When conducting mass email outreach, whether it’s for sales, link building, content promotion, marketing, podcasting, or any other purpose, it’s essential to constantly monitor your email deliverability.
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When sending only a few daily emails, it shouldn’t be a problem, but when we’re talking about hundreds of emails, even a slightly lesser deliverability percentage can start to hurt your business and essentially waste your time.
In this article, we’ll be looking at exactly the factors that come into play when delivering emails, as well as how you can keep your emails landing in your recipients’ inboxes rather than their spam folders or even bouncing.
Because if you are not aware yet why email marketing is important, we recommend finding out about it as soon as possible to boost conversions of your business.
What factors can affect your email deliverability?
First, let’s take a look at exactly what can affect your email deliverability.
The content of your email
Your email’s content can impact your deliverability in a number of ways. First, if your email contains spammy keywords or phrases, your email is more likely to be flagged as spam by email providers.
Second, if your email’s content is not relevant to the recipient, your email is more likely to be marked as spam. Finally, if your email’s content is not well-written or engaging, your email is less likely to be opened and read by the recipient.
The content of your email must be strictly aligned with your content and marketing strategy. Sometimes it is best to avoid an email send-up instead of just bombarding users with meaningless content, as it increases the risk for unsubscribers.
Also, if you’re sending any links in the content, it’s best to just hyperlink an anchor text rather than sending a long https hyperlink. For example, what looks more appealing to you out of the two scenarios below?
Scenario 1: Design your custom business cards today at https://www.canva.com/business-cards/
Scenario 2: Design your custom business cards today.
Or, you can try URL shortener tools like T2M URL Shortener, which can transform your long links into short links and will also provide you with clicks analytics.
The subject line of your email
The subject line of your email is one of the most important aspects of your email deliverability. A good subject line can make the difference between your email being opened and read, or being ignored and sent to the trash.
Your subject line should be clear and to the point, and should give the reader a good idea of what the email is about. A good subject line will also help to ensure that your email is delivered to the right person, and not caught in a spam filter.
Here are a few tips to help you improve your email deliverability:
1. Keep your subject line short and to the point.
2. Avoid using excessive punctuation or symbols in your subject line.
3. Use keywords that are likely to be found in the recipient’s inbox filter.
4. Avoid using words that are likely to trigger spam filters.
5. Test your subject line before sending your email.
The “from” field of your email
First, if your “from” field is not accurate, it is likely that your email will be marked as spam.
Additionally, if you use a “from” field that is not associated with your domain, your email may be rejected by some email servers.
Finally, if you use a “from” field that is not easily recognizable, recipients may be less likely to open your email.
The size of your email
Ideally, you want your emails to be as short and straight to the point as possible.
First, a larger email can take longer to download, which can frustrate recipients. Secondly, if your email is too large, it may get caught in spam filters.
Finally, some email providers have size limits on attachments, so a large email may not be able to be sent at all. Also, make attention to your email signature size, most email clients have a specific limitation that could be triggered if your HTML signature is too big.
The frequency with which you send emails
It may seem that the more emails you can send, the bigger your increase in sales will be.
If you send too many emails in a short period of time, your ISP may throttle your account, making it difficult for your emails to get through.
Additionally, if you have a lot of unsubscribes or complaints, your sender reputation will suffer, and your emails may have a harder time getting delivered.
Also, if you’re on a shared IP address and one of your fellow users is spamming, your emails may get caught in the crossfire and end up in spam folders.
Whether you have been marked as spam in the past
If you have been marked as spam in the past, your deliverability may be impacted. This is because your email address may be added to a spam list, which can make it more difficult for your emails to be delivered to your contacts.
Additionally, your sender reputation may be impacted, which can also affect your deliverability.
Whether you are on a blacklist
If you are on a blacklist, it can have a significant impact on your deliverability.
Email providers may block or filter messages from addresses on blacklists, making it more difficult for your messages to reach their intended recipients.
In some cases, messages from blacklisted addresses may be completely blocked. This can make it difficult or impossible for you to communicate with your contacts.
If you are unsure of which blacklist you are on, you can use a tool like MxToolbox to check. Once you have identified the blacklist, you will need to find the contact information for the administrator of that blacklist. This information is usually listed on the blacklist’s website.
Once you have the contact information, you will need to send a request to the administrator asking to be removed from the blacklist. In your request, be sure to include your IP address, as well as any other relevant information that might help the administrator make a decision.
The administrator will then review your request and decide whether or not to remove you from the blacklist.
The age of your email address
If you have a new email address, it may not have been used enough to build up a good reputation with email providers yet. This can lead to your emails getting caught in spam filters more often.
Older email addresses may have a higher chance of being flagged as spam simply because they’ve been around longer and have had more exposure to potential spam. However, an older email address that has never been marked as spam and has had decent open and reply rates is much more likely to deliver your messages to the recipients’ inbox.
