In order to protect the deliverability of email that is consistently wanted and to avoid these getting cluttered and overcrowded by email that isn’t wanted, more and more Internet service providers (ISP) have started using engagement to decide where an email will land in each of their recipients’ inboxes. Each measured reaction by the ISP will not only decide where your email will go for that recipient but will also affect the sender’s global reputation and subsequently deliverability at the ISP.
Here is Pure360 deliverability manager, Andy Thorpe’s top five ways of maintaining and improving your reputation and what you should monitor and look to increase in order to boost your deliverability rates.
1. Getting those click-throughs
One of the most obvious actions of engagement – someone clicking through from your email – is an obvious sign of a positive action. Even the view in a browser link can help. Some marketers like to put a lot of links in their emails to maximise on the possibility; if you do this, try to ensure it does not overpower the recipient. Email marketing newsletters tend to have quite a few links already.
Popular options for primarily single call-to-action emails, like events, include:
• Adding additional menu type links further down the email in the footer.
• Breaking the content into three parts (rows), such as:
- Quick convert: making it easy for people to open the email and click through.
- Elaboration: just under the quick convert section, add a bulleted list of benefits to help convince those who need a bit more to click through.
- The full blurb: a more detailed explanation of the benefits of converting.
2. Being added to the safe list
Ask to be added to the safe list or address book in the preheader of an email. This will tell the hosting ISP that the sender is a contact with wanted content, so less filtering will be done on the email’s content and in some places the images can be automatically loaded. This is definitely a positive for a sender’s reputation.
3. Getting replies
People replying to emails tend to signify that a conversation is taking place. ISPs and postmasters will always prioritise one-to-one emails between individuals, most of which will pay their wages, over an external senders’ bulk email. Replies will happen all of the time between them so they are definitely good for you. Gmail was trialling automatically loading all images from the sender who the recipient has replied to twice. Getting a dialogue going is a positive action as it often signifies engagement.
4. Receiving opens over time
The idea here is to compare how many emails have been opened over time in comparison to how many have been sent. Generally senders with a high number of opens get a better reputation. However, recently some ISPs have stated that this method was more trouble than it is worth and have given up.
5. Being marked as ‘not junk’
Moving emails from the junk folder into their inbox is the biggest gesture that recipients can make to improve reputation for a sender. Normally, if the message has gone to junk, the reputation is pretty bad already.
However, it’s not the end of the world, your sign-up process should include information on who the double opt in/welcome email will be coming from and even the subject line. This way the momentum from the engagement of opt-in should provide enough motivation for a new sign-up to go and look in their junk folder if you are not placed into the inbox straight away. At the same time ask to be added to the safe-list so it does not happen again. This information can be in the sign-up landing page, the double-opt in/welcome email and the landing page from the double opt-in conversion link click.
Finally here is a basic checklist for deliverability and what you can do to help secure inbox placement:
- Suppress previous opt-outs and hard bounces from your lists.
- Take out zombies (recipients who have not responded to your campaigns for two years or more).
- Make sure the ‘from address’ and ‘from name’ matches your brand.
- Use a preheader with the reason for email, external view and optional opt-out link.
- Make the top third preview pane friendly.
- Ensure the footer has legally required company registration details.
- Test, test, test your email and make sure it renders properly.
Remember: when it comes to deliverability you are in control; your deliverability is decided by your recipients’ reactions to your emails.
