Many marketers believe that improving email delivery rates starts with great content and ends with great content. And, while great content is essential to developing your newsletter, it doesn’t matter how good the writing is if your subscribers never see it.
Deliverability is a common struggle between marketing teams; you can do many things when developing marketing content, but it is still difficult to present it to your audience.In fact, according to Demand indicators, 30% of email marketers regard delivery rate as their main challenge, and 67% report an inbox placement rate of 89% or lower.
The good news is that it is different from some channels that have changing needs (*cough* Facebook *cough*), improving the delivery rate of emails boils down to several consistent elements. We will leave the discussion about the nightmare of Facebook advertising to others, and only discuss what we know best: email marketing.
1. Protect your sender’s reputation
In the world of email, your reputation is indeed ahead of you. If your sender has a bad reputation, the email inbox provider will automatically mark your email as spam.according to statistics, 9-14% of marketing emails (Depending on the industry) is marked as spam. Protecting your sender’s reputation is the foundation for improving delivery rates. But how exactly do you do this?
Check the reputation of your IP address
Your IP address is a set of numbers used to identify all emails from your domain. Email providers identify “safe” and “unsafe” emails based on the historical background of your IP address and domain reputation. Why is this important?according to Demand index, Open rate of more than 16% increased by 27% Among email marketers who actively monitor the reputation of the sender.
If the server has found “bad” messages from your IP address in the past, they may blacklist Your domain and send it directly to spam. If they only see “good” mail from your IP address, it will most likely reach the recipient’s main inbox safely. If they have never seen your IP address, their default setting is not to trust it and may send it to spam.
In order to prevent your email from ending up in the spam folder, first of all, Check if your domain or IP address is blacklistedIf so, please visit the blacklisted company’s page to find the requirement to be removed from their list. Requests may include providing subscribers with re-opt-in or delete addresses that were added to your mailing list before a certain date.Better yet, actively use Best practices to stay away from these blacklists Firstly.
If you have a new IP address with little sending reputation, build it by slowly increasing the number of emails sent from it. Send an email to the most engaged subscribers first. They will increase the open rate and show the email provider that this is a “good” email. Sending a large number of emails from “cold” IP addresses (for example to an entire email list) may be marked as spam. It may also allow you to be blacklisted before starting.
Implement authentication protocol
Another way to ensure that your domain is not compromised is to require anyone who sends emails on behalf of your domain to show “credentials” to the email provider.One Domain-based message authentication, reporting and compliance (DMARC) is a DNS protocol That Protect the domain from unauthorized use (Ie, phishing emails and email spoofing). DMARC protects domains by providing email providers with specific instructions on permitted use of sending domains.
When sending an email, the email provider will check the two sources in DMARC—Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Domain Key Identified Mail (DKIM)—to verify legitimacy and determine whether it belongs to the main inbox, Quarantine or spam folder.
- Sun Protection Index: SPF tells the email provider which IP addresses and hostnames can send email from the domain.
- DKIM: DKIM is an encrypted digital signature that tells the receiving inbox provider what Real email It should be included from this domain. For example, all emails from the XYZ domain should contain a title with this text, the logo, and these body paragraphs. If the email does not contain these elements, the authentication “key” will not match. Then the inbox provider will refer to the DMARC protocol to determine whether it enters the spam folder or is completely blocked.
2. Keep your email list hygienic
If most emails are bounced or not opened, it doesn’t matter whether you have a large email list.When the bounce rate increases and the participation indicator decreases, it indicates the receiving server’s Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) You are not actively maintaining your list or sending engaging content. When the server receives these signals, your email may be sent to the spam folder. Maintaining email lists and promoting long-term growth requires proactive pruning and management of your lists.
Regularly check the list of non-participating subscribers and invalid emails
according to statistics, 2%-4% of marketing emails are not delivered every month, Which means that your participation rate has dropped in part due to emails from never seen recipients.
We get it; no one wants to cut their list.However, by deleting the address Hard bounce (I.e. permanently undeliverable) and non-participating subscribers, you will increase the open rate and long-term email delivery rate. If the email hard bounces or the subscriber hasn’t opened the email within 12 to 18 months (depending on the cadence), it’s time to cut it off.
