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How to Improve Email
Deliverability and
Optimize Each Send
2
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
Ok marketers. Email marketing pop quiz time.
Do your emails magically find their way to the inbox
once you’ve hit send?
Or do your emails go through a nuanced process
behind the scenes before they make it into your
customer’s inbox?
While it may seem like magic to some, making it into the
inbox doesn’t have to be a guessing game. You can take
real, actionable steps to improve your email deliverability —
all while increasing customer engagement and eliminating
wasted spend.
Email deliverability (sometimes called inbox placement) can
be very complex — but it’s worth trying to understand. By
landing your emails successfully in the inbox, you can make
the most of your time, money, and effort.
That’s exactly why we at Litmus and Salesforce created this
four-part guide to understanding email deliverability.
You’ll learn the keys to forming a proactive and holistic
deliverability approach to your email marketing — so every
campaign is primed for success.
Introduction
SECTION 1
Prime your email marketing for success
SECTION 2
Validate and test before you send
SECTION 3
Monitor email metrics once you’ve sent
SECTION 4
Respond if you sense a deliverability issue
LET’S START BY ESTABLISHING EXACTLY
WHAT EMAIL DELIVERABILITY IS.
3
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
Each time you hit send, your emails pass through a few checkpoints along the
way to their intended destination. These checkpoints contain two key aspects—
delivery and deliverability.
What is email deliverability?
DELIVERY tells you whether or not your emails were received by the
servers of your subscribers’ inbox providers. It’s like knocking on a door
and telling the inbox provider that you have a message to be delivered.
They will either accept that message, or bounce it with a reason why
the message wasn’t accepted.
An email bounce is the equivalent to getting a letter marked
“return to sender.” It means your email wasn’t delivered. A hard
bounce is a permanent bounce, meaning an email will not be
received by that email address. A soft bounce is a temporary
bounce, meaning while the delivery of your current message was
unsuccessful, you may be able to deliver another email to that
address at a later date.
An email counts as delivered if it did not bounce. But delivery is just
step one of the journey.
DELIVERABILITY is the follow-up process to what happens once
the message gets delivered. It’s the rate at which your emails make it
into your subscribers’ inboxes instead of being labeled as spam and
going to the junk folder.
The spam or junk folder is the storage space in an email
account for unwanted emails or emails that are flagged as
unsolicited and failed to reach the inbox.
A high deliverability rate means your emails often make it to the
inbox, whether that’s in the primary inbox or a tab that sorts and
filters messages (like those in email clients like Gmail or Yahoo Mail).
Email deliverability can feel like a bit of a mystery because inbox service providers (ISPs) do not all follow the same standards for what could cause a
message to make it to the inbox (or not). Plus, for B2B marketers emailing customers at work email addresses, there are corporate-level filters that could be
even stricter. Unlike Gmail or Yahoo Mail they frequently offer another level of security to the user of the ISP.
But, we do know which factors influence deliverability, and which are more (or less) critical to resolve. Also, preventative measures and ongoing monitoring
steps can help every email marketer minimize the likelihood of deliverability issues.
As you read through this guide, it may help to consult these
cheat sheets of key email deliverability terms.
4
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
SECTION 1
Prime your email marketing for success
Confirm your authentication and infrastructure
Set up your infrastructure correctly. It informs inbox servers that your emails are legitimate
and worthy of making it to the inbox. First and foremost, ensure you are sending only from
authenticated domains. If you send from multiple IP addresses for purposes like segmentation,
make sure they’re all authenticated domains.
ESTABLISH THREE PRIMARY FRAMEWORKS: SPF, DKIM, AND DMARC
The objective of these systems is to guarantee and verify the identity of the senders and protect
the receivers from insecure emails.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF): Allows mail services to double check that incoming mail
from a specific domain has, in fact, been sent from that domain.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM): Shows your email is associated with your domain
and uses cryptographic techniques to make sure it should be there.
Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, & Conformance (DMARC): Designed
to combat phishing, DMARC gives you insight into the abusive senders that may be
impersonating you — and can help you identify them. It allows a sender to indicate that
an email is protected by SPF or DKIM. The sender can then receive a report back on any
messages that failed the authentication and identify if anyone using the domain could be
a spammer.
Properly implementing
all three is vital to your
deliverability foundation.
Not sure if your emails are being
properly signed using SPF, DKIM, and
DMARC? Use Litmus Spam Testing.
We’ll notify you if we spot any issues
right away, and give actionable advice
to fix them.
Authentication Filters
Check for the existence and status
of your authentication records.
You have 3 major issues
with DKIM.
Litmus Spam Testing
1.
5
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
Determine your need for IP warming
Inbox providers want to ensure that only reputable senders make it through the proverbial email door. They
determine this, at least in part, by the number of times they consistently receive legitimate messages from
a dedicated IP address. For example, as subscribers consistently engage with your emails, your IP address
is seen as reputable — people want to receive your mail.
But if you use a new IP address to send an email (or one that you haven’t used in quite some time), the
process might need to start over. ISPs will monitor emails from a new (or cold) IP address until they can
verify that it’s reputable.
This is where IP warming comes in. IP warming is the practice of slowly sending emails from a new IP
address or domain name and gradually increasing send volume over time until you’ve “proven” yourself as
a legitimate sender.
2.
If any of these scenarios apply, consider IP warming before you
hit send on your campaign:
● New dedicated IP with a new domain
● New dedicated IP address with the same domain
● New domain with the same IP
● New subdomain from a warm domain
● New ESP you’re using for the first time
● Switching to a new ESP
● Rebranding/acquisition or merger
● Moving from a shared IP to a dedicated IP
● Moving from your parent domain to a subdomain just for emails
● Planning a large spike in your typical email send volume
Allow at least four to eight weeks. Send slowly and pay close
attention to performance.
Send a limited number of emails to start. During the first
week, only use your new domain or IP to email 1% of your most
active or engaged subscribers. Then, you can double recipients
each week. Use these volume estimates as a guide.
Choose messages with the highest open rates and
click-to-open rate (CTOR). Make these the first emails you
send from your new space. Pick message types from the last
six to nine months that perform best.
As you build trust and convince ISPs that people on your list actually want
to receive your emails, you can ramp up your normal send volume.
IF YOU DECIDE YOU NEED IP WARMING, FOLLOW
THESE BEST PRACTICES:
6
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
Check in with your sender reputation
Your sender reputation is a score that an Inbox Service Provider (ISP)
gives your organization. It is based on a number of factors, including:
3.
