Work on enhancing email deliverability can’t be boiled down to making up content.
Amazing content is certainly important for the success of the email campaign. However, it’s necessary to do your best to deliver messages to your subscribers and to make them land in the inbox and be read. Plenty of things must be done to ensure high deliverability, such as using an email warmup tool and an email spam checker, keeping your marketing list relevant, etc.
In this article, essential steps which can be used to secure email deliverability will be discussed. Keep on reading to find more how to make your messages reach your customers.
Care About Sender Reputation with an Email Warmup Tool
Sender reputation plays a major part in email marketing. If your reputation isn’t solid, there is a high probability that your messages will be marked as spam by email inbox providers. Remember that approximately 15% of all messages are caught by spam filters or go missing the inbox. Therefore, taking charge of reputation is the groundwork for making email deliverability better.
When your domain is fresh, it’s important to prepare it not to damage your reputation. A newly-created domain can’t send plenty of emails at once, it should be warmed up. The easiest way to do it is to utilize an email warmup tool. By means of email warmup tools, one can increase the sending limit and earn a good sender reputation which in turn will positively affect email deliverability.
Take Charge of IP Address Reputation
Email providers usually assess your IP address and its history of messages. When unsafe messages from your IP address have been detected, servers may blacklist you and send your mailing to spam. You have more chances of successful delivery of your message, if you haven’t sent questionable messages before and your reputation is clean. Try out using an email address spam checker to foresee the landing of your messages.
To forestall your mailing from getting into spam, check whether your IP address is on a blacklist. If it has happened, find out what to do to be removed from it (for instance, another opt-in for current subscribers).
Monitor Authentication Protocols within Email Deliverability Audit
An email deliverability audit includes several aspects which aim at improving email deliverability. One of the aspects which are considered within it is taking control of email authentication protocols:
- An SPF record determines IP addresses and hostnames which are authorized to send messages from your domain. An SPF record can be created with Google Apps or an SPF record generator.
- To protect a domain from illegal use (like phishing or spoofing), DMARC protocol can be utilized.
- DKIM determines components which a genuine email from a particular domain must include.
That is one of the ways to secure your domain and, therefore, reputation. This data is valuable for receiving inbox providers to decide what to do with your emails.
Keep Your Marketing List in Order
Sometimes the size of an email list doesn’t matter if most of the addresses on it are irrelevant and bounce. When the bounce rate is rather high, the receiving server is notified and your messages will likely end up in the spam folder. Maintaining your list clean is one of the steps towards the success of the email campaign. Utilizing cold email templates in addition to a perfect email list may ensure a good outcome. But remember to make your messages personalized enough to engage more customers. Personalized emails enhance click-through rates by approximately 14% and conversions by 10%.
Locate Invalid Addresses and Unengaged Users
Working on an email list is laborious and, undoubtedly, nobody wants to shorten their list. Nevertheless, you can boost open rates and email deliverability by means of deleting email addresses which hard bounce or belong to uninterested users. You may test the email list by yourself or leverage an email verification tool to pinpoint invalid addresses. It’s crucial to perform it regularly. Don’t neglect using an email spam checker tool to ensure your messages reach your customers.
Leverage a Double Opt-in
A great way to replenish the number of valid addresses on your list is to implement a double opt-in which implies sending a message by a subscriber to validate his willingness to subscribe. This can head off hard bounces. Since double opt-in involves extra commitment, you are supposed to get more engaged customers. However, make certain that your mailing hits the inbox of your subscribers with an email spam checker. Besides, don’t buy ready email lists, as most ESPs won’t let you send messages to email addresses who haven’t opted in.
Facilitate the Process of Unsubscription
If you are willing to maintain your list relevant, it’s recommended to provide users with an option to unsubscribe. This prevents them from getting tired of receiving your content and makes a good impression on your customers. You can offer a one-click unsubscribe option (for example, checkboxes) or a visible unsubscribe link in any message. All customers should have the opportunity to adjust their preferences. Moreover, send a test email online to find out how your customers see your message and if the unsubscription option is easily accessible.
Slow Down Your Delivery
To protect their platforms from sending spam, ESPs determine the quantity of messages which you are permitted to send within a day. ISPs, for their part, restrict the quantity of messages they are ready to accept from one IP address within a fixed period in order to forestall spam.
When a rate limit is reached, messages won’t be delivered temporally, which is regarded as a soft bounce. The server may send a soft-bounced message one more time later but your chances of delivering aren’t high. “Throttling” comes in handy. Throttling involves sending messages in small series not to exceed rate limits or be marked as spam. Segmentation should be implemented if it concerns large email lists. Make messages more personalized for each segment.
Deliver Steadily
When you send messages, relations between a sender and a recipient are established. Recipients sometimes look forward to your messages. But when you delay sending emails, recipients may lose interest in your company and content. When your messages are too frequent, they may be marked as spam or be deleted without opening. Think about the optimal frequency of sending your messages for different segments of your list (at least once every fortnight).
Final Thoughts
Four essential steps to make your deliverability better have been discussed. Think over your email campaign and its details. Moreover, it’s necessary to implement modern tools in email marketing to make it more effective (for instance, email warmup or email spam checker tools). It’s possible to consult experts to minimize your efforts. It’s up to you to choose.
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