"Houston, we have a problem." 🚨 Remember that sinking feeling in Apollo 13? That's the dread of crafting an awesome email only to see it vanish into the dreaded spam folder. But don't worry – we'll uncover the secrets of email deliverability and make sure your messages get the attention they deserve.
To optimise your email deliverability, it's crucial to begin with a strong foundation. Let's briefly review the 'What, Why and How' – concepts that will underpin your future success.
What is Email Deliverability?
In the simplest terms, email deliverability is the ability of your emails to actually reach someone's inbox. Technically it is different from email delivery of which lot of confusion are there.
Email delivery 📤
Refers to the technical process of an email being successfully transmitted from the sender's server to the recipient's email server.
An email can be delivered but still end up in the spam or promotions folder, never seen by the recipient.
Email deliverability 🎉
Email deliverability is all about the likelihood of your email actually landing in the recipient's primary inbox where they are most likely to see it.
It encompasses multiple elements like:
Sender reputation 👍
Content quality 📝
Authentication protocols 🔒
Recipient engagement 🤩
Analogy:
Think of delivery as a package arriving at your doorstep. Deliverability is whether that package gets past your front door and into the hands of the intended person inside the house.
How email deliverability works?
Picture your email as a traveler on a journey to the inbox. First, it needs a clean record (sender reputation) 👍 and proper identification (authentication) 🆔. Then, it undergoes customs checks (spam filters) 🔍– content quality is key here! Finally, engagement with past emails determines its VIP status 🌟. If everything checks out, your email breezes through to the inbox 🎉, ready to be seen!
credits: dmarc.org
Below are some key findings from Validity's 2023 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report -
1 in 10 emails are not accepted by receiving mailbox providers (MBPs).
Deliverability at MAGY (Microsoft, AOL, Gmail, and Yahoo) global MBPs is 86%, which is higher than the global average.
Apple’s IPR (66%) highlights the difficulties of measuring engagement post-MPP (Mail Privacy Protection).
What affects email deliverability?
Sender reputation - Sender reputation is a score assigned to your domain by email service providers (ESPs) like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo.
Authentication - Set of techniques designed to verify the legitimacy of emails and protect recipients from fraud (SPF, DKIM and DMARC).
Infrastructure - Shared or dedicated IP address.
Content - Spam free and engaging email content + subject line.
Sender Reputation: The Keys to Inbox Delivery
In the world of email marketing, your reputation is everything. It dictates whether your carefully crafted messages land in the recipient's inbox or get banished to the spam folder. Two critical factors influence this outcome: email reputation and IP reputation.
Understanding Email Reputation
Email reputation is a score assigned to your domain by email service providers (ESPs) like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo. It's a reflection of your overall sending practices and how recipients interact with your emails.
Best practices for sender reputation:
Sending History: How consistently you send emails and whether your volume fluctuates significantly. One should always follow their sending habit (sending time, volume and customers). Sudden spike in sending volume can trigger spam filters and ultimately affect the reputation!
Bounce Rate: The percentage of your emails that fail to deliver. Bounce rate should be less then 5% at any cost.
Complaint Rate: The rate at which recipients mark your emails as spam. Complaint rate should also be less then 0.30%.
Engagement: How often recipients open, click, or reply to your emails. Higher the better.
List Hygiene: The quality of your email list (e.g., the presence of least engaged audience, bounced emails, churned emails etc).
Content Quality: The relevance and value of your email content. Try to make email as personalised and concise as possible.
Email verification - Always verify your email list before sending an campaign to prevent bounce rate. Some notable email verification and validation services are ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, EmailListVerify and myEmailVerifier.
A good email reputation indicates you're a trustworthy sender, increasing the likelihood of your emails reaching the inbox. Regularly monitor your domain's reputation in Postmaster Tools.
At Bik, we provide innovative, comprehensive solutions for optimising email reputation through proactive list hygiene, precise bounce and spam rate monitoring, AI-powered content generation, and seamless postmaster integration to ensure you maintain a competitive edge.
Email Authentication: Safeguarding Your Inbox and Reputation
Email authentication is a set of technical standards and processes used to verify the authenticity and integrity of email messages. It aims to confirm that an email is actually from the sender it claims to be from and hasn't been tampered with during transmission.
It's similar to WhatsApp's strong end-to-end encryption, which makes messages super secure and nearly impossible for hackers to tamper.
