Yuka Kato
Did you know that about 30% of sent Gmail emails do not make it to recipients’ inboxes? When you send marketing emails, not only will you want them delivered, but you’ll want them to land in recipients’ inboxes, not in the spam folder.
An email that lands in the inbox will likely be seen and read, but one that goes to the spam folder will likely be lost forever. When recipients see and read your emails, they are likely to take desired actions (such as signing up for a trial or making a purchase).
Thus, email deliverability is crucial to successful email campaigns. For an email campaign to have the desired outcome of boosting your business, implement strategies to improve email deliverability so more of your emails land in recipients’ inboxes.
How do you enhance email deliverability? This guide will answer that question. At the end of this article, you’ll learn how to improve email deliverability rates.
What is Email Deliverability, and Why is it Important?
Email deliverability is the ability of an email to successfully reach the intended recipient’s inbox instead of being redirected to their spam folder or blocked altogether by their email server.
Know that email service providers prioritize their users’ safety and experience.
While they want you to receive all the emails you need and expect, they proactively take steps to prevent you from receiving malicious emails that are potentially harmful and unnecessary emails that will clutter your inbox and frustrate your emailing experience.
Email clients use AI-powered spam filtering systems to scan every incoming email, and if they suspect that an email is malicious or spammy, they may choose not to deliver it or divert it to the spam folder.
Thus, low email deliverability results from emails being blocked by email servers or being delivered to recipients’ spam folders instead of their inboxes.
Low email deliverability is one of the most significant problems of email marketing. It is something email marketers must try to avoid because:
- Emails blocked by recipients’ mail servers are not delivered and are lost forever. Also, emails that do not land in recipients’ inboxes are not likely to be seen.
- Every email campaign is to drive specific actions. But when the intended recipients do not see your message, they are not likely to take the actions you want them to take.
- When your target audience does not take desired actions because they did not get your message, all the resources spent on the email campaign are wasted.
- Low email deliverability can create a detrimental cycle where your deliverability rate continues to decrease over time. Low deliverability can damage your sender reputation, making email servers more likely to block or filter future emails from the sender, further reducing deliverability rates.
That said, improving email deliverability means getting more of your marketing emails to land in recipients’ inboxes. This makes recipients more likely to see and engage with the emails. Maximizing reach and engagement can lead to higher conversions.
Email Delivery vs Email Deliverability: What’s the Difference?
Email delivery and email deliverability may sound similar, but they refer to two totally different aspects of the emailing process.
Email delivery is concerned with whether an email was delivered to the recipient’s mailbox (irrespective of the folder in which it lands). However, email deliverability is whether the email lands in the recipient’s inbox.
That is, email delivery refers to the successful transmission of an email from the sender’s email server to the recipient’s email server.
In other words, the email is sent out by the sender’s email server and is received by the recipient’s server without being blocked or bounced back.
Email delivery is concerned with whether an email from a sender has landed in the recipient’s mailbox, no matter the folder. Therefore, whether the email lands in the Inbox, Social, Spam, or any other folder in the recipient’s mailbox, it has been delivered.
However, email deliverability refers to the successful transmission of an email to a recipient’s inbox. Thus, the focus of deliverability is not just whether the recipient’s email server accepted the email and delivered it to the mailbox. It is particular about the email being delivered to the inbox. Deliverability fails if the email goes into any folder other than the inbox.
What’s a Good Email Deliverability Rate?
No particular rate is universally agreed upon as a good deliverability rate. However, to get the most out of your email campaigns, you should strive for a deliverability rate between 85% and 95%.
Email deliverability rates above 95% are considered excellent, as they indicate that the vast majority of sent emails are successfully delivered to recipients’ inboxes.
However, achieving such excellent deliverability rates can be challenging.
When deciding the specific email deliverability rate you should strive for, your industry benchmark can provide guidance. This is because some sectors tend to achieve higher email inbox placement rates than others.
For example, the travel and hospitality industry generally has an email deliverability rate of 85% to 90%, while the ecommerce industry has deliverability rates ranging from 90% to 95%.
So, before setting a deliverability rate to aim for, consider doing the following:
- Research your industry to determine how your competitors are performing.
- Determine your current deliverability rate.
