Do you have any email addresses on your list that are incorrect, invalid, or inactive? Do you continue to send emails to people who haven’t interacted with your small business in years? Is your content tailored to specific portions of your email list? Your email list has an impact on deliverability in a number of ways. Smart list management procedures can be relatively simple to implement and have a major impact on overall deliverability.
In our article, we have compiled a list of 15 of the smartest and most efficient email deliverability approaches.
Email deliverability tactics
Email marketing is a huge waste of time and money if your emails aren’t getting delivered. Let’s find out what tactics you can use to improve email delivery efficiency.
Use a subdomain for email activity
It isn’t recommended for everyone, but you can create a subdomain dedicated to email marketing. Users will come to trust the subdomain over time, which is a bonus. The primary reason for this subdomain is that it will allow you to monitor your IP reputation on domain-specific monitoring and bypass several domain-based certification checks.
Use sender policy framework
A sender policy framework or SPF boosts your reliability in the eyes of the receiving email server. To ensure that the domain name is legitimate, the server can compare it to the corresponding IP address. Your emails may be refused if you don’t have an SPF in place.
By making it more difficult to mask the sender’s identity, the SPF authentication method is intended to prevent spam and harmful messages. SPF boosts user reliability while improving delivery rates and protecting domain integrity and reputation. An SPF record should be used to protect your email.
Check your sender reputation
A poor sender score is the most common reason for your emails not being delivered. Any emails that score below a specific threshold are immediately rejected by ISPs.
Return Path generates the Sender Score. Every outgoing mail server is assigned a number by Sender Score. Traditional email measures like unsubscribes and spam reports are used to determine the score. So it’s critical that you maintain track of your score.
Maintain a regular send schedule
Random and unpredictable broadcast behavior is one reason for a lower sender score and IP denial. If you don’t send emails on a regular basis, you’ll experience sending spikes. Make an effort to maintain a consistent email sending schedule.
One email every week is a good standard. If you have truly good content, you can attempt scaling up to twice weekly. You can even reduce your posting frequency to once a month without losing touch with your audience. However, you’re in “perilous terrain” if you venture beyond those two boundaries.
Use a confirmed opt-in or a double opt-in
Single opt-in is the most common type of opt-in, in which a user agrees to receive emails by checking a box or leaving a pre-checked box checked. Because it’s so simple and automatic, this may appear to be a terrific way to collect email addresses. However, it has the potential to backfire by creating a large number of spam complaints.
Spam complaints can be extremely damaging. After two or three spam reports per thousand emails, some ISPs start blocking sending servers.
Using a double opt-in is the easiest approach to avoid spam complaints. All you have to do is send a confirmation email to the new subscriber, requesting that they confirm their address and consent.
Refine your list
If you send marketing emails to users that don’t exist, your bounce rate will skyrocket, and your send credibility will be ruined. Remove all inactive recipients from your list once in a while, screening out anyone who hasn’t opened or clicked your emails in a few months.
High hard bounce (invalid) rates are the quickest way to get your IP filtered and blocked. Before you start a new email marketing campaign, you might wish to employ a professional service to clean up all hard bounces.
Duplicates, typos, do-not-email records, fraudulent addresses, and other common user errors are all caught by most email validation services.
Segment your audience on their interests
Segmenting your emails makes them more relevant to the recipients, resulting in higher open rates, greater click-through rates, fewer emails being designated as spam, and, ultimately, greater deliverability.
There are also best practices and tools you can use to assess and collect feedback in order to enhance engagement at the correct time, but quality should always come first.
Filter email signups for contests
Giveaways and signups produce the poorest email lists. People will attempt to enter several times using invalid or nonexistent email addresses. They aren’t interested in being added to your email list; they are interested in a chance to win. If you’re using a contest or giveaway to get email subscribers, make sure you properly check the list before adding it to your subscriber list. It may be a source of hard bounces, putting your IP address on the naughty list.
Streamline the registration process
Your registration process is the foundation for good deliverability. Ask new subscribers to confirm their subscriptions. Consider how you can improve this process by using email address validation, clearly specifying how personal data will be processed, and giving users effective control over the content and frequency of email messages.
Be authentic
In order for email filters to trust you as a sender, you must have a properly authorized domain. Introduce Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) and migrate to quarantine or reject policy as quickly as possible if you haven’t previously. After you’ve done that, introduce Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) to help subscribers recognize and trust you.
Make sure you warm up appropriately
Warming up senders who have been dormant will be critical when they resume action. A smart warm-up method is similar to an atomic half-life in reverse: start slowly and steadily and give yourself time (usually 2 to 4 weeks) to re-establish your sender reputation. Send first to your most engaged subscribers, and utilize content that is designed to increase engagement.
Make your “from” name brandable
Spam complaints will be reduced if you use your brand’s name in the “from” line. It has also been proven to increase open rates.
To give their email marketing a more personal feel, organizations are increasingly appointing a front person. This method can still be used. Simply add “from [business name]” after the person’s name.
Verify blacklists
It’s a good idea to check the blacklists if you’re having sending issues, or even if you’re not. These DNS-based blacklists are designed to keep consumers safe from IPs that have received a lot of spam reports. Make sure your IP address isn’t on this list.
Make multivariate testing
Even well-established applications have to go through additional testing time. One of email’s best features is its measurability, which means incremental changes may be made fast via multivariate testing.
Simplify unsubscribing
While no email marketer wants to lose subscribers, it is best practice to make the process as painless as possible. Unlike complaints, unsubscribes have no effect on the sender’s reputation. While subscribers have previously been more inclined to utilize spam complaints, the unsubscribe link is now three times more popular.
Conclusion
For email marketing to be effective, emails must be delivered. After that, you’re free to go crazy with amazing subject lines and compelling email content. Email deliverability is clearly a combination of science and art. Some of these suggestions are really difficult, but they are all doable, and senders should implement them as soon as possible.