Ever wondered what happens to an email once it's sent? Check out our presentation to improve your deliverability and find out more.

1. Presented by

2. Deliverability 101

3. The Life Of An Email
From Creation to Inbox
Send

4. Email creation.

5. Email scheduled & sent to Spawner.
BenchmarkEmail.com Spawner

6. Spawner assembles emails.
The Spawner assembles each individual email
to be sent, personalizing each email based on
the recipient. This includes:
• Headers
• Conditional Formatting
• Personalization
• Tracking Links
• Tracking Images

7. Emails are sent to Relay Pools.
Spawner
Small Pool #1
Small Pool #2
Medium Pool #6
Medium Pool #17
Dedicated Pool

8. A Pool is a collection of Relay Servers that
are shared by clients with similar sending
habits.

9. Pools can vary by size and client-load.

10. Dedicated clients use the same system, but
do not share with other senders.

11. Dedicated Clients and IPs
Benefits
• IP reputation is not affected by other accounts.
• Delivery speed is generally not affected by other accounts.

12. Dedicated Clients and IPs
Difficulties
• IP reputation is the result of the sender’s practices.
• Dedicated clients are by default only provided a single IP address; for larger clients this
can slow delivery speeds as compared to a pool of four to five shared IPs.
• Additional IPS are available to all clients $30 per month/each.
• In some cases we provide more than one IP for dedicated accounts at no additional
cost.

13. Relay attempts to connect
to recipient email servers.
If the servers are unable to connect, the email is marked as a bounce.

14. The Recipient Server accepts or rejects
the email and provides a delivery log.

15. Based on the content and the reputation of the
email, the recipient server chooses where the
email is sent.
Inbox Spam Folder Quarantine/Deleted

16. So what is Deliverability?
• The likelihood that the email will be
received in the inbox
• Identifying, investigating, and
solving delivery issues

17. How do we measure Deliverability?
• Abuse
• Email Design & Content
• List Generation and Usage
• Recipient Engagement
• Sender Reputation
• Server Reputation

18. Abuse
User Complaints
• Reported via feedback loop
• Direct Complaints sent to our support team
• Indirect complaints sent to Anti-Spam Organizations

19. Abuse
Spam Traps
• Reported directly to our team via Anti-Spam Organizations
• Reported daily via MSN’s Smart Network Data Services (SNDS)
• Reported indirectly via our TelCo’s (AT&T, Rackspace, etc)

20. Email Design and Concept
Email Content
• Keywords and Phrases
• Excessive use of punctuation
• Excessive use of non alpha-numeric Characters
• Caps lock
• Links
• Phishing

21. Email Design and Concept
Design
• Image only campaigns
• Text only campaigns
• Colors and contrast
• Email flow

22. List Generation and Usage
Generation
• Single Opt-in
• Double Opt-in
• Harvested
• Purchased
• Acquired (via company merger or purchase)
Sign Up

23. List Generation and Usage
Usage
• Why did the recipient sign up?
• When did the recipient sign up?
• How long has it been since the recipient last emailed?
• Are the emails relevant to the recipients interests?

24. Engagement
Are recipients opening your
emails?
• Are they clicking links?
• How long has it been since they last
opened an email?
• Have they ever opened an email?

25. Sender Reputation
Who is sending the emails?
• Have they sent emails before? When?
• How did recipients react to prior emails?
• Are they a known spammer?
• Is their website hosting malicious content?
• Is their website blacklisted?
?

26. Server Reputation
Where are the emails coming from?
• Is the IP known for sending spam?
• Is the IP blacklisted? By who?
• Is the IP whitelisted?
• How have recipients reacted to emails sent by this IP?

27. Common Deliverability Tickets
• High bounces
• Emails received in junk folder
• Email not received
• Emails blocked or rejected
• Spam Traps
• High abuse rate

28. Bounces
• How old is the list?
• How was the list gathered?
• Is the list single opt in?
• Is the list confirmed opt in?
• Are there any visible misspellings? (Yhoo/Gmal/Htmail)
Quality of list

29. Bounces
• Check the delivery logs, usually they will give
you the answer.
Are the bounces domain specific?

30. Emails Received in Junk
• Keywords and phrases
• Caps lock
• Check Links
• Phishing
• Excessive use of non alpha-numeric characters
and punctuation
Content, Design, & Subject Line

31. High Abuse Rates
Abuse Rate tickets are usually initiated by the ESP.
Complaints are the result of either
• Negligence of list hygiene
• Purchased/Harvested lists
• Clients who have forgotten they opted in

32. Future of Deliverability

33. The Future of Deliverability
The Bar is raising.
Every major ISP is constantly changing their systems
and practices to stay ahead of the spammers. This
means that the bar is always moving. As a team, it is
our responsibility to help educate our clients to
understand this.

34. The Future of Deliverability
What are the ISP’s doing?
• Analyzing email and user trends
• Separating personal and promotional
• Improving the interaction with email

35. The Future of Deliverability
What can you do?
• Pay close attention to your reports
• Spring cleaning - List hygiene
• Better segmenting and list grouping
• Content driven emails
?

36. The Future of Deliverability
What is Benchmark doing?
• Engagement Monitoring
• Advanced throttling and server grouping
• Automated features that work for you
• Constant update and education

37. Thank you for your time!