Every marketer wants the hard work they put into crafting their marketing emails to be read, but having poor deliverability can mean that all that hard work ends up in your customers junk folders.
As a Digital Marketeer email deliverability is at the core of my email strategy and I have identified the 5 biggest slip-ups that cause your email deliverability to suffer.
1. Getting classified as spam
Your customer can now classify your emails as spam with the click of a button in their inbox. The more of these clicks your emails get the worse your email deliverability will be. This is because with each click your complaint rate goes up which in turn effects the reputation of your sending domain.
The best way to avoid doing this is to make sure that you are always sending relevant and timely information to your customers. Marketeers have a armoury of information about their customers but this is not always put to good use. For example if you have a customer who has just purchased a new HTC phone, sending them marketing emails about your new stock of Samsung chargers is not going to interest them at all. This most likely result in them clicking the button of doom or even unsubscribing from your emails. A more appropriate email to this customer might be a discount on HTC accessories you are having.
2. Getting Black Listed
Getting blacklisted from your local pub is never a good thing, and it’s no different for your domain getting banned from an inbox. A blacklist is a collection of domains and IP addresses that are known for sending spam or malicious content. If you regularly send emails that have a lot of spam content or are perceived to be spam by receivers then your domains and IP addresses could end up being blacklisted. It is not hard to get black listed but it is very hard to get un-blacklisted. You can you free online tools like this one to check if your domain is on the list.
The best way to avoid being blacklisted is to avoid sending emails that contain a lot or sales jargon and make sure that your emails look and sound professional. Your domain can also end up being blacklisted if you don’t have DMARC implemented and hackers use your domain to send malicious content without you even knowing about it. You can check to see if you have DMARC here.
3. Having a low sender reputation
Sender reputation should be important to all good email marketeers. This is how email receivers judge to see if your email is trustworthy enough to deliver to your customers inbox. Your score is made up of several components including if your domain is blacklisted, if you are sending to unknown users, how many times your emails have been classified as spam and more. You should regularly check your sender reputation and make sure that you keep it as high as possible. You can check your sender reputation here.
4. Not authenticating your emails
If you are sending emails to your customers you want them to arrive with the best possible chance of being delivered to their main inbox. By authenticating your emails you are sending a strong signal to receivers that your emails are authorised and should be treated as such. This is done by configuring SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (Domain-Keys Identified Mail).
For each source that you send email from such as MailChimp or SalesForce, you should configure both SPF and DKIM. Organisations that send from multiple sources might find it easier to configure SPF and DKIM using a tool that gives them guided actions on how to do this like OnDMARC. When Implementing SPF and DKIM you will also find that using DMARC reports will help in this process.
5. Not having visibility
If you don’t have any visibility on how receivers are treating your emails then you wont be able to see if your emails are passing or failing authentication. Setting up DMARC provides you with reports that show you if your emails are properly configured. These reports are complex XML files but luckily products like OnDMARC process these reports for you into nice visual graphs and tables. These products not only show you if your emails are properly configured but also guide you on how to better configure your emails with step by step actions. By setting up DMARC you will not only increase the deliverability of your emails but also protect your brands reputation against phishing.
And that is it for my top 5 biggest killers of email deliverability. Would you add anything else? Comment below with your suggestions.