Email is a highly affordable, even free, platform that allows you to engage directly with your customers on a personal yet professional level. People naturally feel a sense of importance when they receive email messages, compared to conventional forms of communication.
However, creating the perfect email campaign is not enough; ensuring that your emails land in your subscribers’ inboxes is equally important.
This is where email deliverability comes into play.
In this blog, we’ll discuss the concept of email deliverability and explore the top 8 ways to optimize and improve email deliverability for your campaigns.
What Is Email Deliverability?
When sending out your email blasts, you want to make sure that your email lands in their inboxes and never—I repeat NEVER—in their spam folder.
That’s a big no-no.
Email deliverability refers to the ability of an email to successfully reach the intended recipient’s inbox without getting filtered or blocked by spam filters, email servers, or other security measures.
In simpler terms, it is the percentage of emails that are delivered to the intended recipients’ inbox out of the total number of emails sent.
According to an online marketing magazine, there are four (4) factors affecting email deliverability:
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IP (Internet Protocol) Address: Like your home address, but for your devices connected to a network. This determines where your server is located, as given by your ISP (Internet Service Provider).
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Domain: This is where you live on the internet a.k.a your web address. They’re the easier-to-remember version of an IP address. The Prosperna website is under the domain of “www.prosperna.com”. You can have your own domain name for your online store when you upgrade your Prosperna plan to the different paid plans.
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Recipient Behavior: ISPs evaluate recipient behavior through algorithms, so deliverability depends on the actions they take toward your email. Whether they open to read, mark as spam, or just straight up delete the email.
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Content: In order to encourage positive recipient behavior such as opens and clicks, your subject lines and body content should be up to standard.
If you can secure all four aspects, you become one step closer to improving your email deliverability.
A high email deliverability rate is critical to the success of an email marketing campaign, as it ensures that the message reaches the target audience and has a higher chance of being opened and acted upon.
8 Ways to Improve Email Deliverability
As the world becomes increasingly digital, the vast majority of people have at least one email address, making it an ideal platform for reaching and maintaining contact with clients located anywhere in the world.
With the prevalence of smartphones, email campaigns can be accessed easily and conveniently, allowing businesses to connect with their customers in a way that is both efficient and effective.
By implementing these strategies, you can increase the likelihood of your emails reaching your subscribers and achieving your desired results.
1. Consistency Is the Key
In order to have a good email reputation, you need to practice having regular habits with your marketing campaigns.
The 4 keys to remaining consistent are:
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Scheduling: You have to know when your prospects are most active on their gadgets and based on surveys, the best schedule for generating open rates and click-throughs is between 9 AM-12 PM and 12 PM to 3 PM.
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Frequency: After determining the schedule, decide how often you’ll send your emails. It could be twice a week or once every other week. Just be sure to plan well and stick to that schedule. At least that way, you’re recipients can anticipate when you’re likely to email them.
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Volume: How many emails are you going to send in every marketing campaign? We recommend sending one email at a time because you don’t want to seem spammy. This can also relate to how heavy your content is. On weekdays, it can be short like a 3-minute video; while on the weekends a nice read with visuals is perfect with their morning coffee.
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Design: Have a common layout and template for your content, so that every time you send out your emails, it’s easier for your recipient to identify your brand based on appearance.
2. Clean List Segmentation = No Spam and Blacklist
Getting blacklisted because of spam will be the end of your lead generation strategy. No matter what happens, don’t end up on the blacklist.
This is why organizing leads is VERY IMPORTANT!
With the help of a CRM software, you’d be able to diminish bounce rates through list segmentation.
Purge and filter your segments, so you can market towards your leads according to what they’re actually interested in.
Be sure to stay away from spam traps (email addresses that are actually used as a fraud management tool) and have a good spam score.
You should also monitor your mailbox provider’s feedback loops to see the deliverability status of your email. Prosperna uses Google’s Gmail as its mailbox provider; here’s how you can check feedback loops on your email blast campaigns.
3. An Authenticated Email Domain Is Trustworthy and Reputable
We mentioned at the beginning of this article what domains are, and in order for you to gain the trust and good reputation you want, there are a few security standards you should meet.
Don’t worry, these are automatically done by your mailbox provider; you just need to check their status for verification.
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DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) – works to verify the ownership of an email and prevent spoofing (falsified data to pretend to be someone else and gain an illicit advantage).
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SPF (Sender Policy Framework) – works to verify the sender’s (your) IP and see whether it matches anything from popular IP blacklists. If you are found as a match, your email will be considered malicious and equate to instant spam.
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DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) – used to prevent spam-like messages that appear to come from your domain but are actually not. Messages that don’t pass SPF or DKIM provoke the DMARC policy.
