Email is one of the most important tools for businesses and individuals alike. Inboxes are constantly inundated with messages, many of which are unwanted or unimportant. This can make it difficult to sift through everything and find the messages that are truly worth reading.
There are a few things that can make it more likely for an email to get caught in a spam filter or end up being bounced back. Here are ten tips to help improve deliverability and make sure your messages get through to the intended recipients.
1. Email Bounces: What They Are and How to Handle Them
An email bounce is an email that is returned to the sender because it cannot be delivered to the recipient. There are two types of email bounces: a soft bounce and a hard bounce.
Soft Bounce
A soft bounce is an email that is returned to the sender because the recipient's mailbox is full or the email is too large to be delivered. Soft bounces are not permanent and the email can be resent at a later time.
You also can’t really do much to avoid a soft bounce since there is nothing you can do from your end to clean up your recipient’s inbox other than wait for it to have enough space for your email again.
Hard Bounces
A hard bounce is an email that is returned to the sender because the email address is invalid. Hard bounces are permanent and the email cannot be resent.
Muhammad Muzamil, The Sr Digital Marketing Executive at Cloudways ( A Managed WordPress Hosting Platform) quotes that you should:
Prioritize your most engaged customers over others. Utilize list segmentation to improve your email marketing technique. Once you have created a list, it will tell the email service provider's spam filters that you are delivering high-quality content that generates good engagement results.
There are a few things you can do to prevent hard email bounces from happening:
- Use a double opt-in process for your email list. This means that people will need to confirm their email address when they sign up for your list, which will help to ensure that you have a valid email address for each person on your list. You can achieve this by showing them interesting content in the form of online podcasts, for example.
- Keep your list clean and up-to-date. Remove any invalid email addresses from your list on a regular basis using email validation services, and make sure to add new subscribers to your list as soon as they sign up.
- Use a reputable email service provider. Make sure that your ESP has a good reputation and is known for delivering emails to inboxes.
- Set up your email server to use a bounce address. This will ensure that any bounced emails are sent back to your server and not to the sender's address.
- Monitor your bounce rate. Keep an eye on your bounce rate and take action if it starts to increase. This could mean removing invalid email addresses from your list or changing your email deliverability settings.
2. Spam Filters: How to Avoid Them and Improve Deliverability
A spam filter is a program that is used to identify and remove spam emails from a user's inbox. There are a variety of spam filters that are available, and they vary in terms of how effective they are at identifying and removing spam emails. Make sure to use these to avoid the email spam folder and improve email deliverability.
There are a few things that you can do to avoid having your emails filtered as spam. First, make sure that you are not using any keywords that are known to trigger spam filters. Second, avoid using excessive punctuation and symbols in your emails. Finally, make sure that your email content is relevant and interesting to your recipients.
There are many spam and grammar checkers available that can help you make sure your email pitches aren’t going to trigger any spam filters.
3. Spam Traps: What They Are and How to Avoid Them
A spam trap is a type of email address that is used to catch spammers. They are usually set up by ISPs or email providers to track people who are sending spam emails. If you send an email to a spam trap, it is likely that your IP address will be flagged and you could be banned from sending emails.
There are a few different types of spam traps, but the most common is the honeypot trap. This is where an email address is published on the internet, but it is not actually used. When a spammer collects this email address and sends an email to it, the ISP can then track the IP address and take action.
Another type of spam trap is the recycled trap. This is where an email address has been inactive for a long time and then it is reactivated by the ISP. When a spammer sends an email to this address, the ISP can track the IP address and take action.
You can avoid spam traps by only sending emails to people who have opted in to receive emails from you. Do not buy lists of email addresses, and do not add people to your list without their permission. If you are using an email marketing service, make sure that they are not using any spam traps.
4. Tips to Improve Deliverability
Below are some tried and tested ways to improve your email deliverability.
Regularly clean your email list
It's important to regularly clean your email list to keep your deliverability high and avoid getting marked as spam. A clean email list also ensures that your messages are reaching the people who actually want to receive them.
Even if you didn’t purchase an email list and collected all of the contacts yourself, it’s important to regularly verify all of the emails inside of it.
Business emails have a tendency to decay, and a contact that you have just collected last month might not be used anymore, and might even be repurposed for a spam trap.
Authenticate your domain
DKIM, DMARC, and SPF are all email authentication protocols that help to ensure that only authorized senders can send emails on behalf of your domain.
This helps to protect your domain from being spoofed by attackers who could use your domain to send spam or phishing emails.
DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail and uses cryptographic signatures to verify that an email was sent by an authorized sender.
DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance and builds on top of DKIM and SPF to provide a more comprehensive email authentication solution.
SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework and defines which IP addresses are authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain.
It is important to set up these protocols for your email domain in order to help protect your domain from being used to send spam or phishing emails.
Attackers who spoof your domain can damage your reputation and may even be able to trick your users into revealing sensitive information. By setting up DKIM, DMARC, and SPF, you can help to ensure that only authorized senders can send emails on your domain's behalf.
Apply Market Segmentation Strategies
One common mistake is to believe that by having a broader audience we are reaching a greater public. Truth is, market segmentation is a crucial element in any successful email marketing campaign. Not only do you save resources in the shape of money invested and time, but also optimize the opening rate of your content by tailoring it for a certain public.
Take into account not just geographical/demographic metrics but behavioral aspects. Content-specific delivery turns into quality sales or customer retention when done right.
Use a double opt-in process
A double opt-in is when someone subscribes to your email list and then confirm their subscription by clicking on a link in a confirmation email. This confirmation email is sent automatically by your email service provider.
The double opt-in is important because it helps to ensure that the person subscribing to your email list is actually interested in receiving your emails. It also helps to improve your email deliverability because it reduces the chances of your emails being marked as spam.
Monitor your sender reputation
Email sender reputation is the measure of how likely an email sender is to be considered trustworthy and legitimate by email providers. It is based on a variety of factors, including the sender's IP address, domain, and email content.
Monitoring email sender reputation is important because it can impact the deliverability of your emails. If your sender reputation is low, your emails are more likely to be marked as spam or blocked entirely.
There are a few ways to monitor your email sender reputation. One is to use a tool like Return Path's Sender Score, which gives you a numerical score based on a variety of factors. Another option is to use a service like Emailage, which uses data from many different sources to give you a risk score for your email address.
Pay attention to your email deliverability reports
Email deliverability is important because it can help you gauge whether or not your emails are actually reaching people's inboxes. You can also use CRM Software as it is the most important relationship building tool, with some CRM software’s you can create and send email.
If your deliverability starts to go down, it could be an indication that your emails are getting caught in spam filters or that people are no longer interested in receiving your emails. To improve your deliverability, you may need to adjust your email content or frequency. Or, perhaps, your customer engagement strategies are due for a review as well.
Overall, good email deliverability is considered to be around 98%. It’s never going to be perfect, but if it starts to dip below 95%, that means your emails aren’t going where they’re supposed to be and it’s time to revise your outreach strategy.
Wrapping Up
Email deliverability is a complex issue with many factors that can impact whether or not your messages make it to the inbox. By understanding email bounces, spam filters, and spam traps, and taking steps to improve your deliverability, you can ensure that your messages are more likely to be seen by your recipients.
If you follow the tips described above, you should be able to maintain a decent email deliverability rate.
If you’re having trouble, you also may want to consider using an email warmup service like Lemwarm or Murlist.
