In the digital-first era, email is still one of the best ways of marketing and communicating to businesses. However, no matter how good a message may be, it will not help if it ends up not reaching the inbox of the recipient. Enter email deliverability.
When mailing out an email campaign or any kind of business communication and discovering poor open rates, bounce rates and even your emails hitting the spam bucket, then you are not the only one. Deliverability is a common problem faced throughout an organization with little comprehension of the issue and sometimes how to resolve it.
In the current post, we would be discussing the most prevalent email deliverability issues along with demonstrating useful solutions to them so that you can increase email deliverability and safeguard your brand image.
What is email deliverability?
Deliverability of emails This is the capacity of your email to make it to the inbox of the recipient without being refused or bounced or shuffled into the spam section. It depends on a number of factors such as your sender reputation, domain settings, quality of content and how users interact with it.
The Sense of Email Deliverability
Your business can be damaged by poor email deliverability in a number of ways:
-Opportunity cost in sales
-Broken sender reputation
-A lower customer involvement
-Brother unsubscribe rates
-An increase in the bounce rates
In order to ensure constant success with email, avoidance of deliverability problems is imperative and must be done before it reverberates your communication strategy.
1. Your Emails Will End up in the Spam
Problem:
Among the most typical email delivery challenges is a possibility that the messages sent by you are labeled by the recipient email provider as spam. This is a frequent occurrence through rambunctious spam gatekeepers.
Causes:
-Excessive use of promotional terms or so-called spamming words such as FREE, limited offer, act now etc.
-No email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
-Bulk emails at shared IP that has a poor reputation
-Blacklisted IP address or senders history
Fixes:
-Use no language that triggers spam and fraudulent subject lines
-Establish SPF, DKIM and DMARC records of the domain
-Consider a quality ESP (email service provider) that has a clean IP address
-Keep An eye On your domain and IP being on blacklists with tools such as MXToolbox or SenderScore
2. A high percentage of Email Bounce Rates
Problem:
The rate of email delivery failure is known as the email bounce rate. Large bounce rate impacts negatively on your sender reputation.
Causes:
-Obsolete or unwanted e-mail addresses
-Blocked or clogged inboxes or inactive accounts
-Server side temporary problems of the recipient side
Fixes:
-Clean and check your email list on a regular basis with any validation program such as NeverBounce or ZeroBounce
-Apply the confirmation email addresses through the double opt-in techniques to authenticate the subscribers of the emails
-Focus on the active users segmenting and targeting them to decrease bounce rates
3. Insufficient Proper Email Authentication
Problem:
You may either have your emails discarded or marked as spam without authentication protocols, even when you are not a spammer.
Causes:
-The absence or wrong setting of SPF, DKIM or DMARC records
-Sending on behalf of an uneventialllBut not validated domain
Fixes:
SPF (Sender Policy Framework): You can use it to tell others which servers are permitted to send email in the name of your domain
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Signs your messages in order to ensure that they are not modified
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance): Indicates to receiving servers what to do with messages that fail SPF and/or DKIM
Make sure that you have these records correctly configured in your DNS settings. Most ESPs come with guide-lines or automatic configuration.
4. Your IP Address has got a Bad Reputation
Problem:
In case your send IP is black listed your mails can get blocked prior to even entering the inbox.
Causes:
-Sharing IPs with spammers (as usually happens with cheap/free email providers)
-Sudden increases in volume of sending
-Complaints related to spam in previous periods or spikes in the bounce metrics
Fixes:
-Consider migrating to a dedicated IP address in the case of high volume email senders
-Warm up your new IPs gradually rather than in thousand of emails together
-Track the reputation of IP with the help of Talos Intelligence or Google postmaster tools
5. Poor Response by the Receivers
Problem:
Engagement measures are used by ISPs such as Gmail and Outlook to be able to define inbox placement. Your mails can end up as spams in future unless people open or even click on your mail.
Causes:
-Defocused or off target information
-Uncouth subject lines
-Over- enthusiastically sending or under- sending
Fixes:
-Target and customize your communication to different groups of people
-Put catchy subject lines as representative of the content of the email
-Minimize/maximize the A/B test send times to boost engagement
-Take off inactive subscribers on regular intervals
6. Lack of Unsubscribe option
Problem:
The failure to include a clear unsubscribe method is not just a deliverability problem, but it also breaks the law for any country with the CAN-SPAM act, as well as GDPR.
Causes:
-Unsubscribe links that are hidden or missing
-Sending mails to those who did not opt in
Fixes:
-Include an obvious and convenient to use unsubscribe link in all your email messages
-Promptness of honor opt-outs
-Only send to confirmed subscribers and apply permission based marketing
7. Bad Email Content and Composition
Problem:
Careless design, lack of alt text, bad links or image heavy mails can cause the spam filters or annoy the receiver.
Causes:
-The imbalance of the words to picture ratio
-Broken links, or blacklisted links
-Excess use of capital letters and punctuations
Fixes:
-Both text and pictures should be applied in a healthy rate of proportion (roughly 60:40)
-Check every link when sending
-Add all forms of images and use clean html codes
8. Outgoing email address including Free Email Domains
Problem:
Sending the business email address using a free email such as @gmail.com, @yahoo.com among others may increase suspicion by the ISP, as well as lower trust levels.
Causes:
-Free domains do not have custom authentication
-Viewed as being unprofessional or spam like
Fixes:
-Never use a free email account (never send a message using an email address like @gmail.com or @yahoo.com).
-Among others, configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your domain
Final Thoughts
A high functioning email deliverability is not only a matter of clean technical requirements; it is an inevitable step towards professional communication retention, brand protection, and the investment you make a payoff in marketing strategies.
Simple steps like overcoming spam filters, authentication flaws and excessive bounce rate can decrease significantly your sender score and landing in the inbox. A winning email strategy involves the use of tools, best practices, and constant monitoring.
In case you are interested in raising the email deliverability, do not wait until your open rates drop or your clients complain about not receiving your messages. Act first, be compliant, and maximize your email infrastructure now.