Email deliverability is one of the biggest challenges most email marketers face. It's frustrating to see your emails end up in the spam folder despite all the time and effort invested in creating them.
Fortunately, there are several practical solutions to improve the deliverability of your emails and ensure they arrive in your recipients' inboxes.
Difference between email delivery and deliverability
Before we get into tactics for improving deliverability, it’s essential to understand the difference between email “delivery” and “deliverability,” which are two separate metrics.
What is email delivery?
Email delivery measures whether or not the recipient's server accepts your email. As long as the email is not bounced, it is considered delivered.
However, the delivery rate does not distinguish between emails that arrive in the inbox and those that end up in the spam folder. This is simply the number of emails that are not returned.
What is email deliverability?
Email deliverability, or inbox placement rate, comes into play after the recipient's server accepts the email. It measures the number of emails that are actually delivered to the recipient's inbox and not to the spam folder.
Now that this distinction is clarified, let's move on to tactics to improve your email deliverability.
12 Effective Tactics to Improve Email Deliverability
One of the key elements to setting up a solid email infrastructure is to authenticate your sending domain. Email authentication informs the recipient's server that the email comes from a verified, legitimate domain, and not from a scammer.
1 – Authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
Here are the main email authentication methods:
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) verifies that the email received comes from an authorized sender and not from a relay server.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) ensures that no changes were made to the message during transmission.
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) uses both SPF and DKIM to authenticate emails and blocks fraudulent messages.
2 – Prepare your IP address (Warmup IP)
Before sending emails from a new IP address, it is essential to warm up the IP. Send a small number of emails to your most active and engaged users first to signal to ISPs that your emails are relevant.
As your IP reputation builds, you will be able to gradually increase sending volume without experiencing deliverability issues.
3 – Monitor your sender reputation and blacklists
It is crucial to maintain a good sender reputation or sender score. This includes tracking user complaints, spam reports, your company's email history, your domain reputation, and bounce rate.
Use tools like Senderscore.org, BarracudaCentral, Google Postmaster, and Microsoft SNDS to assess and improve your sender reputation.
4 – Use double opt-in or opt-in confirmation
Make sure all subscribers on your email list are actually interested in your messages by using the double opt-in. This method requires users to verify their email address after registering, ensuring address validity and increasing email interaction and engagement.
5 – Make it easy to unsubscribe
Make it easy for your subscribers to unsubscribe from your email list. If the unsubscribe process is complicated, your emails risk being marked as spam, which hurts your deliverability rate.
Include a clear unsubscribe link or button in all your emails and use enough white space to avoid accidental clicks on other links.
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6 – Avoid words with spam connotations
Certain expressions can trigger spam filters and send your emails straight to the spam folder.
Avoid words like “FREE”, “Urgent”, “Win”, as well as the use of special characters (e.g. “!!!”, “###”) or writing in capital letters.
Use clear and precise language to avoid spam filters.
7 – Don’t use purchased email lists
The purchase of email lists may seem like an easy way to reach a large number of people, but it can negatively affect your deliverability. Addresses may be invalid or non-existent, and sending unsolicited emails may result in legal consequences.
8 – Clean your email lists regularly
Over time, some subscribers stop engaging or change their email address. Continuing to send emails to these addresses can hurt your deliverability rate. Remove bouncing addresses, as well as inactive users, to maintain a healthy list.
9 – Segment your audience for targeted campaigns
By segmenting your audience based on demographic, behavioral or interest criteria, you can send more relevant and personalized messages.
Targeted campaigns generate higher engagement, which improves your sender reputation and, therefore, your email deliverability. Magileads makes managing your email lists easy by allowing you to delete inactive or disengaged contacts, helping to maintain a clean and healthy list.
10 – Maintain a consistent sending frequency and schedule
Establish a consistent sending schedule with appropriate frequency and timing to prevent your emails from being ignored. Choose the right time and day based on your industry and audience behavior to maximize the visibility of your emails.
11 – Create engaging content
Send emails that capture reader interest and provide value. The more engaging your emails are, the more likely recipients will be to open them, which improves your deliverability.
Incorporate interactive elements like surveys, quizzes, or forms to increase engagement.
12 – Monitor and improve your performance in real time
To improve the deliverability of your emails, it is crucial to constantly monitor the performance of your campaigns. Magileads offers analytical dashboards that provide detailed insights into deliverability rate, open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates.
By quickly identifying potential issues, like a high bounce rate or spam complaints, you can adjust your sending strategies accordingly. Additionally, Magileads offers A/B testing features to test different elements of your emails, helping you identify best practices to maximize your recipients' engagement.
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