as part of your email QA process, before you send any email out, always test your links, make sure they work and keep them to a reasonable number. I would say, you know, about two to four e links, two to three really max for an email campaign.

If they don’t match your sending domain, then mailbox providers start to get suspicious. And that could look like a spoofing technique. So keep your identity consistent from top to bottom. That’s bill’s trust.

70% of holiday email campaigns are opened on a phone. So if your message does not render well, or it’s just a bad experience for the reader, it can really hurt your engagement metrics. And so I wanna call out, you know, Campaign Monitors does a really, really great job of helping you make sure that your email campaigns are prepped and polished. You can use the inbox preview and that feature will show you and allow you to see what your email’s gonna look like across devices, across if it’s a dark mode or a light mode, or different domains and different clients so you can fix issues, potential issues before they become bigger problems that impact deliverability.

It’s not about rules, it’s about relationships. And at the end of the day, subscribers engage with what feels familiar, what feels valuable, and most importantly, what feels relevant to them. When people are looking forward to hearing from you, the mailbox providers are taking notice. Next step with that, that supports that is consistency.

I think, you know, again, the mailbox provider is remembering and sees your, your, you know, track record of your tone and your cadence and your authenticity. So really think about email deliverability like you’re nurturing a plant or nurturing a friendship. You know, the more genuine and respectful and consistent you are, the stronger the relationship becomes, and the more forgiving it becomes. If you do have a slip up here or there, they’re more forgiving and the mailbox providers are more forgiving and won’t automatically write you off as a bad email sender.

So, opting in contacts you know, this time of year specifically, think about it like, you know, every new subscriber, needs an invitation to the party. You know, you only want the guests that you invite to the party to actually be there. And it’s really here about quality over quantity. Quality subscribers lead to stronger engagement, which leads to a higher inbox placement and just a healthier holiday season overall.

And, you know, offering content downloads like holiday guides or checklists or gift lists, high value content is in going to really encourage meaningful opt-ins. And, you know, when you think about, other ways that you can opt in, newsletters are a great way to do this. You know, really thinking about how can you create a newsletter to make it feel exclusive or special, and, you know, providing a lot of value within a newsletter. Webinars and events are a great way to opt in contacts, especially this time of year too, because they’re attracting, you know, super highly engaged audiences who already trusting your brand.

And the other thing, you know, to remember, if you’re in the, you know, B2B space, you know, you can also try some in-product prompts. Let’s say putting a, you know, an offer within your dashboard or your homepage or your platform or your solution or your tech solution, to encourage signups where your users are engaged the most. So, you know, I think the thing to remember here is, you know, and it, it could be a hard pill to swallow for some businesses is that one engaged subscriber is worth way more, in comparison than a hundred passive ones. And so quality is what really begins and, and grows your reputation.

These are a great way to create a seamless kind of branded experience. You can design these forms right in Campaign Monitor, and then, you know, add ’em to your website, a blog post, your homepage, your pricing page, and then pop-up forms is also a great way to capture attention, in the moment too. So again, you could use Campaign Monitor or, and build up a pop-up form. You can set it to appear at a certain time or a certain time of the scroll, or when a, you know, contact is about to exit.

So all of these options just really work beautifully to, to build trust through consistency. And, and popups on the other hand, are driving action when it’s, when it’s hot striking all the irons hot. So the next key thing is having a warm welcome. When someone subscribes to your email program, they’re at peak curiosity.

It doesn’t just build trust and engagement, it, it gives the mailbox providers a first kind of signal that, yep, this sender belongs here. And on average, the open rate for welcome emails is 68.6% compared to about 19.7% for regular campaigns. That’s a massive opportunity to make a great first impression. And, you know, think of your welcome series as a, as a conversation starter and not just a one and done campaign.

