1. The Hidden Metrics of Email
Deliverability
Tom Sather, Sr. Director, Research
@tom_sather
@returnpath

2. Messages delivered to
the spam folder simply
don’t reach subscribers.
You need to know when
messages fail to reach
the inbox, and how to
take corrective action.
Reach the Inbox
Beyond opens and clicks,
subscribers’ interactions with
your messages send signals
that can influence inbox
placement and help you
strengthen relationships. To
improve engagement, you
need to see and measure it.
See and Measure
Engagement
See What Works for
the Competition
Top brands’ engagement
and response from email
marketing far outpaces the
average. You need to see
whose messages and
which tactics are capturing
your subscribers’ attention
and dollars.
How can my email marketing deliver more value?

3. Connecting consumers and
brands on a deeper level.
Email Optimization is simply
as smarter solution—
experience enhanced insights,
provide more meaningful
engagements, get total
confidence.
Keeping consumers safe and
helping brands protect their
reputation. Email Fraud
Protection goes beyond
DMARC, using the most
sophisticated source of email
fraud profiling data in the
world to respond to, and
prevent, cyber attacks with
greater speed.
The right data for the right
decisions. Consumer Insight
offers infinite applications and
unprecedented insights into
the preferences and purchase
behaviors of consumers
around the world, enabling
better understanding and
better decisions.

4. Why Your Emails are
in the Spam Folder

5. Inbox Placement is Driven by 3 Things
1. Content
2. Sender Reputation
3. Subscriber Engagement

6. Content Plays a Minor Role

7. What Defines Sender Reputation
Complaints List Quality Infrastructure
Length of Sending
History
Message Quality Subscriber
Engagement

8. Why Engagement is
Important for Mailbox
Providers

9. Engagement is
made of people!

10. 75% of emails reported as spam are
emails people signed up for.

12. Measuring
Reputation

13. Your Reputation Determines Delivery

14. And Your Inbox Placement Rates

15. A High Sender Score May Not Equal High Inbox
Placement

16. It’s All About
Engagement

17. It’s All About Engagement
Inbox Engagement
• Regularly logs-in
• Reads and sends email
• Files email
• Complaints/This is Not Spam
Email Engagement
• Opens
• Clicks
• Shares
• Purchases

18. The Case of the Missing Engagement Metrics

19. Spam Placement Rate
Hidden in your “delivered” rate
Inbox + Spam = Delivered
Utilities Best-in-class (2%)
Automotive Parts/Accessories
worst (29%)

20. The Read Rate
Utilities best-in-class (47%)
B2B worst (9%)

21. Deleted Without Reading Rate
“Ignore Rate”
Social/Dating best-in-class (5%)
Office Supplies worst (14%)

22. Complaint Rate
Utilities best-in-class (0%)
Telecomm worst (0.98%)

23. This is NOT Spam Rate
This disparity between complaint and “this is not
spam” rates could indicate that a “one size
fits all” approach to email campaigns isn’t working,
and shows a need for better segmentation and
personalized content.

24. Forward Rate
Utilities best-in-class (.47%)
B2B worst (0%)

25. Reply Rate
Telecomm best-in-class (1.5%)
Kids/Babies & Deals/Rewards
Word (0.01%)

26. Tips to Boost
Engagement

27. Tip #1
Understand why your
subscribers mark
your emails as
“spam”

28. Subscriber Complaints Cause Major
Reputation Issues

29. Sign up for Feedback Loops
• AOL https://postmaster.aol.com/fbl-request
• Bluetie http://feedback.bluetie.com/
• Comcast http://feedback.comcast.net/
• Cox http://fbl.cox.net/
• Open SRS http://fbl.hostedemail.com/
• Outlook.com https://postmaster.live.
com/snds/JMRP.aspx
• Rackspace http://fbl.apps.rackspace.com/
• RoadRunner http://feedback.postmaster.rr.com/
• USA.net http://fbl.usa.net/
• Yahoo! https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN3438.html