The quality of your email list
The quality of your email list can affect your deliverability in a number of ways.
First, if your list is filled with invalid or inactive email addresses, your messages will bounce back more often, which can hurt your sender reputation.
Additionally, if you’re sending to a list of unengaged recipients, your emails are more likely to be marked as spam.
Therefore, it’s important to keep your list clean and up-to-date, and to send relevant, targeted content to engage your subscribers. Understanding the basics of behavioral marketing and segmentation will ensure you send the right content, to the right users – thus reducing ‘Mark as Spam’ an dincreaseing engagement.
Also, make sure to use a double opt-in (especially for eCommerce sales) to make sure you don’t spam people.
How can you improve your email deliverability?
And now, let’s take a look at exactly how you can maintain a high email deliverability rate, even if you’re sending out huge mass campaigns on a regular basis.
Use a reputable email service provider
A reputable email service provider can improve your deliverability in a number of ways:
1. They can provide you with a dedicated IP address. This ensures that your emails are not coming from a shared IP address, which can negatively impact your deliverability.
2. They can offer you a whitelisted IP address. This means that your IP address is on a list of known good IP addresses, which can improve your deliverability.
3. They can help you set up SPF and DKIM records for your domain. These records help to verify that your emails are coming from a legitimate source, which can improve your deliverability.
4. They can provide you with detailed reports on your email deliverability. This allows you to troubleshoot any issues that you may be having with your deliverability.
5. They can offer you expert support from a team of deliverability specialists. This can help you to resolve any deliverability issues that you may be having.
Keep your email list clean and up-to-date
The first step is to make sure you are only sending emails to people who have opted in to receive them. This means having a sign-up form on your website that collects email addresses, and preferably also first and last names for your newsletter. You should also make it clear to people what they will be receiving by signing up, and how often they can expect to hear from you.
Once you have an email list of subscribers, it’s important to keep it clean and up-to-date. One way to do this is to remove any addresses that have bounced. A bounce is when an email is returned to you because the address is invalid. You can keep track of which addresses have bounced in your email service provider’s dashboard.
Another way to keep your list clean is to remove any addresses that have been inactive for a long time. Inactivity means that the person has not opened or clicked on any of your emails in a while. You can usually see this information in your email service provider’s dashboard as well.
Finally, it’s a good idea to segment your list into different groups so that you can send more targeted emails. For example, you might have a group for people who live in a certain city, or who have purchased a particular product. This way, you can make sure that the people who are most interested in what you have to say are the ones who are receiving your emails.
Warm up your dedicated IP address
Warming up a dedicated IP address is the process of gradually increasing the volume of email sent from that IP address over a period of time. This helps to establish a good reputation for the IP address and improve deliverability.
To warm up a dedicated IP address, start by sending a small volume of email from the IP address. gradually increase the volume of email sent over a period of time, until you are sending at your normal volume. This process can take several weeks.
It is important to monitor your email deliverability during the warm-up process. If you see a sudden drop in deliverability, it may be due to your IP address being blacklisted. If this happens, you will need to stop sending email from the IP address and investigate the cause of the blacklisting.
Use an email deliverability service
An email deliverability service is a service that helps to improve the deliverability of your email campaigns. This can be done by providing you with better insight into your deliverability metrics, helping you to troubleshoot any deliverability issues, and by providing you with a dedicated IP address.
Using an email deliverability service can be a good idea to improve your deliverability because it can help you to avoid some of the common mistakes that can lead to deliverability problems. Additionally, a deliverability service can help you to monitor your deliverability metrics so that you can identify any issues early on and take steps to fix them.
A few examples of email deliverability services include: SendGrid, MailChimp, Constant Contact, and Mail250.
Authenticate your domain
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are all email authentication protocols that can help improve your email deliverability.
SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework, and it helps to verify that a sender is who they say they are.
DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail, and it helps to verify that an email message has not been tampered with.
DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance, and it helps to ensure that both SPF and DKIM are being used properly.
By using all three of these protocols, you can help to improve your email deliverability and make sure that your messages are getting through to your recipients.
Always test your emails before sending
It is important to always test your emails for spam words and spelling before sending to improve deliverability because it can help ensure that your email reaches its intended recipients, especially for sales.
Spam filters are designed to block emails that contain certain keywords or phrases, so if your email contains any of these keywords, it is likely that it will be blocked by the filter.
Additionally, if you have any misspellings in your email, it is also likely that the email will be blocked.
By testing your email for both spam words and spelling before sending, you can help ensure that your email reaches its intended destination.
There are manny spellcheckers and spam word checkers available online, and it only takes a few seconds, so you really shouldn’t neglect this step if you’re worried about your email deliverability.
Wrapping up
So, these are the basics of email deliverability and how to keep it high while sending out massive outreach campaigns.
Follow these tips, and you should be able to maintain an optimal deliverability rate – which is around 98%.