Then you’re setting expectations, how often they will expect to receive email, what kind of content you’re gonna be sending, and then think about really delivering value. Maybe it’s an exclusive offer or a high value content or a surprise gift. You know, each one of these touches, again, is showing that the mailbox providers that your emails are consistently being engaged with, and that grows your deliverability over time. Now, welcome journeys don’t just happen after an initial signup.

You know, obviously your post signup, sending a welcome journey immediately after within the hour, while your brand is fresh in your mind, is a really, really impactful way to do it. After someone downloads a piece of content follow up, we say within 24 hours with maybe related blogs or resources, how can you always think to yourself, how can I help my recipient continue their experience with my brand and not just have it be a dead end, and an abrupt stop? And of course, you know, after a purchase, send a thank you note that adds value. Maybe share tips on how you can use the product.

And so, you know, these timely behavior based sends are, are inbox gold, and that’s what keeps your message off, off of the naughty list. So here’s what you know, automation journey looks like inside of Campaign Monitor. What you’re seeing is a prebuilt welcome journey. And it’s just a simple automated flow that makes it easy to send the right message at the right time.

So you can see there’s an offer, an incentive. We, we thank them for subscribing. We’re providing some kind of, content or value, maybe it’s a helpful guide or a blog post or an intro to your brand story. So this is where we’re shifting from a transactional message into a relational message.

These are right off the gate, inviting your subscribers to manage how they are going to receive email content from you. So the first one is inviting them to customize their experience. It allows ’em to select, how often they wanna hear from you. And then this, the option, the example on your screen that says, thanks for signing up with the green button.

And in this case, it’s weekly. So all of this happens, you know, pretty automatically through Campaign Monitors drag and drop. It’s in super easy, beautiful automation builder. And, you know, I think what’s really great about Campaign Monitor, it’s super easy to launch and you can just drag and drop, these prebuilt journeys right into your email program.

And honestly, one of the most underrated things that people do for deliverability. We are heading into a world where subscribers, really, anybody that consumes anything from a business they want to feel in control, we are gonna get to a world where we’re, we wanna customize the way we call up, you know, a company and engage with ’em. So we wanna feel like we’re in control. And when we feel like we have the power, that’s when subscribers stay engaged and and loyal to the brand.

And so, you know, something that, you know, I hear a lot of email marketers say, it’s like, ah, I don’t want my my subscribers to unsubscribe, or, you know, they get really hyper-focused on the unsubscribes. I’m here to tell you that unsubscribes are actually healthy for your email program. They help you maintain your list hygiene, and they help reduce the spam complaint. It’s far better to lose a subscriber that’s not engaged than keep one that’s dragging all of your metrics and your deliverability down.

You know, it’s really important to make sure that your opt-ins are explicitly opted in and they’re clearly aligned with the type of content, that they expect from you. So that’s where topic level choice really comes in here, giving your subscribers the ability to select the content, that interests ’em to make sure that they’re only receiving what’s valuable, letting your subscribers set their own rhythm. Some want weekly updates, some want daily emails, some wanna just check in during the holidays or when you have an exclusive offer or an exclusive of event. So, you know, giving your subscribers flexibility when it comes to frequency and giving them an option to opt down, you know, send me fewer emails can really save relationships and keep your your spam complaints low.

The last thing you want is for your contact to, you know, start emailing you and contact you and, and, you know, wanting that confirmation. It just gives them peace of mind, that they are being listened to and their preferences are being respected. And I think I mentioned this at the top of the call, but consistency is the, the bow that ties it all together when it comes to deliverability success. And when your audience knows what to expect, and again, looks forward to your emails, you’re building trust within the mailbox providers.

Relevance drives engagement, and there’s a study that shows that a personalized subject lines actually increase open rate by 26%. And personalized clickthrough actually perform 202% better than just a generic one. And so what this tells us is targeted messages are the ones that get noticed. And Campaign Monitor love this because they make personalization so easy.

