I’m a huge advocate for email marketing, and I could go on for hours about its advantages. But let’s get one thing straight—email marketing isn’t a magic bullet that will solve all your marketing woes.
Your emails mean nothing if they don’t reach your users’ inboxes. It’s frustrating to see all your effort go to waste just because your emails end up in the spam folder. However, with a few smart, strategic actions, you can significantly improve your email delivery rate and make a bigger impact. The burning question is, how do you do that?
In this guide, we’ll delve into the importance of email deliverability and explore the best practices that can dramatically enhance it, setting you on a path to success in 2024 and beyond.
How to Improve Email Delivery Rate? 12 Best Practices
We’ve collected the 12 smartest and most effective practices for improving email deliverability. Below, you’ll find a breakdown of each essential point to keep your email campaigns healthy and out of the spam folder.
1. Verify Your Domain Using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
One of the fundamental steps to setting up an effective email marketing strategy is authenticating your sender domain. Domain authentication tells the recipient’s email server that your messages are genuinely coming from a verified domain rather than an impersonator. This builds trust and credibility, ultimately keeping your emails out of spam folders and ensuring they land in your subscribers’ inboxes.
Here are the primary methods for authenticating your emails:
- Sender Policy Framework (SPF): SPF checks that incoming email is sent from an authorized server instead of a potentially malicious relay.
- Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM): DKIM ensures your email remains unaltered during transit. By linking a digital signature back to your domain, DKIM guarantees the authenticity of your messages and reassures ISPs that your emails are trustworthy.
- Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC): DMARC uses SPF and DKIM to validate email authenticity and proactively blocks fraudulent attempts. Implementing DMARC is vital for safeguarding your brand’s reputation and ensuring your emails don’t get flagged as phishing.
Quick Tip: To increase your deliverability rates, ensure all three—SPF, DKIM, and DMARC—are properly configured for your domain.
2. Warm Up Your IP Address Properly
Before sending emails from a new IP address, it’s important to “warm it up”. Think of it as gradually building a solid reputation. Send small batches of emails first to your most engaged users—those who are likely to open and click through. Their engagement signals to ISPs that your content is valued, helping establish your credibility. Gradually increase your email volume week by week until you’re fully scaled.
Pro Tip: Most ESPs (Email Service Providers) offer guidance or automation tools for IP warming. Make sure to utilize these to avoid common pitfalls.
3. Monitor Your Sender Reputation and Blacklist Status
Maintaining a good sender reputation is crucial for email deliverability. Keep track of:
- Spam Complaints: Are users marking your emails as spam?
- Email Bounce Rate: How often are emails bouncing back?
- Overall Domain Reputation: Use tools like Google Postmaster to monitor how your domain is perceived.
A damaged sender reputation can lead to blacklisting, which severely limits your ability to deliver emails. Proactively manage your reputation to ensure consistent performance.
4. Utilize Double Opt-In for Cleaner Lists
Ensure that your subscribers genuinely want to receive your content. Using double opt-in means that after signing up, users need to confirm their email addresses—ensuring a valid and interested audience. This simple step goes a long way toward improving engagement rates and reducing spam complaints.
5. Make Unsubscribing Simple
While it may sound counterintuitive, making it easy for people to unsubscribe improves deliverability. A frustrated subscriber who can’t easily unsubscribe is more likely to report your email as spam. To promote a positive user experience, provide a clear unsubscribe link or button in every email, using adequate white space to avoid accidental clicks on other links.
6. Avoid Spammy Language in Emails
Using certain words or phrases can trigger spam filters, leading your carefully created email to end up in spam folders. Avoid terms like:
- “Claim your discount NOW!”
- “Jackpot”
- “100% FREE”
Also, avoid writing in all caps or using excessive punctuation, such as “!!!”. Keeping your content clean and straightforward helps maintain deliverability.
7. Avoid Using Purchased Email Lists
While buying email lists can seem like an easy shortcut to reach more people, it severely harms your deliverability. Purchased lists often contain outdated or invalid addresses and violate anti-spam laws, leading to legal consequences. Build your list organically to ensure it’s filled with people who actually want to hear from you.
8. Regularly Clean Your Email List
Over time, some subscribers will become inactive, or their email addresses may change. Sending emails to inactive addresses leads to high bounce rates, hurting your deliverability. Here’s what you can do:
- Remove Hard-Bounced Emails: These are permanent bounces and should be taken off your list immediately.
- Create a Suppression List: Include inactive users, people who have unsubscribed, or those who no longer interact with your emails.
This way, you maintain a clean list of active and engaged subscribers, improving your email metrics and sender reputation.
9. Use Email Segmentation
Segmentation is a game-changer for email marketing. By dividing your audience into groups—based on demographics, geography, behavioral data, or their stage in the buyer’s journey—you can send more targeted content that relates with them. Segmented emails are more likely to engage users, boosting open rates and reducing spam complaints.
10. Maintain a Consistent Sending Frequency
A consistent schedule helps you remain on your audience’s radar without overwhelming them. Randomly sending large volumes of emails can trigger spam filters. Determine a reasonable schedule and stick to it—whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, based on your audience’s preferences.
Best Practice: Pay attention to the time of day when you send your emails. Aim for times when users are likely to check their inbox—typically early mornings or after lunch.
11. Send Emails That Inspire Engagement
Your emails need to be more than just informative—they should be engaging and genuinely valuable. If your content captures attention, recipients will look forward to your emails, which increase your open rates and signals to ISPs that your emails are worth delivering.
Pro Tip: Use storytelling techniques, share real customer success stories, or provide special offers that encourage interaction. This will make your emails a welcome part of your subscribers’ day, not just another message to skip over.
12. Monitor Performance Metrics Regularly
Regularly reviewing your analytics is key to understanding what’s working and what needs improvement. Keep an eye on:
- Unsubscribe Rates: Are many subscribers opting out? This might mean you need to revisit your content or frequency.
- Click-Through Rates (CTR): This shows how engaging your content is. If CTR is low, rethink the relevance or offer of your emails.
- Spam Complaints: High complaints mean your content might not be resonating or your list isn’t well-targeted.
By keeping a close eye on these metrics, you can adjust your strategy to maintain a strong sender reputation, consistently improving deliverability.
Key Takeaways for 2024
Improving your email delivery rate is crucial for the success of your email marketing efforts. By implementing best practices like authenticating your domain, warming up your IP, maintaining an engaged list, and creating valuable content, you can build trust with your audience and upgrade your sender reputation.
Monitor your performance metrics regularly to adapt your strategy effectively. The result? A loyal, engaged subscriber base and increased deliverability rates will positively impact your marketing success in 2024.
For more insights like this, check out our website at MUMARA, where we delve deeper into all things email marketing!