- Set a benchmark for your email inbox placement rate and implement specific strategies to help you achieve it.
9 Best Practices to Improve Email Deliverability
Now it’s time to explore specific steps you can implement to achieve a high deliverability rate and get more of your emails into recipients’ inboxes. These email deliverability best practices include:
1. Make Sure Your Email Domain is Authenticated
A good sender reputation increases the likelihood of email inbox placement, and authenticating your email domain is one way to increase sender reputation. Thus, ensuring your email domain is authenticated is one way to increase email deliverability.
When determining whether or not to deliver an email to an inbox, the first thing the recipient’s spam filtering system looks at is the sender’s reputation.
One way it does this is to consider whether the email passes authentication checks, such as the SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail).
Properly configured authentication protocols help the recipient’s email servers determine that an email is actually sent from the claimed sender, thus improving your deliverability rate.
Here’s how the authentication protocols work and how to set them up:
Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
Sender Policy Framework allows domain owners to set out the IP addresses authorized to send emails on behalf of their domain.
So, when an email is received, the recipient’s server checks the sender’s domain against the SPF record.
If the sender’s IP address is among those listed in the SPF record, the email is considered authenticated and is more likely to be placed in the recipient’s inbox.
To set up SPF authentication, you’ll have to create a DNS TXT record for your domain that specifies the authorized sending servers. It looks like:
v=spf1 include:_example.com ~all (with example.com being your domain name)
Your domain registrar or DNS provider will provide guidance on creating or modifying DNS records.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
DKIM adds an electronic signature to outgoing emails using a private key that only the sender possesses.
Upon receiving an email, the recipient’s mail server retrieves the public key from the sender’s domain’s DNS records. Then, it uses the public key to verify the DKIM signature on the email.
If the digital signature is correct and valid, the email is considered authenticated and is more likely to be placed in the recipient’s inbox.
To set up DKIM authentication, you’ll need to generate two cryptographic keys (a private and public key) for your domain.
Then, add a DNS TXT record for your domain containing the public key. Your email-sending platform will automatically add the DKIM signature to your email before sending it.
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC)
DMARC builds on SPF and DKIM by providing policies that specify how to handle emails that fail authentication checks.
It allows you to decide how your server should handle emails that fail SPF and/or DKIM authentication – whether it should “quarantine” or “reject” such emails.
It also allows domain owners to receive a report on DMARC activity, including information on email authentication results and sources of email abuse.
To set up DMARC authentication, you’ll need to publish a DMARC record in DNS for your domain. The record specifies the domain’s DMARC policy and where to send reports on DMARC activity.
2. Only Send to People Who Have Opted Into Your List
Positive recipient engagement increases the likelihood of email inbox placement. Sending emails to people who have opted into your list also increases the likelihood of positive engagement. Therefore, when seeking to improve email deliverability, a simple way is to send your emails only to people who are interested in them.
Email servers also use how people interact with emails from a particular sender to determine how to treat future emails from that person.
For example, if a recipient always deletes your emails before opening them or always flags them as spam, the filtering system may conclude that they are not interested in receiving your messages.
Future emails from you may automatically be marked as spam and pushed to the spam folder instead of the recipient’s inbox.
Conversely, if a recipient always engages well with your email messaging by opening it and clicking on your links, their email server will assume that they are interested in your email and continue to land your emails in their inbox.
Recipients generally interact positively with emails they have opted in to receive than unsolicited emails. Thus, your cold email campaigns may be hurting your email deliverability rate.
How Cold Emails May Hurt Email Deliverability
Unsolicited emails sent to people who have not explicitly consented to receive them are more likely to be marked as spam. Too many spam complaints can negatively impact your sender reputation and lead to lower deliverability.
Even when cold emails are not marked as spam, they generally have lower engagement metrics. Recipients may not open them or click on in-email links.
Lower engagement rates signal to email service providers that the emails are less valuable to recipients, resulting in lower inbox placement.
Ways to Avoid Sending Unsolicited Cold Emails
Instead of sending unsolicited cold emails, it is best to ethically collect email addresses and send only these people your marketing emails.
That is, obtain consent from your target audience to receive email communication from your business.
Specific ways to do this include:
- Place opt-in forms on your website where individuals can voluntarily subscribe to your email list.