And so I think the next thing to hit on when it comes to consistent value is making sure that your email program has a healthy mix of content. The best senders don’t just show up one time of year when they have something to sell. They are staying in touch throughout the year with value, with stories, with education, with inspiration, with appreciation. And, you know, a good kind of rule of thumb is to mix a promo email with, you know, your value driven emails.

And it’s not just the same type of email that eventually maybe might make your contacts fatigued. So finally, you know, consistency is, you know, plays a big key role here. In terms of, you know, the, the reason why is because mailbox providers love predictability. And so if you suddenly, you know, triple or double your send volume in November and December, mailbox providers see that as risky behavior.

And then making sure that you have a steady rhythm of emails. And that really is what is gonna signal stability in your email program. Okay, so let’s talk about your roadmap to holiday deliverability success October, November, December. So October is your prep month.

You know, I think the biggest mistake that I see is email marketers waiting until November to ramp up. And again, the marathon starts in the months before the towing lines. So mailbox providers really need to see that healthy engagement before peak season hits. So, you know, making sure that you’re warming up your domain gradually increase your send volume week over week.

Those spikes are going to immediately trigger a red flag for the MVPs. This is when you’re prepping your list, you’re cleaning your list, you’re removing, you know, contacts that haven’t engaged in 90, 180 a year, and making sure that, you know, you’re focusing on your best engaged contacts, and you have a segmented strategy. You know, this is not a one size fits all approach. And, really being super intentional about how you interact with your best, highest engaged contacts and your coldest least engaged contacts.

And then finally, making sure that you have all of your authentication in place. All of your records should be aligned and passing. This is a time to test, test, test, test, your email rendering what it looks like on dark mode, light mode, what it looks like on mobile versus desktop, so that, you know, your emails are really do look great once you’re able to get to the volume that you’re looking for. So November I think is the test of deliverability resilience in my opinion.

This is where segmentation becomes your superpower. You wanna send, again, your highest volume campaigns to your most engaged subscribers first, the ones that are opening and clicking and interacting with your enga with your content. You wanna avoid, you know, batch and blast sends, at large quantities and really stagger your email sends and throttle them over time. That helps your, you know, IP and domain kind of stay under the threshold limits and reduce potentials for spam.

This is where your ab testing, your email program, your subject line, your offers, your content, the timing, is really key. There’s a lot of studies about different timing for email campaigns, and I think this is when you’re really kind of honing in on, how to optimize so that when we get to that end of the month when we’re hitting Black Friday, cyber Monday, the holiday season, you’re performing at peak performance. December is all about sustainability. This is not only setting the tone for your year end deliverability health, but your next year deliverability health.

Sending appreciation emails, a simple, you know, thank you for being part of this journey. You know, these are the types of messages that are gonna help you maintain engagement when, you know, inboxes quiet down. So this is another time to, you know, use this time to clean your list. Again, don’t go silent after the holiday flurry.

Mailbox providers are gonna see a sudden dip in your email activity, and that will signal inconsistency. So if you are going to reduce the number of your emails, do it gradually. And so it’s not done just one time overnight. Okay, so before we jump into some specific examples, you know, there’s kind of four ingredients, if you will, that really, just make up the recipe for a successful holiday email campaign.

Go beyond just a first name personalization. Really tailor your message, and your offer and your content based on what your audience actually cares about. Respect the cadence. Don’t just flood your contacts inbox just because it’s Q4, just to check the box and say that you did, you know, really be thoughtful about sending a consistent rhythm of email campaigns.

I think the best holiday emails really connect and give readers something useful, whether that’s a deal or, inspiration or gratitude. And I put this expert tip in here. I love this one because oftentimes you see email marketers, you know, set their email campaigns to the 15, 30 or the hour mark when you’re thinking about b testing your email campaigns, try testing off times like 7 37 or 6 34 versus seven 30 so that we can avoid the rush of emails that are sent on those, you know, on the hour, on the half hour. Okay, so let’s go into, our, kick it off with one of our most engaging holiday strategies out there, the interactive holiday se se series, excuse me.