All ISPs will weigh these factors differently.
USE FREE TOOLS TO CHECK YOUR SENDER REPUTATION
Keeping tabs on your sender reputation saves you lots of time and stress.
You’ll be better prepared to address any underlying issues that may be
hurting your deliverability, including configuration, IP reputation, and
authentication. (If you have multiple domain names and send email from
different IP addresses, you’ll want to keep tabs on the sender reputation
associated with each).
Your sender reputation impacts your inbox placement and is
associated with a sender score, measured from 0 to 100. Because
each mailbox provider uses a unique algorithm to arrive at your
score, it’s not an exact science. But, you can assume that the
higher your score, the better your email reputation.
There are both paid and free tools you can use to check your sender
reputation. We recommend these free tools:
● The number of emails your organization sends
● How many subscribers engage with your emails (based on 		
actions like open, reply, forward, delete, and click)
● How many recipients mark your emails as spam or otherwise 		
complain about your emails
● If your organization hit any ISP spam traps or is on any blocklists
● How many people unsubscribe
● Email bounces
● The reputation of any URLs used in your campaigns
● The domains and IP addresses used for sending
● Where your images are stored (CDN, different domain, etc.)
● The content of your message
Google Postmaster Tools
Barracuda Central
Outlook.com Smart Network Data Services (SNDS)
73
81
59
65
92
7
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
BIMI: ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS WINNING INBOX TRUST
Bring your logo to the customer’s inbox. Brand Indicators for Message
Identification (BIMI) is an email standard that can win even more inbox
trust, by bringing your logo to the customer’s inbox.
How does BIMI work?
Like DMARC, DKIM, and SPF, BIMI is a text record that lives on your
servers. In fact, it works right alongside SPF, DMARC, and DKIM to signal
to email clients that you are, in fact, the sender of your email. As such,
BIMI aids in deliverability, too.
Where is BIMI supported?
BIMI support includes several major inbox service provider (ISP) providers
— like Gmail, Verizon Media Group (Yahoo, AOL, Netscape), Apple Mail on
iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura.
WHAT YOU NEED TO GET STARTED:
What does BIMI look like?
An SVG file of your logo
To learn more about BIMI, download our guide.
Authentication of your
emails with SPF, DKIM, and
DMARC
Access to your domain
name servers to set up a
new BIMI DNS entry
A Verified Mark
Certificate (VMC) optional
but recommended
BRAND WITH VERIFIED
SENDER LOGO
BRAND WITHOUT VERIFIED
SENDER LOGO
8
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
Validate your list
Email validation boosts the deliverability of your email
campaigns by ensuring that the email addresses have proper
domains, are in service, and have opted-in to communications.
To ensure that your lists remain healthy, periodically audit your
lists and cull bad addresses.
The frequency with which you audit can depend on a few factors:
● Your opt-in rates: As people opt in to receive
		 communications, you can verify their address and set 		
		 communication preferences.
● The regularity of your outreach: The less frequently you
		 use your lists, the more likely the email addresses are old
		 and out of date.
● Whether you are sending B2B emails or B2C emails: B2B
		 email marketers might see turnover at companies, which 		
		 leads to inactive addresses. B2C email marketers might see
		 higher subscription rates but more junk addresses.
As always, never purchase outside lists. The email data may not be
valid, and the lack of explicit opt-in will damage your sender reputation.
To start, we recommend doing a full audit every three to six months
depending on the frequency of your outreach. Then, adjust depending
on the needs of your organization. As you get more comfortable, you can
also audit your lists as you go. Many Email Service Providers (ESPs) can
help with validating by immediately removing hard bounces from lists.
When auditing your lists, make sure to:
Confirm that all subscribers are opted-in
Ensure you’ve set proper expectations about what you will be 		
		 communicating, and how often
Note where and when a subscriber opted in
Check in with subscribers you have not heard from in a while 		
		 with the choice to opt out, or to adjust the frequency of 			
		 communication via an Email Preference Center.
SECTION 2
Validate and test before you send
9
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send 9
Test your emails
Do you regularly test your emails? A number of factors can cause your
email to end up in the spam folder — like buggy HTML and strange
rendering that makes a client unsubscribe. To avoid these pitfalls,
test every email before you send.
You will want to double check these components before hitting the
send button:
Broken links: No one likes a broken CTA or having to issue a
correction email. Check these by either sending a test email to
yourself and clicking the link, or double checking the body of
the email.
Rendering: View your email on multiple email clients (such
as Outlook, Apple Mail, and Gmail) and devices (smartphone,
tablet, laptop) to ensure that the design is consistent, images
and fonts are displayed correctly, and that the email is
responsive. Most email marketing providers contain this
feature.
Spam filters: Run your email through common spam filters
to check the deliverability. Most email marketing providers
contain this feature, and will provide your email with a
deliverability score for each ISP.
As always, test both the HTML version of the email and the plain text version,
which is sent if the HTML version cannot be delivered to an individual’s inbox.
Apple Mail 13 macOS 10.15
Gmail App Dark Android 10.0 iPho
Previews
First Impressions
Accessibility
Links
Tracking
Image Blocking
Loading Speed
Spam Testing
4
1
Popular Desktop Clients
Popular Mobile Clients
Outl
Know before you send with Litmus Email Testing
10
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
Spam complaints: Too many spam complaints could cause the spam
filters to flag your IP address. Always monitor your list health and
honor unsubscribes.
Low engagement: Sending too many emails from an IP address with
a low open rate could land you in the spam folder. Optimize your
subject and preheaders, and carefully segment your lists so that you
are sending people the most relevant emails to them.
Hidden HTML: Copying and pasting the text of your email from
programs like Microsoft Word can embed hidden HTML, which can
set off spam filters. Be sure to draft in a plain text document, or run
your text through an app that removes hidden HTML and formatting.
Inconsistent hyperlinks: Spammers are notorious for making it
seem like you are clicking on one link, but sending you to another.
But even innocuous variations in your links can set off spam flags.
For example, if you type www.salesforce.com into your email but the
hyperlink directs you to www.salesforce.com/home, it can be flagged
as spam. Be sure to avoid typing URLs directly into your email.
In short—no. The Gmail Promotions tab is not the same as going to the spam folder. Gmail uses algorithms
to determine where your email will land. But, if a user ever marks your email as a promotion, Gmail’s
algorithm would be ignored, and your email will automatically land in the Promotions Tab moving forward.
