5 Tactics to Overcome Deliverability Challenges

Kristen Wyatt on June 21, 2023

All marketers would love for their campaigns to be delivered to the inbox and opened by all of their recipients. In reality, this is not the case. There are multiple challenges that email marketers must overcome. This blog post will focus on the 5 tactics that marketers can use to overcome email deliverability challenges.

Check your HTML and Plain Text versions

Filters like to see a plain text alternative. HTML version-only emails are a red flag for spam filters. Ensure that your Plain Text version matches the HTML version. Many platforms don’t always copy the text over on new email templates. Plain and simple, some people prefer text emails.  Since a variety of email clients give their users the option to only receive the plain text version of an email, it’s important to send campaigns in a multi-part MIME format.  If your subscribers have enabled this setting and you only send an HTML version, they may not receive your mail.

Review daily campaign and deliverability reports

It is critical that all email marketers review their campaign reports inside their ESP (Email Service Provider) on a daily basis. Look for and review specific metrics that could signal an immediate deliverability issue.  That would include:

  • Hard bounces – This bounce rejection reason from the recipient mail server indicates a permanent delivery failure.  Retried delivery attempts will not be successful.  An example of a hard bounce would be a bad mailbox.
  • Soft bounces – This bounce rejection reason from the recipient mail server indicates a transient delivery failure.  Retried delivery attempts may be successful.  An example of a soft bounce would be a mailbox full.
  • Unsubscribes – The number of email recipients that have clicked the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.
  • Complaints – Those email recipients that have clicked the Spam button inside of their email client.

Test and review all email signup forms

Email signup forms are another critical component to email deliverability that many email marketers don’t think about. Are you making sure that these email forms work? Do they collect the appropriate data? Do these email forms comply with all of the domestic and international email compliance laws?

Test the unsubscribe link

Do you use a one-click opt-out option or a preference center? Do you even know how your unsubscribe process works? Continuous testing of the unsubscribe link is crucial for Deliverability. If the unsubscribe link is not working, many email recipients could be clicking the spam button to get off of your list. It is also a best practice to include other ways for subscribers to follow you, including social media. Some subscribers would prefer using social media to get updates from you, instead of email.

Sign up for Google Postmaster Tools

Gmail has stated that less than 0.1% of email in the average Gmail inbox is spam.  Historically, Gmail has not offered any insight into email metrics for senders.  The Gmail feedback tool was launched a few years ago, but the tool is offered in the form of aggregated spam statistics, which cannot be traced back to the email address of the recipient who marked the mail as spam.  Google states that these Postmaster Tools are for qualified high-volume senders, like email service providers, to monitor senders closely.  By visiting https://www.gmail.com/postmaster/, high-volume senders can get email specifics including data on delivery errors, spam reports, and reputation.

To get started, there is a 3-step process to get the dashboard set up.  You will need to prove that you own the domain by entering the DNS TXT Record or the DNS CNAME Record.  The TXT record should not be removed after Google verifies it.  According to Google, it will be tested periodically to make sure the domain still belongs to you.  Once it’s verified and emails are flowing, you will get access to the data that Gmail is sharing about your deliverability.

Suppression Lists – What are they?

Kristen Wyatt on June 5, 2023

An email suppression list is a list of contacts that you do not want to send to because sending to these contacts could hurt your sending reputation and delivery rates. Basic categories for suppression lists include spam complaints, bounced & blocked mail, and unsubscribes.

Spam Complaints

Sending an email to someone after they have submitted your email as SPAM can be very harmful to your sending reputation. If this practice is repeated, your IP and/ or domain may soon be blocked by the ISP (Internet Service Provider). 

Always follow best practices and protocols, especially when handling spam complaints. 

Bounced & Blocked

Keeping up with bounce details is an essential practice. If you are receiving “Invalid Address” bounces, you should be moving these contacts to the suppression list right away. These are usually typos or old addresses that have timed out and been turned off by ESPs (Email Service Providers). These contacts are classic picks for spam traps, which will hurt your reputation if you continue to attempt contact.

If you are seeing “Blocked” bounces, this indicates that the recipient does not desire to have your campaign. Unless you have received explicit permission from a contact with this bounce, pass them to your suppression list. If your mail has been requested, try to reach out to the person directly. You may be experiencing this block due to an automatic filter that needs to be updated to allow your mailings. Until you have confirmed that this has been completed, do not send any mail to this contact.

If you are receiving a hard bounce, the general rule of thumb action is to move them to your suppression list.

Unsubscribes

As per the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003 is a law passed in 2003 establishing the United States’ first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail), you should give your recipients an option to opt out of email campaigns. When someone unsubscribes, they should be added to an email suppression list to help you prevent sending emails to them in the future. This should be done immediately.

Make it easy to find your unsubscribe options. When a recipient is unable to find this information quickly, it’s more likely they will mark your mail as SPAM. Unsubscribes do not hurt your sending reputation. However, being flagged as SPAM does!

Suppression lists allow you to stop sending to recipients who do not want your campaigns. Keeping these contacts on your active lists will only hurt your overall reputation. Preference centers give your recipients more options to adjust the content that they want to see. It would also allow them to unsubscribe from your campaigns completely. As you know, good engagement is imperative for any marketing campaign. Keeping regular list hygiene practices helps to keep open and click rates high, negative flags from ISPs low, and ultimately helps to keep a good sending reputation across the board.

Spam Traps 101

Kristen Wyatt on May 16, 2023

Threats to an organization’s sending reputation can come from many different directions. Even the most well-intentioned email marketer can end up hitting a “spam trap.” While these spam traps are keeping marketers up at night, the recipients reap the benefits as these are vital in the fight against undesirable mail. Despite what you’ve heard, spam traps are REAL email addresses that do not bounce. These sneaky guys are put in place to help identify and stop senders with poor list management and permission practices.

Spam traps fall into 3 categories:

Typo traps are domain addresses that are misspelled. This is the most common of the three types. Service providers often purchase commonly misspelled versions of themselves to monitor those not using verification methods.
Example: GaryBanes@gmalll.com.

(Were you able to catch the missing “i” and triple “l” at the end of that email address?)

Gray traps are addresses that have been dormant for a period of time, then turned back on by the ISP. These ISPs are checking to see which marketers are still sending to this recently inactive address. This makes it evident that the marketer is not looking at engagement metrics when sending.

Pristine traps are more detrimental than the others. These are addresses that have never opted into anything. They are placed into different forums, then monitored. Hitting this type of trap shows that you are likely sending to purchased lists or have poor list acquisition practices.

In order to stay out of the spam folder and away from spam traps, be sure to clean your active lists, implement, and follow strict list segmentation methods. Ensure that you are following the CAN-SPAM Act (check into international laws such as CASL and GDPR if you’re sending outside the United States). Use double opt-in when confirming your email address sign ups. Don’t send to contacts that have been pulled from purchased lists. Sending email to addresses without any permission will not only cause complaints, but it will also soon cause mail to be blocked completely. Monitoring tools (such as InboxMonster.com) will easily allow you as a marketer to stay compliant and sleep well at night.