These campaigns work because they build anticipation. One of my favorites is this example here of like a digital advent calendar because this keeps subscribers coming back day after day. And what’s great about this approach is that it not only drives clicks and engagements, but it’s also building trust with mailbox providers when they’re seeing a consistent flow of opens and engagement. That steady pattern reinforces a great sender reputation, and, you know, the results speak for themselves.

And when you add video to your email programs, that can boost your click rates by 300%. So it’s a fun way to engage your audience, it’s great for your metrics, and it’s a perfect way to stay top of mind throughout the year. And we also are showing you, hand in hand side by side, some templates that you can quickly customize and then drag into your email program from Campaign Monitor. So this one here is 12 days of deals.

Okay, so moving on. Next one up is one of the most simple and most powerful holiday email strategies. Again, I think one that’s super underrated or one that is not done thoughtfully, and that’s the thank you email. It goes without saying, you know, gratitude emails are, are building goodwill and long-term trust with your contacts.

And, and that type of sincerity actually pays off. You know, emails that express thanks. See a 27% open rate when that thank you is in the subject line and a study show that 80% of consumers are actually more loyal to brands that show appreciation. And so, you know, I think these messages perform so beautifully from a deliverability standpoint because they foster, you know, high engagement, low unsubscribes, low spam complaints, and these are just all signals of a strong reputation.

You can remind your subscribers how long they’ve been with you or what you’ve achieved together with your company. And I think the best time to send these is around Thanksgiving. In, in the new year. I would just avoid that Black Fly Friday, cyber Monday rush, when the inboxes are super flooded up next is personalized gift guides.

And relevance is what drives engagement and boosts email deliverability. So when you are helping contacts and your people find exactly what they’re looking for or inspire them with ideas your positioning your brand as a true partner, as a true trusted advisor, not just another, you know, sales person that’s hitting their inbox. And you can really get creative with how you segment this. You can segment by behavior, by demographic, by purchase history.

And again, the proof is in the pudding. Personalized emails drive a six XA higher transaction rate, and 75% of shoppers actually expect brands to personalize offers. So this is the expectation that your contacts have. And the sweet spot for these campaigns is November through mid-December.

All right, so recipe number four. Another great way, way to close out the year for the holidays is a year in review campaign. And these are perfect campaigns that you can use to highlight milestones or achievements, or maybe it’s a roundup of your most loved content from the past year. And they help build connection with your contacts because they are reminding your audience what you have accomplished together.

And, they like to see what a brand that they have an affinity to has accomplished. And, they also trigger signals to the MVPs that are favorable for deliverability. Like they spent a long time reading the email they share, they forward, they might reply and say, great work to the company. And so for sending this type of email, we’re always thinking about, you know, before Thanksgiving or wait until after the Christmas holiday, when the inbox noise kind of slows down and people are catching up.

Okay, so moving right along. You know, I think this is one of the most effective and appreciated holiday sends. This is actually one of my favorites that I love receiving in my inbox. I’m calling it the Last Minute Helper.

And these are about meeting your subscribers where they are, they’re stressed about timing, they’re don’t know what to get. They’re looking for, you know, inspiration, they’re high urgency. You know, I think the important thing is that you, you wanna come off and strike a helpful not frantic tone because you wanna kind of assert that confidence for your subscribers. And so focus on being helpful, shipping reminders, sending some cutoff dates, you know, that just kind of reminds subscribers that they have to, you know, make a move and take action before it’s too late.

And the other thing that I love is, shipping reminders. Actually shipping reminders themselves can drive a 40% higher click through than just a standard promotion. So when we’re thinking about these last minute helper type campaigns, the ideal window is five to seven days before shipping cutoffs, and evening hours. That is when you know the anxiety of gift buying and gift giving really starts to peak.