Remember, the categorization exists for a reason. That’s where subscribers want to engage with the type of
email you’ve sent.
Plus, you don’t have to guess where your message will land in Gmail. Check which Gmail tab your email will
end up in with Litmus’ free tool.
Duplicate emails: Sending the same email to the same list of
recipients without any changed content could trigger spam filters.
If you are sending a re-promote email or issuing a correction, make
some small changes from the original message.
URLs: Too many URLs, or URLs that are too long and not
hyperlinked, can also cause spam filters to flag your emails.
Picture-to-text ratio: It’s important to maintain a good balance of
text and images since too much text or too many pictures can cause
spam filters to flag your email.
Spammy words: Those in digital marketing have known for eons
that certain words and characters can cause spam filters to flag
their emails. This includes using words like “sex,” “free,” and “act
now,” as well as overusing dollar signs or exclamation points. This
being said, email marketers can still use these words and phrases
without being flagged as spam so long as they are not excessive
and within context (for example, included in phrases like, “feel free
to drop us a line” or “sex and gender”). When in doubt, test your
email to see if the body copy causes any red flags.
What triggers spam filters?
There are a variety of factors that can send an email to the spam filter. The good news is that you can take easy steps to
avoid this. Here are a few things to look out for when testing your emails.
SHOULD YOU BE
CONCERNED WITH THE
GMAIL PROMOTIONS TAB?
11
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
Monitor your bounce rates — it’s the most direct way to track your day-to-day deliverability health.
Just as observing open, click, and conversion rates helps you see the success of a campaign,
checking your bounce rates can be equally informative.
Most brands strive towards a 99% delivery rate — for every 100 emails sent, 99 hopefully make it
to the inbox. The one email that didn’t make it to an inbox represents a 1% bounce rate.
SECTION 3
Monitor email metrics once you’ve sent
More realistically, a slightly lower delivery rate of 97% is still acceptable, but anything below 97%
is a signal to dig deeper.
To understand why an email “bounced,” you can divide bounce rates into three specific
categories.
● Hard bounce: The most straightforward of bounces, it means the email address doesn’t
		 exist. It can be an email address that is no longer in use, or a typo in the email address.
		 Ultimately, it’s bad data which can result from buying a list, not regularly validating data, or
		 just happenstance when an inbox is closed.
● Soft bounce: Less clear cut, soft bounces happen when emails are rejected for a temporary
		 reason. It can be if the subscriber’s mailbox is full or disabled, even if it’s temporary. 		
		 Some email service providers will automatically retry sending when a soft bounce is noted.
● Block bounce: Usually signaling a more serious deliverability issue, block bounces occur
		 when the email inbox rejects the email because of a lack of authentication, or if the 		
		 domain or IP address appears on a blocklist. If you start to see block bounces, reviewing
		 your deliverability practices should become top priority.
To achieve a delivery rate of 97%, these three bounce types need to total 3% or less of your
total send volume. If your overall bounce rate is higher than 3% (or any individual bounce type
is above 1%), it’s worth investigating the individual bounce types to diagnose the issue and
prescribe a solution.
= (EMAILS SENT - EMAILS BOUNCED) / EMAILS SENT
DELIVERY RATE
= (EMAILS SENT - EMAILS DELIVERED) / EMAILS SENT
BOUNCE RATE
TIP: To continue using many
ESPs, marketers must maintain
a high deliverability rate. Many
email marketing platforms will
flag and suspend accounts if
their deliverability rate drops
too dramatically, or if it is
consistently low.
DELIVERY RATE
99%
12
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
UNSUBSCRIBE RATES
Unsubscribes impact deliverability less than spam. A subscriber
clicking the unsubscribe button at the bottom of your email has a
lower impact on your deliverability than if they were to click the
spam button. So it’s important to make unsubscribing from the email
easy and straightforward to avoid being marked as spam.
Unsubscribes should only come from a very small percentage of
your subscribers with a benchmark of 0.5%, because whoever
you’re sending to has specifically opted in and asked you to send
them a message.
Beyond bounce rates, two other metrics can
provide signals of deliverability health.
UNSUBSCRIBE RATE WARNING SIGNS
If your unsubscribe rate is consistently higher than 0.5%...
it could indicate unhealthy acquisition practices. In this case, the email list
might include people who unwittingly signed up, which could cause hard
bounces or spam complaints in the future.
If you see a spike in your unsubscribe rate…
It could indicate that your content isn’t resonating with your subscribers, or
you pulled in the wrong list or segment of subscribers. Most inbox providers
include subscriber engagement in their inbox placement algorithms,
so addressing the content and frequency you’re sending will be key to
improving your deliverability.
ENGAGEMENT RATES
As email inbox providers become more sophisticated, engagement
rates at the individual subscriber level impact whether an email
makes it into the inbox. Low open or click rates provide early
warning signs of future deliverability issues.
They can also provide additional insight into what’s often a hidden
issue: emails going to the spam folder based on lower, individual
subscriber engagement.
For example:
● Subscriber A might stop opening emails from a certain 		
		 brand and the inbox provider begins to move those messages
		 to Subscriber A’s spam.
● However, Subscriber B still engages with the emails from that
		 brand and receives them in their inbox.
● Both of these messages would appear as “delivered” and not
		 show up in bounce rates, but the emails going to spam will 		
		 most likely not be opened or clicked.
Spam placement isn’t regularly available to email marketers
as inbox providers keep this information obscured. However,
engagement rates are available. Open and click rates can serve as
a proxy for evaluating the overall health of your email program.
12
Open Rate
61.8%
Click-through Rate
24.4%
Click-to-open Rate
39.5%
Litmus Read Rate
37.5%
Average Engagement
Sample engagement metrics from Litmus
TIP: A preference center is a great solution to keep your subscribers
happy while also mitigating unsubscribes. It gives the subscriber the
power to determine the types of messages they want to receive,
while giving them a chance to opt out if the frequency is too much,
instead of losing them all together. Even better – it provides more
data on customer interests and your email sending habits.
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
13
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
NOT SURE HOW YOUR EMAIL METRICS ARE
IMPACTED BY MPP?
Find out with Litmus Email Analytics
1,010,564 (90.1%)
Total reliable opens
111,478 (9.9%)
Apple privacy-impacted opens
1,122,042
Total opens
Average Engagement and Read Time (last 30 days)
Summary of the performance of the emails you are currently tracking
36.3%
Read (8s+)
46.1%
Skimmed (2-8s)
17.6%
Glanced (<2s)
414k
Total opens
Share your Analytics report
Public URL to share
Make this report public
Dark Mode
32%
Apple Dark Mode Usage
(last 30 days)
Dark Mode Light Mode
Apple Mail
Privacy-Impacted Opens
33.3%
30.0% 25.0%
Dec.