Pro type: Not sure where to start cleaning up your list?Check Quick email verification, An email deliverability tool that can analyze email lists for you.
Double opt-in
One Double choice This means that the subscriber receives an email to confirm their subscription before being added to the email list. This prevents hard bounces because users must verify their email. It also requires subscribers to make additional commitments to confirm their emails, so that you will eventually reduce the number of non-participating users.
Unsubscribe easily
Yes, you read it right. Allow users who are not participating to unsubscribe easily Prevent them from getting tired of hearing about your brand, cultivate the authenticity of your readers, and increase the overall engagement on your list.
You can easily unsubscribe from your email by adding a prominent unsubscribe link in each email and creating a one-click unsubscribe process. The one-click unsubscribe process includes pre-populating email fields, making feedback optional, and creating simple ways to adjust preferences, such as checkboxes.
When the recipient unsubscribes, letting them choose to adjust their preferences is a good way to keep them. Some users may not actually want to unsubscribe, but are just not interested in specific email activities or do not want to receive emails frequently.
Don’t buy email lists
Purchasing email lists can lead to high bounce rates and low participation, and ultimately compromise the integrity of the subscriber list section of opt-in.
The first problem you encounter when buying an email list is the most reputable Email service provider (ESP) does not allow you to send emails to email addresses that are not opt-in. They do this to protect their sender reputation and business.
And, if you do find an ESP that allows you to send to this list, the quality will not exist. Many addresses on the purchase list are invalid, inactive or recycled.You may also encounter Spam trap Use the purchased email list. Spam traps are created by blacklist providers who deliberately put fake addresses in the purchased email lists to identify the domain that sent the spam.
If your email does enter a real, active inbox, please remember that you are invading someone’s personal space uninvited. Your email may be marked as spam by them or their email provider.
Want to know how to increase the email list in the right way?View our A guide for modern marketers to increase their email list!
3. “Limit” your deliveries
Many ESPs enforce daily rate limits (the number of emails you are allowed to send in a day) to prevent spam from being sent from their platforms. ESP is not the only rate-limited. Internet service providers (ISP) will also limit the number of emails they receive from the same IP address within a set time frame to prevent spam.
When an email sender reaches its rate limit, the email will be temporarily undeliverable—or what email marketers call “Soft bounce. The server may resend the soft bounce email within 72 hours to see if it will pass, but who wants to take the risk? This is where the “throttling” comes in.
Throttling is the practice of sending emails in smaller batches over time to avoid reaching rate limits, soft bounces, or being marked as spam.For large lists (usually more than 250 recipients), the sender should Subdivide their list. After the list is segmented, plan ahead to ensure that the activity is sent to each segment before the required date.
4. Deliver consistently
The key to any relationship is trust. When you start to appear consistently in front of subscribers, they not only start to look forward to your email, but also start to trust your role in their lives.
If you wait too long between sending emails, the recipient will forget why they were initially interested in the subscription. When they forget the reason for subscribing, they usually unsubscribe or delete your email without opening it. On the other hand, if you send emails too frequently, they are more likely to be marked as spam or just annoy your subscribers completely. And, you guessed it, they might unsubscribe or delete emails without opening them.
So what is perfect Email cadence? It varies by audience and type of activity, but our research It was found that every two weeks is the ideal frequency for most organizations. This frequency is based on open rate, click-through rate (CTR), and unsubscribe rate.
Create emails worth opening to improve email deliverability
With the supporting elements in place, you can now focus on creating the content that subscribers want to open. “Easier said than done,” you may be thinking. Well, that’s it-email marketing doesn’t need to be an overly complicated exercise, the monkey will taunt you along the way.
With Campaign Monitor’s simple drag-and-drop builder, fully customizable templates, and collaboration tools, designing convertible and engaging emails has become easier. Start Build something memorable today. Don’t worry, there are no monkeys involved here, only professionals can complete the work.