And last but not least, the trusted Black Friday Cyber Monday promo. If you are a B2C company, this is the Super Bowl of email marketing. You know, even if you don’t consider yourself, you know, a brand, that has maybe an offer to give maybe you’re not in e-commerce, or you know, in a good service. This is, this is still important to have presence in the inbox during this weekend.

The key strategy here isn’t volume. You know, you want to really focus on segmenting your list and throttling your sends to avoid spikes in spam. The other thing is really focus on the personalization here. You know, again, it’s not a one size fits all message.

We always say, you know, kind of recommended cadence is five to seven days before the Black Friday Cyber Monday. You can start kind of teasing what you know, offers that are coming down the pipeline, send your main promo through that weekend and then close it out with a final reminder that lasts 12 to 24 hours. A very common technique is an extension of the Black Friday Cyber Monday sale. Again, that’s, that’s a top one because, you know, oftentimes contacts are so flooded with the invite that they might not take the action.

And again, we share this, but you know, I think it, it’s important to hit on it again, that nearly 70% of Black Friday purchases happen on mobile. So make sure that your email designs your call to, you know, call to actions, your your checkout flow even. It really looks just as good as it does on the phone, as it does on desktop. So really think of this as kind like your grand finality where all of your hard work comes into play.

It’s it’s really about keeping an eye on, on what’s happening in the oven. And so I wanted to quickly hit on the metrics that matter this season. And deliverability and engagement could really shift fast during the holiday season. So it’s really critical that you keep a pulse on these metrics, because these are the signals that tell you if your program is thriving or maybe there’s some indicators, that you need to pay attention to.

You know, when one goes out, it can have an impact on the entire strand. And so I really want you to keep your eye on these indicators on a daily and weekly basis. Throughout the season, your spam complaints should stay under 0.1%. If you start creeping higher, that’s your first sign to really pause and investigate.

You know, if you see a sudden jump in your unsubscribes, that just might mean that your content or your frequency or your cadence might be off bounces. Keep these under 2%. And finally track your engagement metrics. Your opens, your clicks, your click through rates, your conversions from your email channel.

Now don’t forget, Google Spam complaint threshold is 0.3%. So even a small uptick can have a big impact and a lasting impact for MVPs like Google. So to dig deeper and kind of give you that layer you know, I highly recommend that you have access to postmaster tools. The screenshot on your screen is what a Google Postmaster tool looks like.

You could access Google Postmaster tools, verify and set up your domain, and then you’ll be able to see on a dashboard, what your domain reputation looks like, your complaint rates, and your spam filtering on the actual MVP level. So these are tools that, you know, really help you kind of spot dips, identify if issues are, you know, specific to domains and help you take action. All right? So, you know, the best campaigns and the healthiest metrics, deliverability, dips can still happen.

I think think of this section as your deliverability, kind of triage guide a way that you can, you know, take a quick pause to assess what’s going on and get your emails back on track. First and foremost, you do want to pause any large sends. So you wanna kind of stop sending any big blast. But caveat to that, keep your automations running, your welcomes, your nurtures, your trigger-based automations.

Check your off education. Make sure, you know, your SPF, your D chem, your DAC are aligned in passing, then you want to, you know, check within your CRM or in your postmaster tools for any spikes in your spam complaints or any dips in reputation. And I always like to pair that information side by side to the email campaign so you can start to see a trend on if a specific message or email campaign is what triggered that spike. So you always wanna look at those hand in hand with your CRM and the postmaster tools.

And you know, I’ve seen it happen many times before where you might have a dip on Google or Yahoo, but the rest of the MVPs are unaffected. And that’s an important time where you wanna segment out those, domains and build a re-engagement plan around those. And that kind of takes me to the next step is, segmenting your contacts, and sending your best email campaigns to your highest engaged group first. Then you can gradually start to kind of scale back up over the next few days once you are assessing all of your email metrics.