Nov. Jan.
What does Apple’s mail privacy protection (mpp) mean for deliverability?
Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) officially went into effect on September 20, 2021 for the Mail app on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 devices.
With the macOS Monterey launch, it became available for Macbooks on October 25, 2021.
For subscribers who have opted into MPP, open and click-to-open
rates (CTOR) will not be a reliable metric for measuring engagement.
You’ll likely see:
● Inflated opens
● Lower CTOR
To monitor engagement (which could impact deliverability), shift
your focus:
● What and where are your calls-to-action? What is the goal of
		 your email?
● Encourage true interaction with clickable elements like sentiment
		 polls, thumbs up/thumbs down signals and gamification
● Measure click-through rates
DON’T FORGET — opens aren’t triggered in the spam
folder. If you get a 30% open rate one day and the next
day it’s 10%, it could signal a spam folder issue.
14
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
Deliverability issues don’t usually happen overnight.
When an issue arises, marketers must go back and reflect
on what changed in their email strategy. While deliverability
issues may seem mysterious, they usually fall under four
categories:
EMAIL ADDRESS REPUTATION
Are your messages triggering spam filters? What is your sender email address?
Is it recognizable? Does it allow replies? A spam test tool is a good way to
test whether your messages are triggering filters. Litmus’ Spam Test tool, for
example, helps identify issues that may land your emails in the spam folder — with
contextual advice to fix deliverability problems before you send.
The higher your organization’s email sender reputation score, the more likely
the more likely your communications will land in the your communications to
land in the right place for your customers and prospects to engage. Internet
service providers (ISPs) will combine various metrics to calculate an overall
sender reputation score. These metrics include bounce rate, unsubscribe rate,
and number of spam trap email address recipients. Take a hard look at these
metrics from your email subscriber list to get an idea of how much clout your
communications have with ISPs.
Taking a week-by-week view of engagement metrics is another way to see
exactly where engagement fell off. In fact, observing and analyzing any patterns in
deliverability can offer clues to finding and fixing issues. For example, if you notice
email deliverability dropping off for specific email clients, that may help you triage
those subscribers.
SECTION 4
Respond if you sense a deliverability issue
You might also notice that many of these factors behind
deliverability issues are the same ones we recommended
you check in with before you hit send.
1
Email Address
Reputation
2
IP Address
Reputation
3
Server
Configuration
4
Email
Content
SPAM TRAPS
A spam trap is an email address that does not belong to a real person and
often identifies organizations with irresponsible list building techniques
(such as buying email lists). ISPs, spam/security appliance vendors, and
blacklists all maintain lists of spam trap addresses. If you send emails to
spam traps, it’s an indication that you’re not keeping your email list clean.
The value and validity of your message will take a hit as a result.
1.
15
How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
IP ADDRESS REPUTATION
Make sure that you’re sending from a dedicated IP address and a stable,
appropriately-branded domain name. If you send more than 100K emails
per month, you would benefit from a dedicated IP address. If you send more
than 250K emails a month, those emails are required to be on a dedicated IP
address. In fact, a dedicated IP address allows you to send 1.5M emails per day.
However, if you send less than 100K emails per month, you can get away with
using a shared IP address.
SERVER CONFIGURATION
If everything is clear in terms of email address reputation, the next step is to
check your server configuration. Return to the three authentication frameworks
covered in section one to validate if you have the proper setup.
DKIM provides an encryption key and digital signature that verifies that an
email message was not forged or altered.
SPF allows email senders to define which IP addresses are allowed to
send mail for a particular domain.
DMARC provides a report on any messages that failed the authentication
to identify if anyone using the domain could be a spammer.
These protocols complement one another, and together, you can use them to
build trust with your customers and improve your overall reputation.
EMAIL CONTENT
Sometimes, lack of email engagement comes down to the actual content
within the email. Take a look at your email formats. How is the text-to-image
ratio? Is there anything that could be flagged by spam filters (even in the
preheader or HTML)? Was the message run through a spam checker? In our
experience, email messages that are flooded with images and videos find
themselves filtered to a spam box or promotion tab. On the other hand, text-only
emails may not be engaging unless concise and appropriately delivering value.
Try alternating between different email formats and mixing up your visuals to
find out what works.
When it comes to email subject lines, here are some tips
to write one that catches your audience’s attention:
● Shorten your sentence
● Personalize
● Use numbers or stats to pique interest
● Be clear and informative
● Create a sense of urgency
Find yourself in deliverability trouble? Try three steps to
get back on track:
Take a deep breath. You’ll come up with the best
plan when you have the least amount of panic.
And remind yourself that every email marketer
has faced a deliverability challenge at one point
or another. Take a holistic review of your program
and backtrack to pinpoint the issue, whether it’s
your infrastructure and authentication, reputation,
audience, or content. From there, you can make a
plan of action with the right solution to respond.
Dial back your mailing list temporarily. When you
find yourself in the spam box, it’s very difficult to
get engagement. And a beautifully crafted email
does no good if it isn’t seen. The best action to
take at this time is to send to the subscribers who
are most engaged to rebuild trust with the ISPs. If
you dial your list back to reach your core engaged
subscribers, you can start to increase engagement
and correct your course.
Practice patience. Some fixes can take a few
weeks to put in place. From there, it can take
another 8-12 weeks to finally get emails back to
the inbox.
15
2.
3.
4.
Conclusion
Email deliverability involves plenty of moving parts, but it’s nothing
you can’t manage with some know-how, monitoring, and tools.
Learn how you can gain the confidence that every email you send will
reach the inbox and result in the best experience for all subscribers
with Litmus.
Litmus provides the leading email personalization, optimization,
and collaboration software for marketers. From pre-Send campaign
development, testing, and AI-driven content recommendations
through Litmus Personalize, to post-send insights for future content
optimization, Litmus improves marketing performance and boosts
customer engagement. Drive conversion and revenue with Litmus’
suite of solutions that enable users to efficiently build, test, and
collaborate on large volumes of emails, while simultaneously creating
highly personalized email experiences at scale.