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TLS (Transport Layer Security) – a label found under the details of your email to prove its security to the recipients and mailbox providers.
4. Maintain Proper IP Allocation
Your IP address is used to monitor your activity and determine your reputation based on volume, sending frequency, user interaction, and email rating quality.
There are two (2) types of IP addresses:
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Shared – more than one company or brand can send emails using the same IP address
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Dedicated – the company or brand owns a unique IP address that cannot be shared with other companies.
Prosperna uses a dedicated IP address, which is good for high-volume senders (email blasting) to avoid being associated with or flagged as spam. That’s why it can maintain a successful IP reputation through its ISP filter.
Other things you need to consider to maintain a successful IP reputation and improve email deliverability are:
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Not using personal email addresses for campaigns (e.g. nickname_123@gmail.com)
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Not using an outdated “No-Reply” Sender Address (e.g. no-reply@prosperna.com)
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Having a subdomain for email marketing (e.g. name@marketing.prosperna.com – “marketing” is the subdomain of “prosperna.com”, the primary domain)
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Having a dedicated email address for time-sensitive campaigns (e.g. prospernaevent@prosperna.com)
5. Monitor Every Activity
Other than checking your information security through your mailbox provider, a CRM software can also help you check the status of your email activity.
Inside Prosperna’s all-in-one eCommerce platform, it’s as simple as checking your phone to see whether your leads have opened and read your email.
Here’s a short list of things you should keep track of to improve email deliverability:
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You’re following your campaign calendar
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Content quality is up to standard
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Your IP reputation and spam score are good
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Your domain is secured and authenticated
6. No “Spammy” Subject Lines
You may have passed the security protocols, but your subject line is the first thing that your recipient sees.
When it comes to email deliverability, avoiding spammy subject lines is crucial. If you send something clickbait and misleading, then you can wave your reputation goodbye.
Here’s how you can avoid this:
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Craft subject lines that are relevant, concise, and accurate
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Avoid using excessive capitalization, exclamation marks, or symbols, as these are commonly associated with spam emails
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Avoid using misleading or exaggerated language
Instead, focus on creating subject lines that accurately reflect the content of your email and entice the reader to open it.
Avoiding spammy subject lines is critical to improving email deliverability and ensuring that your emails reach their intended audience.
7. Keep Your Content Relevant
By now, you must be tired of hearing the same thing, but I would have to say it again—CONTENT IS EVERYTHING!
Your subscribers are segmented for a reason—such as sharing a common interest, location, and age group. Send them what they want to read, when they want it, and how much they want it.
Remember to delete subscribers that are not engaging with you to avoid ending up in their spam folders.
As for how your content looks, take these notes from us on how to maintain quality and engagement:
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Create a branding by stating your name and company like “Dennis From Prosperna”
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Be mobile-friendly (everybody has a smartphone so this is non-negotiable)
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Instead of URL shorteners, use hyperlinks
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Put visuals (photos and videos) along with your text
8. Use Double Opt-in
Rather than a single opt-in, go for double!
Opt-ins are used to encourage readers to subscribe and get involved with you as a means of engagement. Whether it’s to RSVP for an event or to sign-up for a newsletter, always include them twice in your message.
A good placement would be in-between and at the end of your email so that they can be reminded of the next actions they may want to take.
With that said, it’s also essential to note that it should also be made clear and visible how to opt-out. This is usually placed at the very bottom of an email; that way, they can unsubscribe to your emails without restraints.
You wouldn’t want to end up being reported for constantly sending emails to someone who doesn’t want to receive them, now, do you?
The Perfect Email Marketing System
If you want to have successful marketing campaigns, it’s important to have the best platform that will meet the highest standards. Prosperna’s all-in-one eCommerce platform comes with a CRM software that allows you to send bulk email messages and helps you manage and track customer information and order history in one place.
Final Thoughts
It’s essential that you also focus on building and maintaining a positive sender reputation, engaging with your subscribers, and following the best practices for email marketing to improve email deliverability.
By implementing these strategies, you can maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, improve engagement with your audience, and ultimately drive better results for your business.
So don’t overlook the importance of email and start incorporating these tips into your email marketing strategy today!
Prosperna, Your Partner to eCommerce Success
Prosperna is an all-in-one eCommerce platform for Philippine businesses. We are on a mission to empower 100,000 Philippine MSMEs with simple and affordable eCommerce solutions.
In fact, we are super passionate about helping Philippine MSMEs we’re giving you a free account forever!
Want to improve the email deliverability of your campaigns? Create your free-forever Prosperna account now.