Understanding the Basics
At its core, email authentication aims to answer two fundamental questions:
Who sent the email? Authentication verifies the sender's identity and ensures the email originates from a trusted source.
Was the email modified in transit? Authentication confirms that the email's content hasn't been tampered with during its journey from the sender's server to the recipient's inbox.
The Authentication Arsenal
Several protocols work together to achieve robust email authentication:
Sender Policy Framework (SPF): This protocol verifies that an email comes from an authorised IP address associated with the sender's domain.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM): DKIM adds a digital signature to the email header, ensuring that the message hasn't been altered since it was sent.
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC): DMARC builds upon SPF and DKIM, providing instructions to email providers on how to handle messages that fail authentication checks. It also enables senders to receive reports on their email authentication performance.
Quick glimpse behind the scenes
Benefits of Email Authentication
Enhanced Deliverability: Authenticated emails are more likely to reach the recipient's inbox, improving your sender reputation.
Protection Against Spoofing: Authentication helps prevent malicious actors from impersonating legitimate senders.
Reduced Spam and Phishing: Email providers can better identify and filter out unauthorised or fraudulent emails.
Improved Brand Reputation: Authenticated emails reinforce your brand's trustworthiness and credibility.
Data-Driven Insights: DMARC reports provide valuable information about your email authentication performance, allowing you to identify and address issues.
Email authentication is a vital tool for protecting your inbox, preserving your reputation, and ensuring your messages reach their intended audience. Setting up authentication is the crucial part at Bik after onboarding. As Bik is omni-channel it takes care of several integration including WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Email and SMS.
Email Sending Infrastructure: Shared vs. Dedicated IPs
When setting up your email infrastructure, one crucial decision is whether to use a shared or dedicated IP address. This choice can significantly impact your email deliverability, sender reputation, and ultimately, the success of your email campaigns.
Shared IP Infrastructure
What it is: A shared IP address is used by multiple senders on the same mail server. It's often the default option for smaller businesses or those just starting with email marketing.
Pros:
Cost-effective: Shared IPs are generally less expensive as the cost is distributed among multiple users.
Ease of use: Setup and management are typically handled by the email service provider (ESP).
Suitable for low-volume senders: If you send emails infrequently or in smaller volumes, a shared IP can be sufficient.
Cons:
Shared reputation: Your sender reputation is tied to the reputation of others using the same IP. If others engage in spammy practices, your deliverability could suffer.
Limited control: You have less control over your IP reputation and sending practices.
Not ideal for high-volume senders: Large volumes of email from a shared IP can trigger spam filters.
Dedicated IP Infrastructure
What it is: A dedicated IP address is assigned exclusively to your domain. This means you're the only sender using that IP.
Pros:
Full control: You have complete control over your sender reputation, allowing you to build a positive track record.
Improved deliverability: With a good reputation, your emails are more likely to land in the inbox.
Ideal for high-volume senders: Dedicated IPs can handle large email volumes without triggering spam filters.
Brand protection: You're isolated from the actions of other senders, protecting your brand reputation.
Cons:
Higher cost: Dedicated IPs are generally more expensive than shared IPs.
Requires reputation management: You're responsible for building and maintaining a positive sender reputation.
Not suitable for low-volume senders: A dedicated IP may not be cost-effective if you send emails infrequently.
Which is Right for You?
The choice between shared and dedicated IP infrastructure depends on several factors:
What is your sending volume and frequency?
High-volume and frequent senders typically benefit from dedicated IPs. If your sending volume is more than 1,00,000 emails per campaign and sending frequency is more than or equal to thrice a week than dedicated IPs are more appropriate for your campaigns otherwise it is best to stick with shared IPs.
Sender Reputation: If you have a strong reputation, a dedicated IP allows you to maintain control.
Low deliverability: If you are facing low deliverability inspite of having good domain reputation, proper authentication and eye catching spam free content than you should consider dedicated IPs.
Budget: Shared IPs are a more cost-effective option.
Risk Tolerance: Shared IPs carry a higher risk of reputation damage from other senders.
Email Content: Your Email's Ticket to the Inbox
The content of your email campaigns isn't just about engaging your audience – it plays a crucial role in determining whether your messages even reach their inboxes. Email service providers (ESPs) scrutinise content to identify spam, phishing, and unwanted mail. Mastering the art of email content creation is essential for both audience engagement and ensuring your messages land in the primary inbox.
