7 Email Deliverability Best Practices You Should Know

Picture of emails going into a laptop computer screen

Email deliverability is the fundamental measure of an email’s successful journey to an intended recipient’s inbox. In the vast landscape of digital communication, ensuring that your carefully crafted messages reach the right audience is paramount.

A healthy email deliverability rate hovers between 83% and 89%, indicating that, on average, some emails may not reach their intended destination. Email deliverability is more than just a technical aspect; it forms the backbone of effective communication and marketing strategies.

A low email deliverability rate can have far-reaching consequences that impact various aspects of your communication efforts. Understanding these implications is crucial for any business or individual looking to establish and maintain a solid digital presence.

Here are some of the implications of low email deliverability:

  • Lost Revenue Opportunities: Undelivered emails result in lost revenue as potential customers are not reached, reducing the chance of converting leads into sales.
  • Decreased Customer Engagement: Emails that end up in spam folders or don’t arrive at all can damage customer trust and engagement, causing missed opportunities to interact with your audience.
  • Wasted Marketing Efforts: Crafting compelling content and eye-catching visuals takes time and effort. When these efforts go unnoticed due to poor deliverability, the investment in creating these emails is wasted.
  • Damaged Sender Reputation: A sender’s reputation plays a significant role in determining email deliverability. Consistently poor deliverability can tarnish your sender’s reputation, leading to even more emails ending up in spam folders.

In this post, we’ll delve into the intricacies of email deliverability and explore the factors that can influence it. Additionally, we’ll provide a comprehensive set of email deliverability best practices that can be implemented to enhance your email deliverability rates.

From understanding the importance of sender reputation to optimizing content quality and maintaining a healthy subscriber list, we’ll equip you with the knowledge and strategies to navigate email deliverability issues effectively.

What influences email deliverability?

Email deliverability is influenced by several interconnected factors that collectively shape the fate of your messages in the digital realm. A comprehensive understanding of these factors is crucial to crafting a successful email marketing strategy.

Explore the key determinants below:

  • Email Authentication: Establishing your email’s authenticity through methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC enhances deliverability by reducing the likelihood of your emails being flagged as suspicious.
  • List Health: The quality of your email list significantly impacts deliverability. A clean and engaged subscriber list reduces the risk of triggering spam filters.
  • Bounce Rate and Unsubscribe Rate: High bounce rates and unsubscribes signal to email providers that your content might be unwanted, negatively impacting deliverability.
  • Sender Reputation: Sender reputation is built over time based on the quality of your emails and your adherence to email deliverability best practices. A positive reputation increases the likelihood of inbox placement.
  • Open Rate: Email providers note how many recipients open your emails. A higher open rate indicates relevant content and positively influences deliverability.
  • Click-Through Rate: Engaging content that encourages recipients to click on links demonstrates relevancy and contributes to better deliverability.
  • Email Volume and Sending Practices: Consistency in email volume and following proper sending practices, such as avoiding sudden spikes, ensures that your emails aren’t flagged as spam.

By addressing these factors, you can significantly enhance your email deliverability and optimize your communication efforts for success.

7 best practices for email deliverability

Enhancing email deliverability involves a combination of strategic approaches and technical measures. By following these email deliverability best practices, you can significantly increase the likelihood of your emails reaching your audience’s inboxes and avoiding the dreaded spam folder.

1. Make sure you have the correct authentication in place

Authenticating your emails is the first defense against deliverability issues and phishing attempts. Implementing the proper protocols instills trust in your recipients and email providers alike.

  • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): This cryptographic method verifies that the content of an email has not been altered in transit. It also ensures the email originated from the indicated domain.
  • SPF (Sender Policy Framework): SPF specifies which IP addresses are allowed to send emails on behalf of your domain. This prevents spammers from forging your domain’s identity.
  • DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): DMARC builds upon SPF and DKIM, providing a policy framework for handling emails that fail authentication. It also enables reporting on authentication failures.

Simplelists’ support for these email authentication methods is particularly noteworthy, as it underscores their commitment to helping users ensure the integrity and authenticity of their emails.

2. Maintain a healthy opt-in email list

Your email subscriber list forms the bedrock of successful email deliverability. A healthy list ensures your messages reach the right audience and strengthens your sender reputation. Employing strategies to maintain list health is crucial for establishing a reliable communication channel with your subscribers.

  • Active and Engaged Subscribers: The heart of list health lies in the level of engagement your subscribers exhibit. Regularly sending valuable and relevant content helps keep your audience engaged and eager to open your emails.
  • Double Opt-In Process: Implementing a double opt-in process adds an extra layer of confirmation before subscribers join your list. This process involves sending a confirmation email to ensure subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails.
  • Managing Inactive Subscribers: Inactivity doesn’t have to mean the end of the road for a subscriber. Regularly assess and address inactive subscribers to rekindle their interest.

Simplelists’ feature of automatic removal of problematic addresses underscores the importance of list health. By promptly removing addresses that consistently exceed the bounce rate threshold, Simplelists actively contributes to maintaining strong deliverability rates.

3. Monitor sender reputation

Your sender reputation holds the key to your email deliverability success. This metric is closely monitored by email service providers (ESPs) and plays a critical role in determining whether your emails are destined for the inbox or fated to be trapped in spam filters. Understanding and proactively managing your sender reputation can significantly impact your email campaigns’ effectiveness.

