Email Deliverability: Best Practices & How to Improve It

More than 46% of marketers use email marketing consistently to acquire and nurture leads. However, how can you maximize its potential?

EmailToolTester reports that 83% of emails are successfully delivered to the recipient’s inbox. That is a genuine problem.

That’s where email deliverability gets into play. In this piece, we’ll go over all the best practices for email deliverability you’d need to adhere to get excellent results. 

What Is Email Deliverability?

Before we start focusing on email deliverability tips, there are a few things to talk about. Email deliverability vs email delivery. Yes, these are completely different things in marketing. Let us explain. 

Email delivery is all about bounce rates. How do you determine this? Successfully delivered emails won’t bounce back to you.

Therefore, you will see a high email delivery rate. Email delivery just calculates the quantity of emails that are successfully delivered. It doesn’t provide specifics on whether they end up in the inbox or spam folder.

However, email deliverability is simply the number of emails that successfully reach recipients’ inboxes.

How to Improve Email Deliverability

Write Non-Spammy Subject Lines

It’s really simple to get your emails to land in spam. Even one spammy word in the subject line of an email copy is enough to trigger filters.

You need to be aware of these words as they are like signals to spam filters that your emails have spammy content. To avoid the junk folder, don’t use such words as:

• Act immediately

• Jackpot

• 100% FREE

• Get a discount NOW!

• For only $$$

There are even curated lists of similar words that cause your emails to go to spam. Want better email deliverability? Avoid them. It’s as simple as that. 

Plus, you need to avoid:

1. Writing copy and subject lines in All CAPS.

2. Exaggerated numbers and symbols like $$$, 777, 0% risk.

3. Using characters like >, !, ” in your subject lines. 

Keep Clean Lists

Your email engagement rate is likely to go down with time. That’s because some subscribers will no longer be interested in your emails. There are many reasons for this. Sending them your emails is not a good idea, as this will result in lower engagement rates. And that’s not good for your deliverability rate. That is why it’s highly recommended that you clean your subscribers’ list regularly. 

How to maintain the hygiene of your list to improve email deliverability? 

• Remove all email addresses that have hard bounces.

• Create a suppression list. Include inactive and unsubscribed users in it.

• Develop a policy to indicate the terms that will trigger moving recipients to your suppression list.

Warmup Your IP Address

Have a fresh IP address for sending emails? Hold on. You’ll have to warm it up first. This is the most common tip on how to improve email deliverability for a good reason. Your email services provider should actually have resources to help you with your domain warmup. Reach out to them and ask for assistance. There are even special tools and services for this process. 

The idea is that the more open rates you get, the better it is for your IP reputation. And it takes 2-3 weeks to build up your IP reputation from scratch. The good thing about it is that you’ll have a higher deliverability score when your IP reputation score goes up. 

Sender Reputation

Email services usually use the reputation of the sender to evaluate the email’s credibility. The sender’s reputation determines where your emails are going to land (spam, inbox, get blocked).

A poor reputation of the sender means fewer emails will get into the subscribers’ inboxes. Thus, fewer subscribers will see your emails and convert.

Here’s a thing to keep in mind. A poor sender reputation literally kills your ROI.

List hygiene and email engagement are some of the main things that make or break your sender’s reputation.

Several tools for email deliverability testing can get an understanding of what your current rate of inbox placement is at the moment and how you can improve it. An email deliverability test tool from Snov.io is one of the popular options in the market.

It’s also possible to use Google Postmaster, Microsoft SNDS, and Yahoo Feedback to measure your sender reputation using different ISPs.

The majority of email testing tools out there give you in-depth tracking of email deliverability. This will help you measure the performance of your emails and keep them from spam folders.

Avoid Spam Traps

There are many traps that cause your emails to get stuck in spam folders. Here are a few tips in this regard. 

1. Avoid purchasing contact lists. Purchased lists are likely to include spam trap addresses.

2. Practice permission-based email marketing. 

3. Develop relationships with your list through engaging emails. 

Authenticate Your Email Domain

To set up your email infrastructure properly, you should authenticate your sender domain with DKIM, DMARC, and SPF.

Email authentication passes the info to the servers of your recipients that your email comes from a legit and verified domain. Thus, email authentication prevents your email from ending up in spam. It increases the odds of reaching the inbox.

Perfect the Opt-in Process

Setting a double opt-in email confirmation significantly reduces the rates of email bounces. 

What is double opt-in? Every time somebody subscribes to your list, a follow-up email is sent to their email address, in which they need to click a confirmation link to prove their interest in receiving emails from you. This tiny detail is easy to set up, and it’s very beneficial for you as a sender. So why not use it?

Wrap up on Email Deliverability Best Practices

And here you have it. With these actionable email deliverability tips, you are sure to reach more inboxes and increase your ROI. Email copy, technical setup, email domain, and email list — it all counts. Even small improvements result in more significant returns. Try these tips, and you’ll see it on your own.