The Impact of Content on Deliverability
Spam Filters: ESPs employ sophisticated spam filters that scan email content for specific keywords, phrases, and patterns associated with spam. Trigger words like "free," "guarantee," or excessive punctuation marks can raise red flags.
Engagement Metrics: If recipients consistently mark your emails as spam or delete them without opening, ESPs may view your content as irrelevant or undesirable. This can negatively impact your sender reputation and deliverability.
Open rate Quality: It's the subject line which determines the fate of email's open rate. Concise & personalised subject line have higher open rate chances.
Image-to-Text Ratio: Emails with a high image-to-text ratio can be seen as suspicious, as spammers often use images to bypass text-based filters.
Click rate Quality: Email content determines whether someone will click on the link, purchase the product and perform the action.
High ROI: More the open rate, more the probability of click rate and ultimately, increased conversions.
Best Practices for Email Content
Must Ask yourself before sending any email: What/how/when/why does your audience want to hear from you? What are you hoping to achieve with this email campaign?
From who?: Use a consistent and easily recognisable “from” name and email address that describes you and your unit. Personalisation works, but make sure to include context about who the sender of the email is.
Subject Lines: Craft clear, concise, and compelling subject lines that accurately reflect the email's content. Avoid misleading or spammy language.
Subject line should be less than 50 character long. Otherwise important information may be cut off if it’s much longer than this.
Include a question that will entice readers to find the answer inside Or use emojis.
Use personalisation such as a first name.
Pre-header: You should always include a pre-header to avoid the first line of text showing as a default and give more reason to open the email!
The pre-header should be no more than 90 characters long. This is the optimal length for filling two rows of preview text under the subject line in most email service providers.
It should support the subject line, but not contain any critical piece of information that the audience might miss. As this is just a preview, this copy isn’t accessible within the body of the email.
Call-to-Action: Include a clear and prominent call-to-action (CTA) that encourages recipients to take a desired action, such as clicking a link, making a purchase, or signing up for an event.
Text-Based Content: Ensure your emails have a good balance of text and images. While visuals enhance the reading experience, rely primarily on text to convey your message.
Link Hygiene: Only link to reputable websites with relevant content. Avoid shortening links, as spam filters might flag them as suspicious.
Mobile Optimisation: Many recipients open emails on their smartphones. Ensure your emails are mobile-responsive, with clear fonts and appropriately sized images.
Avoid language that will trigger spam filters, such as:
Writing in ALL CAPS.
Lots of exclamation points!!!
Words that make exaggerated claims and promises.
Words that create unnecessary urgency and pressure.
Words that look like shady, spammy or unethical behaviour.
Words that are jargon or legalese.
A/B Testing: Experiment with different content formats, subject lines, and CTAs to identify what resonates best with your audience.
Guidelines for Using Media
Images: Use high-quality images that are relevant to your content. Optimise image sizes to ensure fast loading times.
Alt Text: Provide descriptive alt text for images to accommodate recipients who have images disabled or use screen readers.
Video: Embed videos from reputable platforms like YouTube or Vimeo. Avoid auto-playing videos, as they can annoy recipients and increase email size.
GIFs: Use GIFs sparingly to add a touch of personality or humor to your emails. Avoid excessive animation or large file sizes.
Additional Tips
Proofread: Always proofread your emails carefully before sending to catch any errors or typos.
Monitor Feedback Loops: Pay attention to feedback loops to identify if recipients are marking your emails as spam.
Check email content score: Always test your email score before sending thousands of customers blindly. Several services such as mail-tester, mailgenius provide free email test for any potential errors or spam!
By crafting engaging, relevant, and valuable email content while adhering to best practices, you can improve your email deliverability, enhance your sender reputation, and drive better results from your email campaigns. Remember, the quality of your content directly impacts your audience's perception of your brand and their willingness to engage with your emails.
Conclusion
In conclusion, achieving optimal email deliverability is a multi-faceted endeavour that hinges on several key factors. Cultivating a strong sender reputation through consistent, trustworthy sending practices is paramount. Implementing robust email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC not only safeguards your emails from malicious actors but also bolsters your credibility in the eyes of email service providers. Choosing the right email infrastructure, whether shared or dedicated IP, based on your sending volume and specific needs, further optimises your deliverability potential. Finally, crafting compelling, relevant, and engaging email content that adheres to best practices ensures your messages resonate with recipients while avoiding spam filters. By mastering these interconnected elements, you can maximise your email's chances of reaching the inbox, fostering meaningful engagement with your audience, and ultimately driving the success of your email campaigns.