  • Sender Reputation Defined: At its core, sender reputation measures how trustworthy and reliable you are perceived as an email sender. ISPs rely on your sender reputation to make crucial decisions about the fate of your emails. This reputation acts as a stamp of approval or a red flag, influencing whether your emails end up in the inbox, the spam folder, or are outright blocked.
  • Domain and IP Reputation: Understanding the distinction between domain and IP reputation is essential, as both factors contribute to your overall sender reputation.
    • Domain Reputation: Your domain reputation is based on the reputation of your sending domain, reflecting the overall quality and behavior of your email campaigns originating from that domain. This reputation considers engagement metrics, spam complaints, and other relevant signals.
    • IP Reputation: On the other hand, your IP reputation is tied to the specific IP address from which you send your emails. This reputation is influenced by the sending history associated with that IP address, including past deliverability rates, engagement rates, and spam complaints.

But what do you do if your sender reputation is poor?

If you find yourself in a situation where your domain reputation, IP reputation, or sender reputation is poor and want to improve it, then below are available tools to monitor your sender reputation effectively

  • Sender Score
  • Barracuda
  • Talos
  • IPVoid
  • Cyren
  • Google Postmaster tools.

Sender reputation repair takes time. Implementing measures can gradually rebuild your sender reputation and restore email deliverability rates.

4. Monitor bounces and complaints

Safeguarding your sender reputation requires vigilant monitoring of email bounce rates and recipient complaints. These metrics are direct indicators of the quality and relevance of your email campaigns.

  • Negative Impact of Bounces and Complaints: High bounce rates and many spam complaints can significantly harm your sender reputation. This, in turn, diminishes your email deliverability.
  • Adhering to Email Deliverability Best Practices: Following industry best practices, such as maintaining a healthy list and sending relevant content, is essential to prevent high bounce rates and complaints.
  • Avoiding Purchased Email Lists: Purchased email lists are notorious for poor engagement and deliverability issues. Avoiding them altogether helps maintain a clean and engaged subscriber base.
  • Review Email Relevance and Quality: If you continue to experience deliverability issues despite following the email deliverability best practices, evaluate the relevance and quality of your email content. Irrelevant or low-quality content can lead to complaints and reduced engagement.

5. Segment audience for relevancy

Segmentation plays a pivotal role in both recipient engagement and overall email deliverability. Tailoring your messages to specific audience groups enhances relevance and paves the way for better engagement metrics.

  • The connection between Engagement and Deliverability: ISPs closely monitor engagement metrics like open rates, clicks, and unsubscribes to gauge the relevancy of your emails. Higher engagement often leads to improved deliverability.
  • ISP Tracking of Engagement Metrics: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use engagement data to determine whether your emails should land in the inbox or spam folder. Positive engagement signals relevancy.
  • Strategies for Increasing Engagement and Relevance: Personalizing emails, crafting compelling subject lines, and delivering content aligned with recipients’ interests effectively boost engagement and deliverability.

Simplelists’ features for audience segmentation provide a valuable tool for tailoring content to different segments of your subscriber base, fostering deeper engagement and bolstering deliverability.

6. Maintain consistent email volume

The volume of emails you send can significantly impact your deliverability rates. A balanced and consistent sending pattern is essential to establish trust between recipients and email service providers.

  • Impact of Email Volume: ISPs monitor email sending patterns to identify potential spammers. Consistent senders are more likely to be recognized as legitimate.
  • Sudden Volume Spikes and Spam Filters: Rapid increases in email volume can trigger spam filters, as they often mimic the behavior of spammers. This can result in a negative impact on deliverability.
  • Effective Email Volume Management: Gradually increasing email volume before major campaigns allows ISPs to adapt to your sending patterns. Maintaining a consistent sending frequency helps avoid sudden spikes.

7. Deliver high-quality content

Content is at the heart of email deliverability. Ensuring that your emails provide value and engagement opportunities for recipients is key to achieving positive engagement metrics.

  • Importance of Content in Deliverability: ISPs closely monitor engagement metrics like open rates and clicks to assess the quality and relevance of your content. High engagement correlates with improved deliverability.
  • Creating Deliverable Content: Craft content that avoids spam-like language, maintains a balanced text-to-image ratio, and features a mobile-friendly design.
  • Significance of Valuable Content: Providing genuinely valuable information to your subscribers fosters trust and engagement, ultimately boosting deliverability.

To ensure the right message reaches the right people at the right time, it’s also vital to utilize segmentation. Simplelists’ advanced segmentation capabilities can support you in targeting your audience with personalized content for optimal results.

Improve Email Deliverability with Simplelists

Enhancing email deliverability is essential for successful communication and marketing. Adhering to the email deliverability best practices outlined above can significantly increase your chances of reaching your audience’s inboxes and maximizing engagement.

Benefit from stronger customer engagement, higher campaign success rates, and a positive sender reputation. Simplelists has all the functionality you need to help improve your email deliverability, including advanced segmentation capabilities, authentication protocol support, automatic bounce removal, and reports to help you monitor the health of your campaigns.

Take advantage of the opportunity to enhance your email deliverability and drive your campaigns to success. Sign up for the free trial today.