- Use social media to engage with your audience and encourage them to subscribe to your email list.
- Place an opt-in checkbox in the checkout process and encourage customers to subscribe to your mailing list.
Customers are more willing to opt in to your mailing list when there is something in it for them. So, consider incentivizing subscribers to opt in by offering special discounts or other incentives.
3. Ask Subscribers to Add You to their Contact Lists
When subscribers add you to their contact list, they expressly tell their email service providers that you are a legitimate sender whose emails they are interested in receiving. Then, their email servers will land your emails in their inboxes.
It’s like a host adding your name to a list of invitees to an invite-only event. When you get to the venue, the security will check the list for your name and, upon finding it, usher you in.
So, when your recipients add your email address to their email contact list, the “gatekeepers” will see that your email address is on the “list” when your email is coming in and will usher the email to the inbox.
How Recipients Can Add You to Their Contact List
Your recipients can easily add you to their contact list. It takes only five simple steps:
Step 1: Open their Gmail account.
Step 2: Open any folder in their mailbox containing your emails.
Step 3: Open one of your emails.
Step 4: Hover their cursor over your email address in the opened email to reveal the sender’s info.
Step 5: Click the “Add to contacts” icon at the top right-hand corner of the ender info pop-up.
Also read: Gmail Read Receipt 2024: How to See If Someone Read Your Email.
4. Avoid Spammy Language in Your Subject Lines
When deciding whether or not to deliver an email to the inbox, email clients also look at the email content to check if it features characteristics commonly associated with spam. Thus, another way to ensure your email lands in recipients’ inboxes is to avoid including spammy language.
If your email passes the reputation check, it then goes through content analysis. In this step, the recipient’s email client scans the email content for characteristics of spam.
If it contains spammy language, it may be marked as spam and pushed to the spam folder instead of the inbox.
So, when creating your marketing emails, avoid spammy language in the subject line. The spammy language you should avoid in your email subject lines includes:
Spam Trigger Words
Certain words are commonly associated with spam emails. Including them in your subject line may trigger spam filters, resulting in your email being marked as spam.
Examples of spam-trigger words to avoid include:
- Free
- Cheap
- Affordable
- Cash
- Win
- Win Cash
- Discount
- Urgent
- Guaranteed
Overpromising
Overpromising is another feature of spammy messages, and overpromising in your subject lines can cause spam filters to mark your email as spam.
Avoid making unrealistic or exaggerated claims in your subject line. Consider that you’re sending emails to encourage people to subscribe to your weight loss program.
A subject line like “Lose 20 pounds in 2 Days” is more likely to send your emails to your recipients’ spam folders than their inboxes.
Salesy Language
Spammy messages tend to be overly promotional or sales-oriented. Thus, having salesy language in your subject lines can send your emails to junk folders.
Even if your primary goal is to drive sales, make your subject line enticing without being overly promotional. Instead of salesy phrases like “Buy Now” or “Limited Time Offer,” focus on providing value and relevance to your audience.
So, instead of a salesy phrase like “Buy Now!”, use a value-focused alternative like “Discover How XYZ New Model Can Transform Your Operations.”
Phishing Language
Spammy emails usually feature phishing language, which refers to specific wordings used by cybercriminals to trick individuals into divulging sensitive information (such as personal details, passwords, and credit card details).
Having phishing language in your subject line may cause spam triggers to mark your emails as spam and send them to recipients’ spam folders.
One of the most important best practices for email marketing deliverability is avoiding phishing language.
Phishing language often combines a sense of urgency and fear tactics, urging recipients to act quickly to avoid dire consequences.
For example, instead of the subject line “Account Expiring Soon. Renew Now to Avoid Disruption!”, use “Account Renewal Reminder: Take Action To Continue Enjoying our Service.”
5. Make It Easy to Unsubscribe
When people cannot easily unsubscribe from receiving email communication from you, your recipient engagement metrics suffer. That can affect the sender’s reputation, reducing your email deliverability rate.
People can change their minds. People who opt-in to receive emails from you may later change their minds and no longer wish to receive your email communication.
When unsubscribing from your email list is difficult, recipients may resort to deleting your emails before opening them or marking them as spam.
