Are your emails landing in the spam folder of your ideal customers?
Elevating email deliverability must be your main concern if your messages are consistently relegated to the spam folder. Achieving inbox placement is the key to meaningful audience engagement and the success of your email marketing efforts, as it opens the door to driving sales and fostering connections.
-
Get the Lay of the Land First things first, take a step back and assess your current situation.
By diving into this analysis, you’ll be better equipped to chart your course of action.
Kick things off by checking your email deliverability and giving your list quality a once-over, while also diving into the results of your recent campaigns.
After delving into these areas, you’ll gain insights into:
- Whether your emails are finding their way into spam folders across different email providers.
- Whether your name pops up on any significant blacklists.
- The state of your authentication setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).
- The level of engagement your contacts exhibit.
- The portion of your contacts who have gone inactive.
- How many contacts decide to bid farewell or tag your emails as spam.
- How your results stack up against industry standards.
-
Clear Your Name from Email Blacklists
If your emails are constantly landing in the dreaded spam folder, blacklists may be lurking in the shadows. Leading email providers often consult reputable blacklists when evaluating the quality of emails reaching their users.
Should you discover that your IP address or mailing domain has made an unwelcome appearance on any of these major blacklists (you can easily confirm this using reputation management tools like MxToolbox), don’t despair. Reach out to the list administrator for assistance and advice on how to enhance your email practices. More often than not, they’ll be more than willing to offer valuable insights.
But here’s the deal – there’s usually a reason behind your blacklisting. If you don’t adjust your methods and the way you conduct your email campaigns, you might find yourself back on that list. So, read on, as we treat this step as a short-term solution.
3. Secure Your Email Authenticity
Another common culprit behind email deliverability hiccups – one that can be effortlessly rectified – is authentication.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as Gmail or Outlook, might cast a skeptical eye on your emails and relegate them to the spam folder if anything seems amiss.
This hinges on a couple of vital factors: your identity and the manner in which you dispatch your emails. For now, let’s focus on the initial duo.
To position yourself as a trustworthy sender, consider these steps:
-
Use Your Company Domain: Instead of relying on publicly available freemail domains like Gmail or Comcast, deploy your company’s domain to dispatch emails.
-
Tweak Your DNS Settings: Configure your DNS settings and implement robust authentication protocols like Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM), Sender Policy Framework (SPF), Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC), and Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI).
By dispatching marketing emails from a custom domain, you’ll bolster your sender reputation. Assuming you adhere to email marketing best practices, your reputation should shine, culminating in superior deliverability.
By establishing authentication protocols correctly, you’ll signal to ISPs that you’re the rightful sender and that your messages haven’t encountered any rogue elements along their journey.
This last point proves especially advantageous if you’re employing email marketing software to orchestrate your email campaigns. Authentication can further enhance email deliverability while burnishing your reputation in the eyes of ISPs.
4. Craft a Distinctive Brand Persona
Cultivating a robust and distinct brand persona can work wonders in elevating your recipients’ interaction with your email communications. Given that engagement is a pivotal component of email deliverability, let’s explore methods for enhancing your brand identity:
-
Deploy a Tailored Domain: Opt for your custom domain when sending out your email campaigns, steering clear of free email domains like Gmail.
-
Keep It Consistent: Maintain uniformity in your Email fields (From, Name, and Address) across all your campaigns.
-
Embrace Design Consistency: Ensure a consistent design language permeates all your marketing channels, spanning your color scheme, fonts, and graphics.
-
Harness Brand Indicators: Leverage Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) and incorporate your brand’s logo within your email content.
5. Revive the Less-Engaged Contacts
While assessing recipient engagement in step #1, you may have pinpointed subscribers who’ve recently slipped into inactivity. Think of those folks who haven’t opened or clicked on any of your emails in the past three months.
Considering the untapped potential within this group, it’s wise to make an effort to rekindle their interest. The go-to method for achieving this is by launching a win-back campaign, which can be executed either manually or through automation.
6. Trim Your Email Roster
Maintaining a clean email list is a vital component of email deliverability.
To keep your list pristine, it’s imperative to jettison the deadweight while nurturing relationships with the consistently active. As we discussed rekindling relationships with potentially dormant contacts in step #5, let’s now delve into those contacts that warrant consideration for removal from your lists.
Two distinct groups come to mind when we mention “deadweight”:
The initial group comprises individuals who have explicitly indicated their desire to cease receiving emails from you or whose email addresses have triggered a bounce. Regardless of the size of this segment, it’s imperative to promptly remove them from your list.
The second category encompasses contacts who have remained disengaged from your correspondence for an extended period, such as a year or longer. In most cases, these contacts offer limited business potential, while simultaneously posing a significant threat to your email deliverability.
The peril stems from the potential transformation of these addresses into spam traps, often referred to as honey pots. Additionally, their continued presence may negatively impact your email performance.
7. Team Up with a Trustworthy Email Service Provider (ESP)
If your aim is to significantly enhance your sender reputation and bolster email deliverability, it’s imperative to collaborate with a reputable email marketing software provider. If you find yourself uncertain about your current platform, consider evaluating it based on the following criteria:
- Establish whether it maintains relationships with all the major Internet Service Providers.
- Ascertain whether it has instituted feedback loops with key mailbox providers.
- Verify if it automatically manages bounce, unsubscribe, and spam complaint processes.
- Ensure it prohibits users from uploading purchased or scraped contact lists.
- Confirm its active participation in prominent ISP industry initiatives, aimed at curbing spam, such as MAAWG, EEC, and ESPC.
- Check for compliance with major regulations, including CanSPAM, CASL, GDPR, and CCPA.
- Evaluate whether it allows authentication of your custom mailing domain.
- Confirm that it authenticates emails using SPF and DKIM protocols.
- Validate the presence of robust Deliverability and Compliance Teams.
- Inquire about its use of IPs with a solid reputation.
- Ensure the application of AI technology for identifying potential email deliverability challenges.
- Seek assurance of a comprehensive Data Processing Agreement.
- Confirm the availability of servers in your primary area of interest.
- Guarantee the security and integrity of all data handled.
- Assess its commitment to periodic tool updates in alignment with the latest industry standards.
- Lastly, explore the platform’s market reputation, considering its longevity and standing within the industry.
Should your current ESP fail to meet your deliverability needs, you can explore email marketing software options from GetResponse to enhance your email campaign efficiency. Furthermore, we have conducted comprehensive reviews of the leading email service providers in the market, providing you with additional choices to consider.