If you’re a fully-integrated marketer, your email campaigns are only as effective as your ability to get them into recipients’ inboxes. That’s why email deliverability should be your top priority.
If you follow the best practices and the right sales engagement platform, you’ll have a higher chance of making it through spam filters. These five tips will help you do just that.
1. Optimize Your Subject Line
The subject line is one of the most important elements of an email. It’s the first thing recipients see and it determines whether they’ll open the email or delete it.
Your subject line should grab attention and promise a benefit. People love new experiences, cool offers, and discounts. Using terms like “free,” “coupon code,” and “50% off” in your subject lines can generate interest and increase your email’s deliverability. However, don’t overdo it. Excessive caps and exclamation points are off-putting to recipients and can trigger spam filters.
It’s also important to keep your subject line short. Ideally, it should be no more than 60 characters so that it can fit on mobile devices without getting cut off. Subject lines that are longer tend to get ignored or marked as spam, lowering your email’s deliverability.
When crafting a subject line, it’s also a good idea to start with action-oriented verbs. These are more enticing than adjectives and can inspire your audience to act. Subject lines that begin with “buy,” “sale,” and “deal” are also more clickable as they evoke feelings of urgency.
Finally, it’s important to understand your audience and tailor your subject line to their needs and interests. This will not only increase your email’s deliverability but also your click-through and conversion rates.
It’s also a good idea to avoid blasting purchased/rented lists as this will likely trigger spam filters and lower your email’s deliverability. Blasting purchased/rented lists can also result in a low sender score, which will negatively impact your email’s deliverability in the future. This will ultimately cost you more money and result in a lower ROI for your campaigns. Instead, focus on building a strong relationship with your email list and you’ll see more consistent results.
2. Optimize Your HTML
Email marketing is an effective way to communicate with your audience, but there are many factors that affect deliverability. In order to ensure your emails reach your subscribers’ inboxes, you need to optimize your HTML and design for all devices.
Mailbox providers run reputation checks on senders before deciding whether to deliver an email to the inbox or spam folder. Having a great email reputation makes it more likely that your messages will reach the inbox and increase your deliverability rate.
A high email deliverability rate is a sign of excellent engagement with your content and helps you build a strong relationship with ISPs. To improve your deliverability, monitor key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates and spam complaints. This will help you identify issues early on and solve them effectively.
When sending an email, it’s also important to keep the HTML code to a minimum. This can reduce the file size of your email, which in turn can increase its rendering across different devices and email clients.
Another factor to consider is the subject line and body of your email. Avoid using SPAM trigger words such as “click here”, “free”, “winner”, and “best price”. These keywords could alert ESPs that the email is suspicious or spammy, potentially leading to your messages being sent to the junk folder.
Finally, make sure that your subscribers are able to easily unsubscribe from your email campaigns. This will avoid a large number of spam complaints that may harm your deliverability. It’s best to have a simple opt-out button that is clearly displayed in your email, which will allow your subscribers to stop receiving your messages with ease.
3. Segment Your List
Email segmentation can increase your email deliverability by making it more personalized. This in turn can help to boost your open rates and click-throughs. It can also help you to generate more leads and convert more customers.
While some businesses may know who they serve and what their ideal customer profile (ICP) is, many don’t necessarily have a good grasp on how to break that information down into concrete segments. The best way to do this is by creating a simple spreadsheet. This way, you can gather all of the answers from your subscribers and then quickly sort them into categories that make sense for your business.
You could categorize your subscribers by their location, for example. This is especially helpful for businesses with a wide geographic reach like online retailers, restaurants, or professional cleaning services. You can also categorize by age, occupation, or gender to better tailor your messages. You might also consider separating your subscribers by whether they’re prospective customers or current customers. You don’t want to mail your prospective customers offers they wouldn’t be interested in, or you might risk putting them off.
Lastly, you might also want to consider separating your subscribers by their level of engagement with your company. This way, you can tailor your campaigns to the most responsive subscribers and avoid wasting your time and money on those who aren’t opening your emails or taking any action.
While segmentation is a great way to improve your email deliverability, you shouldn’t overdo it and create too many categories. Too much data can raise suspicion and flag your emails as spam. It’s also important to slowly warm up your IP address and domain name by gradually increasing the frequency of your mailings.
4. Avoid Spammy Words and Language
Email is a great way to connect with your audience, but only if your emails actually reach the inbox. Email deliverability is a complicated dance that takes many factors into consideration. The last thing you want is for your hard work to end up in the spam folder along with 162 billion other unwanted emails. Luckily, there are a few simple things you can do to prevent your emails from ending up in the trash bin.
One of the most important factors in determining whether an email will be delivered or sent to the spam folder is the subject line. You’ll want to avoid using spammy words and language in your subject lines, such as “free”, “act now”, “click here”, or “winner.” These keywords alert email service providers that the content of the email might be unsolicited.
You also want to be careful with how you use punctuation. Emails with excessive punctuation or that have all caps letters are a red flag to spam filters, as they indicate a high volume of undeliverable email.
In addition, you’ll want to ensure that you are only sending email to subscribers who have opted-in to receive your communications. This includes providing an opt-out link in your emails so that your recipients can easily stop receiving your email messages.
Finally, you’ll want to monitor your email deliverability metrics and take action when necessary. This includes resolving any blacklisting issues, ensuring that your email domain and IP addresses are not being used by spammers, and following best practices when it comes to composing and sending your emails.
5. Don’t Let Your Ego Get in the Way
Email deliverability is a complex topic with many factors that affect how your emails perform. In order to ensure that your emails are reaching your subscribers’ inboxes and not their junk or spam folders, it is important to understand the basics of email delivery and sender reputation.
The key to email deliverability is knowing what factors are the most common causes of your emails being sent to the spam folder and how you can improve them. It is also helpful to know which tools you can use to check email deliverability, so you can keep your inbox placement high and avoid the spam folder.
While it may seem counterintuitive, the best way to increase your email deliverability instantly is to stop sending so many emails. Sending too many emails can cause your emails to be sent to the spam folder as receiving servers will need to learn who you are, and if your content is relevant to them.
Instead, take it slow and start by connecting with your ideal customers (ICP). Once you connect with them, continue to build trust by using double opt-in, making it easy to unsubscribe and avoiding using URL shorteners. Additionally, it is important to clean up your list regularly. This includes removing cold and inactive subscribers, who aren’t opening or engaging with your emails.
It is also helpful to use email service providers that have a good reputation with the major ISPs, such as Folderly. It is also crucial to check the reputation of your email servers with blacklists and other services, such as MXToolbox. Having a good email deliverability score is crucial to increasing your email open rate and ultimately sales.