This can spoil your domain’s reputation with their email clients, and future emails from you may be treated as spam.
Therefore, one way to boost your deliverability rate and ensure that more of your emails land in recipients’ inboxes is to make it easy for your mailing audience to remove themselves from your email list. Do this by including an unsubscribe button or link in your emails.
See how this marketing email includes unsubscribe links both at the beginning and end of the email.
Furthermore, including an unsubscribe button in your emails helps them comply with regulations for email marketing.
Different jurisdictions have laws establishing the requirements for commercial emails.
In the US, for example, that law is the CAN-SPAM Act. One of its requirements is that marketing emails provide recipients with a clear and conspicuous way to opt out.
There are different unsubscribe mechanisms you can adopt, but one of the easiest and most user-friendly is the unsubscribe buttons.
6. Never Buy an Email List
Buying an email list provides you with a ready-made list of email audiences you can reach with your marketing message. However, this can negatively impact sender reputation, further dragging down your deliverability rate.
It can be tempting to spend a few bucks to buy thousands of emails. However, that is a bad idea because it negatively affects your sender reputation.
How Purchased Email Lists Affect Deliverability
One way a purchased email list affects sender reputation is with increased bounce rates.
Purchased email lists often contain outdated, inaccurate, or even fake email addresses. Sending messages to these email addresses will result in high bounce rates, which negatively affect your sender reputation. And low reputation reduces email deliverability.
Another way a purchased email list affects sender reputation is by pulling senders into spam traps.
Spam traps are fake email addresses set up by ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and placed in different locations around the web. Bots harvesting email addresses often find and add these addresses to their lists.
When you buy an email list, you don’t know how it was built. It could contain a spam trap. And if you send an email to a spam trap, you are automatically flagged as spam and put on a deny list.
So, to reduce the risk of sending emails to spam trap addresses, never ever buy an email list.
7. Don’t Use Strange Formatting in Your Email Text
Certain unusual formatting patterns are commonly associated with spam emails. If your email contains such formatting, it may be marked as spam, reducing your deliverability rate. One way to boost email deliverability is to avoid strange formatting in your email text.
Email spam filters are trained to detect strange formatting patterns usually found in spam emails. If your email contains these patterns, it’ll fail the content check that your recipients’ email clients put it through and be marked as spam.
So ensure your subject line and email body are free of the unusual formatting patterns usually found in spam emails, such as:
Typos and Grammar Errors
Many spam messages come with broken English and typographical errors. So, if your email features typos or grammar errors, it risks being flagged as spam.
Also, typos and grammar errors can negatively impact user engagement with your email, lowering your sender reputation and deliverability.
A simple way to improve your email deliverability rates is to always proofread emails before hitting the send button. Proofread your email and ensure it is clear, coherent, and free of errors.
Unnecessary Capitalization
Email text (especially subject lines) written in capital letters can come across as aggressive and spammy. And that can make recipients’ email clients send your emails to spam folders.
To increase the likelihood of landing your emails in recipients’ inboxes, do not write email text in all caps. Instead, use proper capitalization to maintain professionalism.
Instead of a subject line like “UNLOCK EXCLUSIVE SAVINGS: YOUR VIP ACCESS AWAITS!”
Use “Unlock Exclusive Savings: Your VIP Access Awaits!”
Excessive Punctuation
Excessive punctuation, such as exclamation marks (!!!) and ellipses (…), is a common feature of spammy emails. Having these in your email text may cause recipients’ email clients to mark your emails as spam and send them to spam folders.
Don’t overload your email text with punctuation. Use punctuation sparingly and only when necessary.
Instead of a subject line like “Your VIP Access Awaits!!!”
Use “Your VIP Access Awaits!”
Random Symbols
Random symbols, such as emojis or multiple dollar signs ($$$), feature heavily in spam emails. So, including them in your email subject line or main text can make spam filters mark your email as spam and send it to your recipient’s spam folders.
Thus, to increase your deliverability rate and ensure more of your emails land in recipients’ inboxes, avoid using random symbols in your email text, especially in subject lines.
Hidden Text
A common feature of spam and malicious emails is hidden text. This is usually done by making the font color the same as the background or using very tiny font sizes. Spam filters are trained to detect these tactics and flag the email as spam.