With offices in Boston, San Mateo, and London and backed by
Spectrum Equity, Litmus is used by major global brands across every
industry, including 80% of the Fortune 100, the top 10 retailers, 9 of
the top 10 ecommerce brands and U.S. banks, and 23 of the top 25
U.S. advertising agencies. Learn more about Litmus at litmus.com,
subscribe to the Litmus blog, or follow us on social media - Twitter,
LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.
Salesforce is the global leader in CRM, bringing companies
and customers together in the digital age. Founded in 1999,
Salesforce enables companies of every size and industry to take
advantage of powerful technologies—cloud, mobile, social, voice
and artificial intelligence—to connect to their customers in a
whole new way.
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understanding-email-deliverability-salesforce-version-final-july2023.pdf

  • 1. How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
  • 2. 2 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send Ok marketers. Email marketing pop quiz time. Do your emails magically find their way to the inbox once you’ve hit send? Or do your emails go through a nuanced process behind the scenes before they make it into your customer’s inbox? While it may seem like magic to some, making it into the inbox doesn’t have to be a guessing game. You can take real, actionable steps to improve your email deliverability — all while increasing customer engagement and eliminating wasted spend. Email deliverability (sometimes called inbox placement) can be very complex — but it’s worth trying to understand. By landing your emails successfully in the inbox, you can make the most of your time, money, and effort. That’s exactly why we at Litmus and Salesforce created this four-part guide to understanding email deliverability. You’ll learn the keys to forming a proactive and holistic deliverability approach to your email marketing — so every campaign is primed for success. Introduction SECTION 1 Prime your email marketing for success SECTION 2 Validate and test before you send SECTION 3 Monitor email metrics once you’ve sent SECTION 4 Respond if you sense a deliverability issue LET’S START BY ESTABLISHING EXACTLY WHAT EMAIL DELIVERABILITY IS.
  • 3. 3 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send Each time you hit send, your emails pass through a few checkpoints along the way to their intended destination. These checkpoints contain two key aspects— delivery and deliverability. What is email deliverability? DELIVERY tells you whether or not your emails were received by the servers of your subscribers’ inbox providers. It’s like knocking on a door and telling the inbox provider that you have a message to be delivered. They will either accept that message, or bounce it with a reason why the message wasn’t accepted. An email bounce is the equivalent to getting a letter marked “return to sender.” It means your email wasn’t delivered. A hard bounce is a permanent bounce, meaning an email will not be received by that email address. A soft bounce is a temporary bounce, meaning while the delivery of your current message was unsuccessful, you may be able to deliver another email to that address at a later date. An email counts as delivered if it did not bounce. But delivery is just step one of the journey. DELIVERABILITY is the follow-up process to what happens once the message gets delivered. It’s the rate at which your emails make it into your subscribers’ inboxes instead of being labeled as spam and going to the junk folder. The spam or junk folder is the storage space in an email account for unwanted emails or emails that are flagged as unsolicited and failed to reach the inbox. A high deliverability rate means your emails often make it to the inbox, whether that’s in the primary inbox or a tab that sorts and filters messages (like those in email clients like Gmail or Yahoo Mail). Email deliverability can feel like a bit of a mystery because inbox service providers (ISPs) do not all follow the same standards for what could cause a message to make it to the inbox (or not). Plus, for B2B marketers emailing customers at work email addresses, there are corporate-level filters that could be even stricter. Unlike Gmail or Yahoo Mail they frequently offer another level of security to the user of the ISP. But, we do know which factors influence deliverability, and which are more (or less) critical to resolve. Also, preventative measures and ongoing monitoring steps can help every email marketer minimize the likelihood of deliverability issues. As you read through this guide, it may help to consult these cheat sheets of key email deliverability terms.
  • 4. 4 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send SECTION 1 Prime your email marketing for success Confirm your authentication and infrastructure Set up your infrastructure correctly. It informs inbox servers that your emails are legitimate and worthy of making it to the inbox. First and foremost, ensure you are sending only from authenticated domains. If you send from multiple IP addresses for purposes like segmentation, make sure they’re all authenticated domains. ESTABLISH THREE PRIMARY FRAMEWORKS: SPF, DKIM, AND DMARC The objective of these systems is to guarantee and verify the identity of the senders and protect the receivers from insecure emails. Sender Policy Framework (SPF): Allows mail services to double check that incoming mail from a specific domain has, in fact, been sent from that domain. DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM): Shows your email is associated with your domain and uses cryptographic techniques to make sure it should be there. Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, & Conformance (DMARC): Designed to combat phishing, DMARC gives you insight into the abusive senders that may be impersonating you — and can help you identify them. It allows a sender to indicate that an email is protected by SPF or DKIM. The sender can then receive a report back on any messages that failed the authentication and identify if anyone using the domain could be a spammer. Properly implementing all three is vital to your deliverability foundation. Not sure if your emails are being properly signed using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC? Use Litmus Spam Testing. We’ll notify you if we spot any issues right away, and give actionable advice to fix them. Authentication Filters Check for the existence and status of your authentication records. You have 3 major issues with DKIM. Litmus Spam Testing 1.
