1. Email Deliverability
Best Practices
10+ Things You Can Do TO-
DAY to Improve Your Email
Deliverability Immediately.
Presented by
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3. 00. Email Deliverability
Best Practices
{ }
01. Email Authentication 06. Check URLs
02. List Hygiene 07. Review Content
03. Feedback Loops 08. HTML & Plain Text
04. Consistency 09. Can-Spam
05. Engagement 10. Manage Bounces
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4. Introduction non-issue nor is whether or not they
open the message, read it, or click
1. Email Authentication.
Email deliverability is a big issue for This is really just a fancy way of say-
on a link inside of the email mes-
any business owner or online mar- ing “to prove that the email is coming
sage.
keter who is using email as a market- from the person or entity that it says
ing channel. So, before we can look at any of it is”.
the other metrics to help judge the
It’s important to understand “email There are a number of methods used
effectiveness of your email mar-
deliverability” in context of the other to authenticate a Sender’s domain
keting, we need to look at email
email marketing metrics. including SPF, SenderID, DKIM (do-
deliverability best practices.
mainkeys identified mail), domain-
Email deliverabil- These 10 email deliverability keys, and more recently DMARC
ity is the first line best practices will help (domain-based message authentica-
of defense when it ensure that the tion reporting).
comes to getting your ISPs don’t turn
subscribers to open It is important that these are in place
your messages
your email messages and set up properly.
away before
and take the desired they reach NOTE:
action. your sub- Even if
In other words, if the scriber. you are
email message is not using
delivered in the first an email
place, inbox vs. junk service
folder placement is a provider to
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5. send your messages, you may still 3. Register for Feedback Yet, it goes hand in hand with email
need to update your SPF records Loops. deliverability best practice #2 and #3.
for the sending domain (i.e. the from
If you are hosting your own email If you send to your list sporadically,
email domain).
program, you’ll have to register for you’ll have higher numbers of un-
feedback loops manually for each of known recipients as people change
2. List Hygiene. the ISPs. their email addresses fairly regularly
List hygiene is, perhaps, one of the and turnover is pretty substantial.
If you’re using and email service
most important email deliverability
provider, they will handle removing In addition, if your subscribers
bet practices to pay attention to after
subscribers from your list who click haven’t heard from you in 3 months,
proper email authentica-
the “spam” button. they’re more likely to hit the spam
tion.
button because they either don’t
However, it’s not enough to just
List hygiene is remember signing up for your list or
remove complainers from
also some- are no longer interested in the mes-
your list. You should
thing you sages.
also be monitoring your
have total
complaints. Which
control over 5. Pay Attention to En-
types of messages
whether you gagement.
generate the highest
are hosting
complaints? Engagement metrics are essential
your own email
when it comes to email deliverability
client or using a 3rd party provider
4. Be Consistent. and this one issue is going to play a
(ESP).
larger role in the future.
This is area that is most overlooked.
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6. It’s not about the size of your list, but email deliverability rates (and highest message and check each of them
rather the quality of your list. inbox placement rates). against known blacklists prior to
sending.
For any subscribers that haven’t
6. Check Your Do-
taken some sort of action in the last
mains. 7. Check Your
3-6 months, consider sending your
There are 3 main Content.
campaigns from a different IP ad-
dressno AND instituting a re-engage- reasons messages get As the saying goes… Con-
ment plan for those subscribers. blocked before they ever tent is king! And ultimately your
get to your subscribers. content is going to impact your
Keep your most active
delivery rates.
subscrib- ers separate to These include: IP-rep-
en- sure the utation issues, message Run your messages through
high- content, and blacklisted a spam checker or some
est domains. sort prior to sending your
messages out.
Unfortunately, most email
marketers don’t know that One thing to note is that
domains in the email mes- while there are all kinds
sages can be causing blocks. of claims that words like “free”
And if you’re using an ESP, they and “money” will cause your mes-
virtually never tell you. sages to get blocked (or wind up in
the spam folder), it’s not so cut and
So… it’s important to pay careful
dry.
attention to every domain in the
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7. The big lesson here is to write for issue, we still want to include this as HTML email.
your audience. Don’t try to “trick” the an email deliverability best practice
So, if you are going to use HTML
spam filters or be sneaky! because HTML can cause a number
email, be sure that it is formatted
of issues when it comes to sending
Often times, there’s a real person at properly and that you also include a
your messages.
the other end of your email mes- plain text version of your email.
sages and if it looks like spam and Think about how web pages look dif-
smells like spam, they’re going to ferent in different browsers (Internet 9. Comply with the Can-
mark it as spam and either send it to Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Spam Laws.
the junk folder or reject it entirely. etc.).
Can spam compliance is very simple,
A Simple Test: Pretend that you Well, in addition to all of the brows- yet too many online marketers/busi-
received the email message in your ers, there are dozens, if not hun- ness owners simply don’t do it.
inbox. dreds of email clients, each with a
To comply with can-spam, you must
slightly
Would you think it looks like spam? not use misleading header informa-
different
Would you read it? Delete it? Mark it tion or misleading subject lines.
method of
as spam?
handling You must include your company con-
tact info and a method for people
8. Include HTML to unsubscribe. And you must
and Plain Text Ver- honor all unsubscribe requests
sions of Your Mes- within 10 days.
sages.
It’s a good idea to review the
While this is more of a usability
can-spam law.
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8. Not only is it an email deliverability The Reason?
best practice… it’s also the law!
It ensures that people that are
receiving your messages truly want
10. Develop A Process for to receive your messages. They’ve
Managing Bounces. taken the extra step to tell you that
There are essentially 3 types of they DO, in fact, want to
bounces: hard bounces, soft bounc- receive your emails.
es, and technical bounces.
NOTE: Contrary to popular
You should have a process in place opinion, double optin does
for managing each of these bounce not guarantee email
types that ensures you are keeping deliverability or inbox
valid subscribers and removing those placement.
that are not.
The other 10 email
deliverability best
Bonus Email Deliverabil-
practices must
ity Best Practice Tip: Use
be in place
Confirmed Optin.
While this may not be practical or
make sense in all cases, it’s by far
one of the email deliverability prac-
tices that all of the ISPs agree on.
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9. ;-). But Wait...
There’s More!
{ }
01. Email Authentication 06. Check URLs
02. List Hygiene 07. Review Content
03. Feedback Loops 08. HTML & Plain Text
04. Consistency 09. Can-Spam
05. Engagement 10. Manage Bounces
Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Marketers Publishing Group, Inc & www.EmailDelivered.com 9

10. deliverability and inbox placement...
Wrap Up at SenderScore.org (If you are using
an ESP, then you will need to ask • Email marketing best practices...
In this guide, we covered 10+ best the provider for a list of IPs through • Improving your email ROI...
practices for improving your email which you are sending)
deliverability. • Increasing subscriber engagement...
• Evaluate your list quality by study-
EmailDelivered provides customers • And much, much more...
ing engagement metrics.
and clients with email deliverability
• Test message timing and sequenc-
tips and tools, email marketing best
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