Therefore, to boost your email deliverability rate, avoid hiding text in your email to prevent spam filters from flagging it.
8. Don’t Use Excessive Videos or Images in Emails
Excessive use of images, animated GIFs, or videos in your email may make your recipient’s email client reject it or filter it into the spam folder. Another way to improve deliverability of email is not to use excessive images and videos.
Images and videos may enhance the appearance of your emails. However, overloading your email with these elements can hurt email deliverability.
Images are commonly used to bypass text-based spam filters, so many spam messages generously use images and videos.
Another way excessive images and videos affect deliverability is by increasing the size of your email file.
Large image and video files can significantly increase the size of your email file, resulting in longer loading times.
Longer loading times can trigger spam filters, causing the email to be filtered to the junk folder.
Also, email clients and ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have limits on the size of emails they accept. So, a very large email file may be rejected altogether.
9. Always Test Your Emails Before Sending Them
Perhaps one of the most important email deliverability best practices is testing your emails before sending them. This is because testing helps you ensure compliance with spam filter rules and optimize for user experience, thereby reducing the likelihood of being flagged and negative user engagement.
Testing your emails before sending them simply means checking that all the previous email deliverability best practices are being followed.
Specific ways to test your emails before sending them include:
Validate the Content
Check that your email content complies with spam filter rules and guidelines. This includes checking for spammy language, strange formatting, excessive use of images/videos, and other factors that might trigger spam filters. Also, check that it has clear unsubscribe buttons or links.
Preview Appearance
Preview how your email will appear in recipients’ inboxes. This allows you to catch formatting issues or other errors that might detract from the email’s effectiveness.
Previewing your email’s appearance also helps ensure it looks professional and polished. Professional-looking emails are more likely to maintain recipients’ trust and drive positive engagement.
Render Your Email across Different Devices
You may also test your email on different devices (such as desktop, tablet, and mobile) to see if it is displayed correctly on each device.
Optimizing your email for different devices helps you ensure your recipients will have positive experiences regardless of what device they use to open the email.
And a positive user experience can lead to higher engagement rates and ultimately improve deliverability.
How to Test Your Email Deliverability Rate
There are a number of free tools in the market you can use to test your email deliverability rate.
Here’s a brief description of some of the tools and how to use them:
Mailtrap.io
Mailtrap.io is a popular email testing tool that allows users to preview and test their emails in a simulated environment before sending them to actual recipients.
Using a simulated environment means you can test your emails without spamming recipients.
Here is an overview of how to use Mailtrap.io to test email deliverability:
- Sign up for an account.
- Log into your account to access the Mailtrap.io dashboard.
- Create new inboxes in the Mailtrap.io dashboard.
- Retrieve SMTP credentials and use them to configure your email-sending service to send emails to the created Mailtrap inboxes.
- Send the test emails from your email-sending service to the email addresses associated with your Mailtrap inboxes.
- Open the sent emails in your Mailtrap inbox and preview them.
- Analyze spam reports and email deliverability metrics provided by Mailtrap.io.
Mailtrap.io provides comprehensive deliverability analyses. You can scan email content (subject line, body, attachment, links, etc) to get a detailed list of spam points.
Mail-tester.com
Mail-tester.com is another useful tool for testing email deliverability by analyzing various aspects of your email, such as spam score, authentication, and content.
Here is an overview of how to use Mail-tester.com to test email deliverability:
- Compose an email using your email client or email marketing platform.
- Send the email to the unique email address provided by Mail-tester.com.
- Go to Mail-tester.com and click “Check your score” to view your spam score and detailed feedback on various aspects of your email.
- Review the result and identify spam points in your email you can improve to boost its deliverability.
MXToolbox
MXToolbox is a set of tools for testing various aspects of email deliverability, including DNS records, blacklist status, and SMTP server configuration.
To check blacklist status, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the “Blacklist Check” tool on MXToolbox.
- Enter your domain name or IP address.
- Click “Blacklist Check.”
The tool will display whether your domain or IP address is listed on any blacklist.
To verify SPF records, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the “SPF Record Lookup” tool in MXToolbox.
- Enter your domain name.