  • 5. 5 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send Determine your need for IP warming Inbox providers want to ensure that only reputable senders make it through the proverbial email door. They determine this, at least in part, by the number of times they consistently receive legitimate messages from a dedicated IP address. For example, as subscribers consistently engage with your emails, your IP address is seen as reputable — people want to receive your mail. But if you use a new IP address to send an email (or one that you haven’t used in quite some time), the process might need to start over. ISPs will monitor emails from a new (or cold) IP address until they can verify that it’s reputable. This is where IP warming comes in. IP warming is the practice of slowly sending emails from a new IP address or domain name and gradually increasing send volume over time until you’ve “proven” yourself as a legitimate sender. 2. If any of these scenarios apply, consider IP warming before you hit send on your campaign: ● New dedicated IP with a new domain ● New dedicated IP address with the same domain ● New domain with the same IP ● New subdomain from a warm domain ● New ESP you’re using for the first time ● Switching to a new ESP ● Rebranding/acquisition or merger ● Moving from a shared IP to a dedicated IP ● Moving from your parent domain to a subdomain just for emails ● Planning a large spike in your typical email send volume Allow at least four to eight weeks. Send slowly and pay close attention to performance. Send a limited number of emails to start. During the first week, only use your new domain or IP to email 1% of your most active or engaged subscribers. Then, you can double recipients each week. Use these volume estimates as a guide. Choose messages with the highest open rates and click-to-open rate (CTOR). Make these the first emails you send from your new space. Pick message types from the last six to nine months that perform best. As you build trust and convince ISPs that people on your list actually want to receive your emails, you can ramp up your normal send volume. IF YOU DECIDE YOU NEED IP WARMING, FOLLOW THESE BEST PRACTICES:
  • 6. 6 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send Check in with your sender reputation Your sender reputation is a score that an Inbox Service Provider (ISP) gives your organization. It is based on a number of factors, including: 3. All ISPs will weigh these factors differently. USE FREE TOOLS TO CHECK YOUR SENDER REPUTATION Keeping tabs on your sender reputation saves you lots of time and stress. You’ll be better prepared to address any underlying issues that may be hurting your deliverability, including configuration, IP reputation, and authentication. (If you have multiple domain names and send email from different IP addresses, you’ll want to keep tabs on the sender reputation associated with each). Your sender reputation impacts your inbox placement and is associated with a sender score, measured from 0 to 100. Because each mailbox provider uses a unique algorithm to arrive at your score, it’s not an exact science. But, you can assume that the higher your score, the better your email reputation. There are both paid and free tools you can use to check your sender reputation. We recommend these free tools: ● The number of emails your organization sends ● How many subscribers engage with your emails (based on actions like open, reply, forward, delete, and click) ● How many recipients mark your emails as spam or otherwise complain about your emails ● If your organization hit any ISP spam traps or is on any blocklists ● How many people unsubscribe ● Email bounces ● The reputation of any URLs used in your campaigns ● The domains and IP addresses used for sending ● Where your images are stored (CDN, different domain, etc.) ● The content of your message Google Postmaster Tools Barracuda Central Outlook.com Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) 73 81 59 65 92
  • 7. 7 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send BIMI: ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS WINNING INBOX TRUST Bring your logo to the customer’s inbox. Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is an email standard that can win even more inbox trust, by bringing your logo to the customer’s inbox. How does BIMI work? Like DMARC, DKIM, and SPF, BIMI is a text record that lives on your servers. In fact, it works right alongside SPF, DMARC, and DKIM to signal to email clients that you are, in fact, the sender of your email. As such, BIMI aids in deliverability, too. Where is BIMI supported? BIMI support includes several major inbox service provider (ISP) providers — like Gmail, Verizon Media Group (Yahoo, AOL, Netscape), Apple Mail on iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura. WHAT YOU NEED TO GET STARTED: What does BIMI look like? An SVG file of your logo To learn more about BIMI, download our guide. Authentication of your emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Access to your domain name servers to set up a new BIMI DNS entry A Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) optional but recommended BRAND WITH VERIFIED SENDER LOGO BRAND WITHOUT VERIFIED SENDER LOGO
  • 8. 8 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send Validate your list Email validation boosts the deliverability of your email campaigns by ensuring that the email addresses have proper domains, are in service, and have opted-in to communications. To ensure that your lists remain healthy, periodically audit your lists and cull bad addresses. The frequency with which you audit can depend on a few factors: ● Your opt-in rates: As people opt in to receive communications, you can verify their address and set communication preferences. ● The regularity of your outreach: The less frequently you use your lists, the more likely the email addresses are old and out of date. ● Whether you are sending B2B emails or B2C emails: B2B email marketers might see turnover at companies, which leads to inactive addresses. B2C email marketers might see higher subscription rates but more junk addresses. As always, never purchase outside lists. The email data may not be valid, and the lack of explicit opt-in will damage your sender reputation. To start, we recommend doing a full audit every three to six months depending on the frequency of your outreach. Then, adjust depending on the needs of your organization. As you get more comfortable, you can also audit your lists as you go. Many Email Service Providers (ESPs) can help with validating by immediately removing hard bounces from lists. When auditing your lists, make sure to: Confirm that all subscribers are opted-in Ensure you’ve set proper expectations about what you will be communicating, and how often Note where and when a subscriber opted in Check in with subscribers you have not heard from in a while with the choice to opt out, or to adjust the frequency of communication via an Email Preference Center. SECTION 2 Validate and test before you send
  • 9. 9 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send 9 Test your emails Do you regularly test your emails? A number of factors can cause your email to end up in the spam folder — like buggy HTML and strange rendering that makes a client unsubscribe. To avoid these pitfalls, test every email before you send. You will want to double check these components before hitting the send button: Broken links: No one likes a broken CTA or having to issue a correction email. Check these by either sending a test email to yourself and clicking the link, or double checking the body of the email. Rendering: View your email on multiple email clients (such as Outlook, Apple Mail, and Gmail) and devices (smartphone, tablet, laptop) to ensure that the design is consistent, images and fonts are displayed correctly, and that the email is responsive. Most email marketing providers contain this feature. Spam filters: Run your email through common spam filters to check the deliverability. Most email marketing providers contain this feature, and will provide your email with a deliverability score for each ISP. As always, test both the HTML version of the email and the plain text version, which is sent if the HTML version cannot be delivered to an individual’s inbox. Apple Mail 13 macOS 10.15 Gmail App Dark Android 10.0 iPho Previews First Impressions Accessibility Links Tracking Image Blocking Loading Speed Spam Testing 4 1 Popular Desktop Clients Popular Mobile Clients Outl Know before you send with Litmus Email Testing
  • 10. 10 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send Spam complaints: Too many spam complaints could cause the spam filters to flag your IP address. Always monitor your list health and honor unsubscribes. Low engagement: Sending too many emails from an IP address with a low open rate could land you in the spam folder. Optimize your subject and preheaders, and carefully segment your lists so that you are sending people the most relevant emails to them. Hidden HTML: Copying and pasting the text of your email from programs like Microsoft Word can embed hidden HTML, which can set off spam filters. Be sure to draft in a plain text document, or run your text through an app that removes hidden HTML and formatting. Inconsistent hyperlinks: Spammers are notorious for making it seem like you are clicking on one link, but sending you to another. But even innocuous variations in your links can set off spam flags. For example, if you type www.salesforce.com into your email but the hyperlink directs you to www.salesforce.com/home, it can be flagged as spam. Be sure to avoid typing URLs directly into your email. In short—no. The Gmail Promotions tab is not the same as going to the spam folder. Gmail uses algorithms to determine where your email will land. But, if a user ever marks your email as a promotion, Gmail’s algorithm would be ignored, and your email will automatically land in the Promotions Tab moving forward. Remember, the categorization exists for a reason. That’s where subscribers want to engage with the type of email you’ve sent. Plus, you don’t have to guess where your message will land in Gmail. Check which Gmail tab your email will end up in with Litmus’ free tool. Duplicate emails: Sending the same email to the same list of recipients without any changed content could trigger spam filters. If you are sending a re-promote email or issuing a correction, make some small changes from the original message. URLs: Too many URLs, or URLs that are too long and not hyperlinked, can also cause spam filters to flag your emails. Picture-to-text ratio: It’s important to maintain a good balance of text and images since too much text or too many pictures can cause spam filters to flag your email. Spammy words: Those in digital marketing have known for eons that certain words and characters can cause spam filters to flag their emails. This includes using words like “sex,” “free,” and “act now,” as well as overusing dollar signs or exclamation points. This being said, email marketers can still use these words and phrases without being flagged as spam so long as they are not excessive and within context (for example, included in phrases like, “feel free to drop us a line” or “sex and gender”). When in doubt, test your email to see if the body copy causes any red flags. What triggers spam filters? There are a variety of factors that can send an email to the spam filter. The good news is that you can take easy steps to avoid this. Here are a few things to look out for when testing your emails. SHOULD YOU BE CONCERNED WITH THE GMAIL PROMOTIONS TAB?