30. Analyze Complaints for Trends
30

31. Tip #2
Look at These
Reputation Metrics
Before Engagement

32. The Facts:
• Unknown User = Email address that has been abandoned and is no longer is
use
• Mailbox Providers tell you when you send to an Unknown User via a message
they return (bounce code)
• Remove Unknown Users immediately
• Indicator of poor data practices
• Risk of being Blacklisted
#1 Unknown Users
32

33. How Unknown Users Impact Reputation
33

34. The Facts:
• Spam Trap = Addresses created to identify poor data practices
• 2 Types
– Recycled
– Pristine
• Risk of being Blacklisted
• Aged or Inactive data is primary source of traps
#2 Spam Traps
34

35. Reputation Impact
35

36. The Facts:
• Active = Email recipients who regularly open, click, convert on emails received
• Inactive = Email recipients who have not taken any action on emails received
for some time - often the source of complaints or spam traps
#3 Inactive Subscribers
36

37. Best Practices:
• Quarantine new data – send a Welcome Message
• Make it easy for customers to update their information
• Send to permission-based lists
• Email your list regularly
• Consider utilizing an email list hygiene vendor
• Monitor the age and activity of your data – re-engage and/or remove
inactives
List Quality
37

38. The Facts:
• Your subscribers are not homogeneous
• Subscribers behave differently at
different points of the lifecycle within
every email program
• Segmentation helps break a large file
into more manageable chunks
• Segmentation makes analyzing
campaign performance, targeting specific
content, and increasing customer
engagement easier
Using segmentation to clean your email list

39. Segmentation Ideas
Consumer Type Source Recent Activity
Recent Graduate Home Page Opens
Retired In Store Clicks
Married with Children Banner Ads Website visits
Married with no
Children
During online
purchase
Site Login
Single Search Purchase
39

40. Tip #3
Engagement
Strategy

41. A Retailer’s Case Study: Gmail Before
Engagement Strategy

42. A Retailer’s Case Study: Gmail After
Engagement Strategy
Only mailing to Gmail users
0-6 months put an item in
their cart or clicked on an
email
Mailing only to Gmail users
who had put an item in the cart
or clicked on an email in last 30
days

43. A Retailer’s Case Study: Gmail From 30 Days
to 6 Months
Expanded Engagement filtering
rules and only mailing active Gmail
users of 0-6 months who put an
item in their cart or clicked on an
email
Reverted to only mailing Gmail
users showing 30-days of activity

44. Tip #4
Get rescued from the
spam folder

45. “This is Not Spam” – Rarely used, But Highly
Trusted

46. “This is Not Spam” and Deliverability
Source: Return Path “This is Not Spam” Report
46

47. Tip #5
Optimize Frequency

48. How Frequency Affects Inbox Placement
48

49. Manage Frequency
49

50. Tip #6
To Reply or Not to
Reply

51. When People Reply to Emails
Weekends see shorter and
slower replies
Source: Evolution of Conversations in the Age of Email
Overload

52. ThinkGeek: Reply to This Email

53. But Don’t Do This

54. Tip #7
Email Authentication
Improves Trust,
Engagement and
Deliverability

55. Gmail Announcement: Attention, Marketers!

56. Good vs. bad email: Gmail removes the guesswork
• February 2016:
Effective immediately, Google will
visually flag emails that fail Transport
Layer Security (TLS) encryption to its
users.
Gmail will display a broken lock icon in
the message.

57. Good vs. bad email: Gmail removes the guesswork
• In addition, if a user receives a message that can’t be authenticated
with either SPF (Sender Policy Framework) or DKIM (DomainKeys
Identified Mail), the sender’s profile photo or avatar will be replaced
with a red question mark.

58. Potential Impact on Your Email Program
Impact on brand trust
Drop in user engagement
Drop in open and read rates
Impact on deliverability at Gmail

59. Tip #8
Get Whitelisted

60. Get Whitelisted
Yahoo “Bulk Senders Form”
https://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/bulkv2.html
AOL Whitelist
https://postmaster.aol.com/whitelist-request
60

61. 61

63. Thank You
Follow me:
@Tom_Sather
@ReturnPath