- Click “SPF Record Lookup.”
The tool will display your domain SPF record, including the IP addresses allowed to send email on behalf of your domain.
Mailsuite
Mailsuite (formerly Mailtrack) is a Chrome extension you can use to turn your Gmail into a powerful email marketing software. While it is not strictly an email-testing tool, it has features for validating authentications.
This improves your domain reputation, increasing your deliverability to help you land more emails in recipients’ inboxes.
When using your own SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) to send emails from Google, follow these steps to use Mailsuite to verify your domain.
- Open your Mailsuite dashboard and go to the Accounts section.
- Click “Manage domains.”
- If verifying a domain for the first time, click “Generate keys” to generate a private key (TXT record to add to your domain’s DNS).
- Add the TXT record to your domain’s DNS.
This authenticates your domain, improving your email deliverability rate.
Improve Email Deliverability with Mailsuite
Mailsuite offers different features that help improve email deliverability, including unsubscribe links, bounce detection, and batch send.
Here’s how you can use the Mailsuite features to improve email deliverability:
Add Unsubscribe Links To Emails with Mailsuite
Mailsuite simplifies the process of adding unsubscribe links to your emails.
Remember that one way to boost email deliverability is to make it easy for people to unsubscribe from your mailing list.
Giving people (who change their minds) a way out of your mailing list prevents them from marking your emails as spam and hurting your sender’s reputation and deliverability rate in the process.
With Mailsuite, adding unsubscribe links to your emails takes only a few clicks.
Simply hit the Mailtrack settings icon in Gmail. Then, in the Config pop-up, check the option “Add unsubscribe link.”
Just like that, Mailsuite will add an unsubscribe link at the bottom of your emails as follows:
Mailsuite also offers custom unsubscribe links. That is, the tool allows you to customize the format and text of your unsubscribe link.
View Email Bounce Rate with Mailsuite
Mailsuite will also tell you when your emails bounce. This helps you clean up your email list to avoid sending emails that will bounce and hurt your sender’s reputation and deliverability rate.
One way to improve deliverability is keeping a high-quality email list that eliminates or drastically minimizes bounce rates. Mailsuite’s bounce detection feature helps you do this!
When Mailsuite shows you emails that bounce, you can then remove them from your mailing list for future campaigns. This helps you avoid email deliverability issues.
Maintain Proper Sending Behavior with Mailsuite’s Campaign Batch Send
Mailsuite Campaign Batch Send feature lets you split your email campaign sends into smaller batches and send them gradually over a period.
This helps you avoid ISP throttling (that may block your emails) and maintain proper sending behavior (by keeping your email volume from spiking and flagging spam filters).
Email service providers throttle or limit the number of emails they accept from a sender within a period.
Mailsuite’s Campaign Batch Send helps you work around ISP throttling. By sending emails gradually in smaller batches, you reduce the likelihood of hitting the sending limits. This helps ensure that your emails are accepted and delivered promptly.
With Mailsuite’s Campaign Batch Send, you can send emails to up to 10,000 recipients while staying within Gmail’s send limits.
Batching a campaign in Mailsuite is easy. Simply follow these steps to do it:
- Go to Mailsuite settings.
- In the “Prepare for Launch” window, click “Schedule send.”
- Click “Batch send” to open the Schedule Campaign window.
- Complete the fields in the window.
- Enter the date and time you’d like to start sending the emails (by default, the current time and date are selected).
- Enter how many emails you’d like to send per day.
- Enter the days you’d like to send your emails (By default, it’s configured for Monday to Friday).
- Lastly, click “Send batched campaign.”
Takeaway: Boost email deliverability and enjoy email marketing success
Email deliverability refers to landing emails into recipients’ inboxes. It is crucial to email marketing success because emails landing in recipients’ inboxes are more likely to be seen and read.
The nine email deliverability best practices above can help email marketers boost deliverability rates to land more emails in recipients’ inboxes.
Mailsuite has many features that can help you boost email deliverability, including unsubscribe links, bounce detection, and campaign batch send.
Mailsuite is a powerful email marketing tool with a wealth of other features too, including email tracking. Mailsuite will track and notify you about email views, link clicks, and document views.
Get Mailsuite and optimize your email marketing!