  • 11. 11 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send Monitor your bounce rates — it’s the most direct way to track your day-to-day deliverability health. Just as observing open, click, and conversion rates helps you see the success of a campaign, checking your bounce rates can be equally informative. Most brands strive towards a 99% delivery rate — for every 100 emails sent, 99 hopefully make it to the inbox. The one email that didn’t make it to an inbox represents a 1% bounce rate. SECTION 3 Monitor email metrics once you’ve sent More realistically, a slightly lower delivery rate of 97% is still acceptable, but anything below 97% is a signal to dig deeper. To understand why an email “bounced,” you can divide bounce rates into three specific categories. ● Hard bounce: The most straightforward of bounces, it means the email address doesn’t exist. It can be an email address that is no longer in use, or a typo in the email address. Ultimately, it’s bad data which can result from buying a list, not regularly validating data, or just happenstance when an inbox is closed. ● Soft bounce: Less clear cut, soft bounces happen when emails are rejected for a temporary reason. It can be if the subscriber’s mailbox is full or disabled, even if it’s temporary. Some email service providers will automatically retry sending when a soft bounce is noted. ● Block bounce: Usually signaling a more serious deliverability issue, block bounces occur when the email inbox rejects the email because of a lack of authentication, or if the domain or IP address appears on a blocklist. If you start to see block bounces, reviewing your deliverability practices should become top priority. To achieve a delivery rate of 97%, these three bounce types need to total 3% or less of your total send volume. If your overall bounce rate is higher than 3% (or any individual bounce type is above 1%), it’s worth investigating the individual bounce types to diagnose the issue and prescribe a solution. = (EMAILS SENT - EMAILS BOUNCED) / EMAILS SENT DELIVERY RATE = (EMAILS SENT - EMAILS DELIVERED) / EMAILS SENT BOUNCE RATE TIP: To continue using many ESPs, marketers must maintain a high deliverability rate. Many email marketing platforms will flag and suspend accounts if their deliverability rate drops too dramatically, or if it is consistently low. DELIVERY RATE 99%
  • 12. 12 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send UNSUBSCRIBE RATES Unsubscribes impact deliverability less than spam. A subscriber clicking the unsubscribe button at the bottom of your email has a lower impact on your deliverability than if they were to click the spam button. So it’s important to make unsubscribing from the email easy and straightforward to avoid being marked as spam. Unsubscribes should only come from a very small percentage of your subscribers with a benchmark of 0.5%, because whoever you’re sending to has specifically opted in and asked you to send them a message. Beyond bounce rates, two other metrics can provide signals of deliverability health. UNSUBSCRIBE RATE WARNING SIGNS If your unsubscribe rate is consistently higher than 0.5%... it could indicate unhealthy acquisition practices. In this case, the email list might include people who unwittingly signed up, which could cause hard bounces or spam complaints in the future. If you see a spike in your unsubscribe rate… It could indicate that your content isn’t resonating with your subscribers, or you pulled in the wrong list or segment of subscribers. Most inbox providers include subscriber engagement in their inbox placement algorithms, so addressing the content and frequency you’re sending will be key to improving your deliverability. ENGAGEMENT RATES As email inbox providers become more sophisticated, engagement rates at the individual subscriber level impact whether an email makes it into the inbox. Low open or click rates provide early warning signs of future deliverability issues. They can also provide additional insight into what’s often a hidden issue: emails going to the spam folder based on lower, individual subscriber engagement. For example: ● Subscriber A might stop opening emails from a certain brand and the inbox provider begins to move those messages to Subscriber A’s spam. ● However, Subscriber B still engages with the emails from that brand and receives them in their inbox. ● Both of these messages would appear as “delivered” and not show up in bounce rates, but the emails going to spam will most likely not be opened or clicked. Spam placement isn’t regularly available to email marketers as inbox providers keep this information obscured. However, engagement rates are available. Open and click rates can serve as a proxy for evaluating the overall health of your email program. 12 Open Rate 61.8% Click-through Rate 24.4% Click-to-open Rate 39.5% Litmus Read Rate 37.5% Average Engagement Sample engagement metrics from Litmus TIP: A preference center is a great solution to keep your subscribers happy while also mitigating unsubscribes. It gives the subscriber the power to determine the types of messages they want to receive, while giving them a chance to opt out if the frequency is too much, instead of losing them all together. Even better – it provides more data on customer interests and your email sending habits. How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send
  • 13. 13 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send NOT SURE HOW YOUR EMAIL METRICS ARE IMPACTED BY MPP? Find out with Litmus Email Analytics 1,010,564 (90.1%) Total reliable opens 111,478 (9.9%) Apple privacy-impacted opens 1,122,042 Total opens Average Engagement and Read Time (last 30 days) Summary of the performance of the emails you are currently tracking 36.3% Read (8s+) 46.1% Skimmed (2-8s) 17.6% Glanced (<2s) 414k Total opens Share your Analytics report Public URL to share Make this report public Dark Mode 32% Apple Dark Mode Usage (last 30 days) Dark Mode Light Mode Apple Mail Privacy-Impacted Opens 33.3% 30.0% 25.0% Dec. Nov. Jan. What does Apple’s mail privacy protection (mpp) mean for deliverability? Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) officially went into effect on September 20, 2021 for the Mail app on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 devices. With the macOS Monterey launch, it became available for Macbooks on October 25, 2021. For subscribers who have opted into MPP, open and click-to-open rates (CTOR) will not be a reliable metric for measuring engagement. You’ll likely see: ● Inflated opens ● Lower CTOR To monitor engagement (which could impact deliverability), shift your focus: ● What and where are your calls-to-action? What is the goal of your email? ● Encourage true interaction with clickable elements like sentiment polls, thumbs up/thumbs down signals and gamification ● Measure click-through rates DON’T FORGET — opens aren’t triggered in the spam folder. If you get a 30% open rate one day and the next day it’s 10%, it could signal a spam folder issue.