All right, so, couple just last kind of closing thoughts. You know, the, these are screenshots of the Campaign Monitor dashboard and these are the metrics that, are really important to track, throughout the holiday season and really all year long. And our goal is to really make it easy for you to see performance in real time. And, you know, you wanna be able to kind of stack your campaign results against your benchmarks, based on the past performance.

You’ll be able to see if it’s a gradual dip in engagement or if it’s a sudden spike based on unsubscribes or spam complaints. And if you do see something unusual, you’re able within our dashboard to really kind of double click right into those details and drill down by campaign or by segment, or even by domain. So, you know, I think staying agile during the holiday season is, is really key. And, you know, we’re also here to equip you with all the tools and the insights to monitor and track your deliverability.

So instead of just seeing your overall email engagement, you can drill down with how you’re performing at, you know, MVPs like Gmail and Yahoo and Outlook. So as we wrap things up, I, you know, I really want you to all remember that deliverability doesn’t start and end with the holidays. The brands that treat deliverability as a year-round strategy, they’re keeping their list healthy, they’re sending consistently, they’re engaging with intention, are the ones that are entering Q4 strong and see their messages really make it home all season long. At Campaign Monitor, we’re a leading email marketing platform trusted by thousands of B2B and B2C brands, to create, send and optimize campaigns that really build relationships and drive results.

And we also offer a library of free resources like our holiday email marketing checklist, or the deliverability triage guide. And you’ll be receiving all of these resources as well as if you’d like to check them out, visit our resource library Campaign Monitor.com/resources, and you’ll be able to peruse through, all of these resources made available for you. And of course, we also have deliverability experts who are always on standby to support you, whether you need, you know, guidance on authentication or, recommendation on reputation recovery or, you know, we have, knowledge based articles and experts that are here to help you. And, you know, we have really built our reputation, around success, so we could help you build yours.

So with that, I wanted to just open it up to some questions. I think we have enough time to take just a handful of questions and we can close it out. Okay. So, this is one that we get quite frequently.

Okay. So one of the simplest, I think, most overlooked tweak that you could do is, is make sure and tighten up your from name and your from address. Make sure that it’s clear and consistent and recognizable to your subscribers. I would say on a technical standpoint, check your authentication.

And then I would say the third part of this is your content. Go back to what you know works. Take a look at your best five to 10 email campaigns and recycle your best performing campaigns from earlier in the year or last holiday season. Because you know, that really just proves to the mailbox providers that you’re a trusted sender and it will help you kind of save time during the holiday season.

Alright, so, how can I tell if a deliverability issue is happening and what should I do first? Okay. So I think the first red flags that you’ll typically see is, a drop in open or your click rates, just your engagement metrics for your email program. Or if you have a sudden spike in bounces or unsubscribes or spam, that’s your cue to, you know, start to peel back the layer and look a little bit deeper in tools like Google Postmaster or within Campaign Monitors, deliverability dashboard.

And then from there, I would pause your large sentence, keep your automations running until you diagnose the problem and come out with a plan and a solution. And, you know, the best thing to do is begin to segment your list and really focus on your best performing emails to your highest engaged. And that will help you, you know, create that recovery plan. Okay.

This is a good one. What’s the number one mistake brands make with deliverability during the holidays? I think the biggest mistake is treating deliverability as a holiday only concern. You know, many brands start kind of scaling up their volume or reengaging their cold contacts right before Q4, and that can tank your sender reputation.

The best approach is to warm up early, build consistent engagement in September and October, and keep your list hygiene, tight test your campaigns before your high volume periods, to make sure that you’re gonna get in that inbox before it gets too crowded. All all right. Well, with that, we thank you so much for joining our session today. We are here to help you and we’re here to empower you with the tools to take your email program to the next level.

Give us a a holler and, and remember, you know, the holiday is a exciting and thrilling time of year. Really focus on creating that plan and, and being agile so that you can, make tweaks and pivots to your email program to make sure that you’re landing in the inbox. With that being said, thank you so much and we hope you have a wonderful day.