Examining Email Deliverability Best Practices

Let’s say you have crafted the perfect email copy, design and you have tailored it towards the appropriate segment list, but it doesn’t make it to the recipients’ email client. This means there was a deliverability issue and the user will never receive the email. Getting your email into your subscriber’s inbox is the only way to get recognized, get opens and ultimately convert.

Deliverability is often confused with Inbox placement. Delivered describes how many emails were completely transferred to the intended recipient’s mailbox provider, this does not mean that the email made it to the recipient’s inbox. Inbox placement refers to where the email ended up once it was accepted.

The email could have landed in promotions, social, junk, or any other folder created. “Deliverability rate” refers to the percentage of your emails that are delivered to your subscribers, but “delivered” also includes emails sent to the spam or bulk folder. If an email makes it through all the servers, and past the ISP filters, doesn’t bounce and finally reaches the subscriber’s email account, it is considered to have been “delivered”. “Delivered” does not specify which folder the email ends up in.

If an email makes it through all the servers, and past the ISP filters, doesn’t bounce and finally reaches the subscriber’s email account, it is considered to have been “delivered”. “Delivered” does not specify which folder the email ends up in.

Let’s take a look at the factors that can effect getting your email delivered and what you can do to help ensure your emails arrive to the intended recipients mailbox. This happens before the inbox or spam folder placement.

In my subsequent articles, I am going to look at:

1.Sending without custom authentication

2.Using single opt-in

3.Sending from a free domain email address

4.Using unclear or spam flagging subject lines

5.Sending emails with too many images

6.Using URL shorteners

The first factor is sending an email without custom authentication which can affect the deliverability of the email.

By putting verified Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) settings in place, receiving mailboxes have some verifiable information to cross-reference with your email campaigns and determine if your email is the real deal or fraudulent. Gmail cites authentication as one of their top recommendations for getting your email delivered.

Internet service providers use DKIM and SPF authentication to scan emails and fake senders. If the email fails to authenticate it could arrive in the users spam/junk folder.

For example, when an email is sent from @DigitalMarketingInstitute.com, the receiving mail server will ask to see the SPF record of the allowed IP address that can send for the DMI domain. If the IP the email came from is different to what’s in the SPF record, the email will be blocked. DKIM is an additional way to sign your emails that will allow the recipient’s server check if the sender was really you or not. This prevents malicious senders from using other companies domain name to send an email.

Your IT team and email service provider can help set up this authentication.

Using a single opt-in rather than a double opt-in can affect the deliverability of an email. Double opt-in means that after a user signs up for your email list, they are sent a confirmation email asking them to confirm their email address is valid and that they want to subscribe.

Double opt-in as part of email delivery best practices:

Protects against incorrect sign-ups. If a user didn’t really want to sign up for your email list they still have a last change by not confirming.
Reduces spambots. A malicious spambot can’t sign up thousands of fake accounts to your list without verifying each email individually.
More effectively build your sending reputation. Because spambots can’t easily sign up, you know that your recipients are really users who are more likely to engage with your content.

In the above example, when you signup for a Spotify account, they send you a confirmation email that you must click before your account is activated. This ensures that all email addresses they have in their contact database are valid.

Using a from address that is a domain other than your own is a big no-no. Similarly, using a free domain email address such as Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail is also a bad idea.

Be sure to use address domains or authenticated sub-domains that your recipients expect to hear from as they:

Help prevent ISP filters from blocking your emails: If your email came from a Gmail address, ISPs would have no way of verifying who you are, and are more likely to block your email.
Are instantly recognizable to your recipients: By using your companies domain name, the recipient can easily recognize that the email is from you which will lead to greater open rates.
Help build the sending reputation for your domain: If you used a different domain name for every email campaign, then the mail servers wouldn’t recognize you and may block your email.

Another factor that can cause deliverability issues is having unclear or spam flagging subject lines. If your subject line makes your email look like spam then people and the spam filters ISPs that are put in place to protect them will probably think that it’s spam.

In my previous article, we looked at best practices for writing compelling subject lines, but here are some to avoid when writing them:

Avoid using ALL CAPITALS
Avoid excessive and unnecessary use of punctuation (!!!)
Use symbols and special characters sparingly, and only when relevant.

The subject line in the image above is an example of what not to write. It has all three issues and there is a strong chance an ISP will think it’s spam and not deliver the message to the recipient.

Sending emails with too many images can affect the deliverability of an email. This is not a good email delivery best practices. A historic spam technique sends emails containing only one image, or many images and very little text in HTML emails, in order to bypass spam filters that were based primarily on spam keywords.

While the above example is a legitimate email from GAP, spam filters cannot read the text that is in an image. Therefore, if you have a lot of images in your emails, you will want to make sure there is also text to support them so that spam filters know it’s a legitimate email.

Image to text ratio is important with spam filters and is something you will want to spend time getting right. Having too many images may cause the email to get caught by spam filters.

The last factor that can effect email deliverability is the use of URL shorteners. A URL shortner is a service that takes a URL, such as a long URL link to a blog post, and then makes a shorter version of the link e.g. bit.ly/1234.

The use of a URL shortener is a notorious technique used by spammers to hide the nature of URLs they link to. They rank high on spam filters, even if the links themselves are legitimate.

Where possible when using URL shorteners:

Avoid general URL shorteners
Avoid inserting the full URL link as text
Create a hyperlink with the appropriate text
Ensure all your links go to legitimate domains.

The image above is an example of a malicious email. The email pretends to be from Amazon but to obscure the name they use a zero instead of an O in the from name, but also use a URL shortener. This is to hide where the links really go to and avoid being picked up by spam filters.

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