  • 14. 14 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send Deliverability issues don’t usually happen overnight. When an issue arises, marketers must go back and reflect on what changed in their email strategy. While deliverability issues may seem mysterious, they usually fall under four categories: EMAIL ADDRESS REPUTATION Are your messages triggering spam filters? What is your sender email address? Is it recognizable? Does it allow replies? A spam test tool is a good way to test whether your messages are triggering filters. Litmus’ Spam Test tool, for example, helps identify issues that may land your emails in the spam folder — with contextual advice to fix deliverability problems before you send. The higher your organization’s email sender reputation score, the more likely the more likely your communications will land in the your communications to land in the right place for your customers and prospects to engage. Internet service providers (ISPs) will combine various metrics to calculate an overall sender reputation score. These metrics include bounce rate, unsubscribe rate, and number of spam trap email address recipients. Take a hard look at these metrics from your email subscriber list to get an idea of how much clout your communications have with ISPs. Taking a week-by-week view of engagement metrics is another way to see exactly where engagement fell off. In fact, observing and analyzing any patterns in deliverability can offer clues to finding and fixing issues. For example, if you notice email deliverability dropping off for specific email clients, that may help you triage those subscribers. SECTION 4 Respond if you sense a deliverability issue You might also notice that many of these factors behind deliverability issues are the same ones we recommended you check in with before you hit send. 1 Email Address Reputation 2 IP Address Reputation 3 Server Configuration 4 Email Content SPAM TRAPS A spam trap is an email address that does not belong to a real person and often identifies organizations with irresponsible list building techniques (such as buying email lists). ISPs, spam/security appliance vendors, and blacklists all maintain lists of spam trap addresses. If you send emails to spam traps, it’s an indication that you’re not keeping your email list clean. The value and validity of your message will take a hit as a result. 1.
  • 15. 15 How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send IP ADDRESS REPUTATION Make sure that you’re sending from a dedicated IP address and a stable, appropriately-branded domain name. If you send more than 100K emails per month, you would benefit from a dedicated IP address. If you send more than 250K emails a month, those emails are required to be on a dedicated IP address. In fact, a dedicated IP address allows you to send 1.5M emails per day. However, if you send less than 100K emails per month, you can get away with using a shared IP address. SERVER CONFIGURATION If everything is clear in terms of email address reputation, the next step is to check your server configuration. Return to the three authentication frameworks covered in section one to validate if you have the proper setup. DKIM provides an encryption key and digital signature that verifies that an email message was not forged or altered. SPF allows email senders to define which IP addresses are allowed to send mail for a particular domain. DMARC provides a report on any messages that failed the authentication to identify if anyone using the domain could be a spammer. These protocols complement one another, and together, you can use them to build trust with your customers and improve your overall reputation. EMAIL CONTENT Sometimes, lack of email engagement comes down to the actual content within the email. Take a look at your email formats. How is the text-to-image ratio? Is there anything that could be flagged by spam filters (even in the preheader or HTML)? Was the message run through a spam checker? In our experience, email messages that are flooded with images and videos find themselves filtered to a spam box or promotion tab. On the other hand, text-only emails may not be engaging unless concise and appropriately delivering value. Try alternating between different email formats and mixing up your visuals to find out what works. When it comes to email subject lines, here are some tips to write one that catches your audience’s attention: ● Shorten your sentence ● Personalize ● Use numbers or stats to pique interest ● Be clear and informative ● Create a sense of urgency Find yourself in deliverability trouble? Try three steps to get back on track: Take a deep breath. You’ll come up with the best plan when you have the least amount of panic. And remind yourself that every email marketer has faced a deliverability challenge at one point or another. Take a holistic review of your program and backtrack to pinpoint the issue, whether it’s your infrastructure and authentication, reputation, audience, or content. From there, you can make a plan of action with the right solution to respond. Dial back your mailing list temporarily. When you find yourself in the spam box, it’s very difficult to get engagement. And a beautifully crafted email does no good if it isn’t seen. The best action to take at this time is to send to the subscribers who are most engaged to rebuild trust with the ISPs. If you dial your list back to reach your core engaged subscribers, you can start to increase engagement and correct your course. Practice patience. Some fixes can take a few weeks to put in place. From there, it can take another 8-12 weeks to finally get emails back to the inbox. 15 2. 3. 4.
  • 16. Conclusion Email deliverability involves plenty of moving parts, but it’s nothing you can’t manage with some know-how, monitoring, and tools. Learn how you can gain the confidence that every email you send will reach the inbox and result in the best experience for all subscribers with Litmus. Litmus provides the leading email personalization, optimization, and collaboration software for marketers. From pre-Send campaign development, testing, and AI-driven content recommendations through Litmus Personalize, to post-send insights for future content optimization, Litmus improves marketing performance and boosts customer engagement. Drive conversion and revenue with Litmus’ suite of solutions that enable users to efficiently build, test, and collaborate on large volumes of emails, while simultaneously creating highly personalized email experiences at scale. With offices in Boston, San Mateo, and London and backed by Spectrum Equity, Litmus is used by major global brands across every industry, including 80% of the Fortune 100, the top 10 retailers, 9 of the top 10 ecommerce brands and U.S. banks, and 23 of the top 25 U.S. advertising agencies. Learn more about Litmus at litmus.com, subscribe to the Litmus blog, or follow us on social media - Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Salesforce is the global leader in CRM, bringing companies and customers together in the digital age. Founded in 1999, Salesforce enables companies of every size and industry to take advantage of powerful technologies—cloud, mobile, social, voice and artificial intelligence—to connect to their customers in a whole new way. Salesforce Customer 360 is our vision for how we help customers with their digital transformations. With Customer 360, every team—sales, service, marketing, commerce, and beyond—can have a single, shared view of their customers on an integrated CRM platform powered by AI. For information, please visit www.salesforce.com. Need a partner in enabling meaningful moments with email? Salesforce is your perfect match. Learn how Salesforce Marketing Cloud helps drive innovation in the inbox.