Email Deliverability Best Practices

Email Flow Analytics offers valuable metrics that provide insights into the state of your Email Deliverability.

Emails Sent: This is the total number of emails you have sent out.

Delivery Rate: This is the percentage of emails that were delivered successfully.

Open Rate: This is the percentage of emails that were opened by the recipients.

What is Email Deliverability?

Email deliverability refers to the ability of an email message to successfully reach the recipient's main email inbox. It is often measured as a percentage of emails that are accepted by the recipient's internet service provider (ISP).

When we talk about email deliverability, we might think of situations where emails we sent in the past didn't seem to reach the intended recipient's inbox. While that's one part of deliverability, there's more to consider.

Deliverability is also about where the email ends up within the recipient's inbox or email system. It could either be in the primary inbox, promotions tab, social tab, or even in the spam folder. So, it's not just about whether the email got delivered or not, but also where it landed in the recipient's email account.

Why does Email Deliverability matter?

Email deliverability is crucial for email marketers because it determines whether their emails are successfully reaching their customers. If emails fail to reach customers, it negatively impacts marketing efforts.

When you send an email to your subscribers, you want them to open and act on it. However, if your message never makes it to their inbox, it reflects poorly on you and your email service. Even with a high delivery rate, some emails might end up in the spam folder, resulting in reduced open rates.

The rate at which emails reach the inbox is called the Deliverability Rate. While it's challenging to know exactly why some emails don't make it to the inbox, you can focus on the goal of ensuring that every person on your email list receives your emails in their main inbox.

To maintain a high deliverability rate or address any drop in inbox placements, there are strategies you can follow to improve the chances of your emails being delivered to the intended recipients.

What does it mean when one of the metrics is "At Risk"?

When a metric is labeled as "At Risk," it indicates that the performance of that specific metric is considerably below average, and this can be a cause for concern regarding the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts.

These issues can arise due to various reasons, some of which include:

1. High Complaint Rates: If recipients frequently mark your emails as spam or report them as unsolicited, it can negatively impact your deliverability. High complaint rates indicate to email service providers that your emails might not be relevant or valuable to recipients.
2. Poor List Quality: The quality of your email list plays a crucial role in deliverability. If your list contains invalid or inactive email addresses or is filled with unengaged subscribers, it can harm your email deliverability. Moreover, if you send emails to people who did not give you permission to contact them, you risk violating their privacy and damaging your reputation. Depending on which country you're emailing them, they have the right to send an abuse complaint that can harm your business. Therefore, you should always obtain consent from your subscribers before sending them any emails.
3. Non Segmentation: Your customers or potential customers are not all the same. They have different preferences and needs that you should consider when you send them emails. That's why you should divide your email list into smaller groups based on their characteristics and interests. How does this help? It helps you tailor your emails to each group and deliver them at the right time. This way, they will feel that you value and understand them better. For example, if you have an online store that sells clothes for men and women, you can segment your email list by gender, so that you only send relevant offers and products to each group.
4. Poor Email Design: Emails with poor design, layout problems, or broken links might not display correctly in different email clients, resulting in lower engagement and possible deliverability issues.
5. Sending Links To Collect Personal Data: Your recipients have a right to privacy and there are some types of personal data that you cannot collect for business purposes. Please make sure your forms that collect data include a data privacy consent.
6. Trigger Words: Some words or phrases used in the email subject lines or content might activate spam filters, making the email go to the recipients' spam folders instead of the main inbox. For example, using words like "guaranteed", "free", or "increase sales" might make your email look like spam.
7. High Sending Frequency: Sending emails too frequently to the same recipients can overwhelm them and increase the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam.
8. Inconsistent Sending Frequency: On the other hand, erratic or rare sending patterns might puzzle email service providers and lead to lower deliverability rates. To avoid this, you should establish a regular and predictable email schedule that suits your audience's preferences and expectations. This way, you can keep your subscribers engaged and interested in your emails.

It's essential to keep an eye on "At Risk" metrics and address the underlying issues promptly to improve the deliverability and overall performance of your email campaigns.

In the event that deliverability issues persist over an extended duration, we will need to implement corrective measures for your account to get your reputation and deliverability back on-track.