Despite strong marketing efforts, improving deliverability can unlock more opportunities by increasing lead engagement and maximizing your outreach potential. In this blog, let’s talk about the most common email deliverability issues and provide you with solutions to help you polish your campaigns via the right email deliverability software and tools.
Poor Sender Reputation
Whether an email will reach the inbox or spam folder depends solely on your sender’s reputation. ISPs use your sending history to determine whether you are a good or bad sender; hence, a poor reputation might be due to bounce rates, spam complaints, or sending to people whose email addresses are inactive. To better understand this, you can visit https://sparkle.io/email-deliverability/ to scan for sender reputation using deliverability software.
Clean your email list by regularly scrubbing inactive addresses and minimize complaints by offering clear unsubscribe options.
Sending Emails to Inactive Lists
Sending emails to old or inactive lists is one of the worst deliverability culprits. Most of these bounce, and users mark them as spam, impacting your final performance. Schedule a periodic check on list hygiene through email deliverability tools.
You can remove inactive subscribers or re-engage them by sending a targeted campaign. Most of the deliverability software could be automated in cleaning lists and improving your overall results.
High Bounce Rates
Bounce rates indicate how many emails actually can’t reach the intended recipients. It may cause incorrect email addresses or full inboxes. The higher your bounce rate, the more harmful it is to your sender’s reputation and your email deliverability.
Verify your email list beforehand before sending campaigns. They’ll point out invalid email addresses and prevent high bounce rates, thus maintaining a clean sender reputation.
Spam Triggers in Content
Content Spam Triggers Some words or types of wording in the content of your email can be misinterpreted and caught by spam filters. Words such as “free,” too much punctuation or lettering, and even all caps. Good to make sure that these attributes will not trigger the filters in the ISPs.
Check the deliverability of your emails by spotting the potential spam trigger in the contents. Language or even the formatting can become a problem. Too many images and too many links also trigger spam filters.
Unauthenticated Email Domain
Unless you authenticate your email domain, ISPs can block your emails. Email authentication includes protocols like SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) that indicate whether or not your emails indeed come from a legitimate sender.
Some sort of authentication on the part of the email through SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records needs to be created in the domain’s DNS settings. Most deliverability software gives exact step-by-step instructions for implementing these protocols, so there is not as much chance of emails going through rejected or being flagged as suspicious.
Unstable Sending Volume
A sharp spike or drop in your sending volume will also make ISPs suspicious. Fluctuating email volumes give your campaign the appearance of spam activity, which harms your sender’s reputation.
Maintain a consistent sending frequency and volume. If you suddenly need to boost your email campaigns, do so slowly so you don’t spur suspicions from ISPs. Deliverability tools for email help track and optimize your sending patterns to perform better.
Engagement
Low open rates, clicks, and engagement will all weaken your email deliverability. This is because the ISPs use the metrics of engagement to determine whether your emails are useful to the recipient.
Segment your lists to your user’s behavior and preferences to promote engagement. Personalize your content using A/B tests so that you optimize subject lines and formats for your emails. Most email deliverability tools includes analytics tools so you can track and improve your engagement.
Blacklisting
Your domain or IP address can be blacklisted which will most likely block the emails to ISPs, reducing the deliverability by a significant number. Blacklisting may result from many factors that include sending emails to spam traps, high bounce rates, or your emails being marked as spam by the recipients.
If you find yourself on a blacklist, follow the removal procedures given by the list or seek assistance from your email service provider.
HTML Overuse
HTML emails may add beauty to an email, but too much use will be a trigger for spam filters. The more complexities used in an email, such as too many images, multiple font styles, and oversized file sizes, can damage your email deliverability.
Simplify your email design and minimize the HTML to use. Mix in a good portion of text versus images and have the email mobile-friendly as well. Deliverability email software checks through and recommends ways to bypass spam filters on your emails.
Unwarming of IP Addresses
Many ISPs regard emails sent using a new IP address with suspicion, which can eventually lead to poor deliverability rates if a lot of emails are sent from a cold IP that hasn’t been trusted by ISPs yet.
Gradually warm new IP addresses by sending a volume of emails to your most engaged subscribers. Over time, increase your sending volume to create a good sender reputation.
Feedback Loops
But with feedback loops, ISPs can give you notifications when a recipient of your email has marked your email as spam. If you ignore them, it does affect your sender’s reputation and eventually, deliverability.
Sign up for a feedback loop with the major ISPs so that you know anytime a recipient of your email has marked it as spam. Take swift action about the removal or re-engagement of those who have marked your emails as spam to get rid of complaints. Email deliverability software can assist you in automating this process.
Sharing an IP Address
If you share an IP with other companies, whatever the sending practices of these companies are, can influence your deliverability. Blacklisting or spam flagging of the shared IP business can make you lose credibility in the very same instance.
If possible use a dedicated IP address for your emails, and then you will gain full control over your sender’s reputation. Most email deliverability software and tools offer dedicated IP services, ensuring better deliverability.
Non-Compliance with the GDPR and CAN-SPAM Laws
Sending emails without compliance with regulations such as GDPR or CAN-SPAM leads to fines and blacklisting as well as reduced deliverability. These laws have been established to counter the unsolicited emails and spamming process that protects consumers and others from unwanted emails being sent to their contacts.
Make sure that all email marketing activities ensure high legal standards by making it easy for consumers wishing to opt-in to do so and having exit links not too difficult to find. Check email deliverability technology to manage opt-in consent and monitor compliance with email regulations.
Poor Quality Email Lists
Using or purchasing poor quality email lists that contain inactive contacts, bots, or spam traps can be harmful to your email deliverability. These often include a high volume of bounces and complaints.
Get an organic email list of subscribers who want to read your content. Use deliverability software to regularly clean up your list, removing addresses that could harm your reputation.
Over-Sending to Non-Engaged Recipients
Sending too many emails to inactive recipients who have not opened or clicked for an extended period will increase complaints and unsubscribes, impacting your deliverability.
Use email deliverability software to segment your lists and send re-engagement campaigns to inactivity-prone subscribers. Once they don’t respond, remove them from the list to maintain a healthy reputation for the sender.
Conclusion
Whatever may be your successful email marketing strategy, improving the deliverability of emails is a must. Correctly avoiding basic mistakes, including sender reputation problems, unverified email authentications, and high bounce rates, makes way for a greater possibility of reaching the inbox of the recipient.
With the right software for email deliverability, you can track your performance and not make mistakes so that your deliverability gradually improves. Frequent measurement of deliverability of emails through metrics, and constant enhancement of your approach over time leads you to achieve long-term success.
FAQs
- What is email deliverability?
Email deliverability means the ability of your emails to reach the inbox of the recipient, and not into the spam folder or being blocked.
- How can I check my email deliverability?
You can check email deliverability with software applications that specialize in measuring sender reputation and checking the performance of your emails.
- How can I avoid emails going to the spam folder?
To avoid emails landing in the spam folder, ensure your emails are relevant to your audience, avoid excessive use of links or trigger words, and always use a proper opt-in process for subscribers.
