Email is a valuable tool for any organization. Used correctly, an email strategy can help optimize your lead generation efforts, strengthen relationships with customers, and increase your revenue. However, the only way amazing emails are going to have an impact on your profits and growth, is if you ensure they’re actually reaching your target audience.
That’s where a robust strategy for optimizing “email deliverability” comes in. Email deliverability, affected by your email domain and IP reputation (alongside other factors) is what influences whether your emails actually make it to a customer’s inbox. If your email deliverability rate is low, that means your messages will usually end up either in the spam folder, or they’ll “bounce”, which means they never reach your customers at all.
While maintaining strong email deliverability rates has always been crucial, achieving success has become more complex in recent years, as email service providers look for new ways to minimize inbox spam, and protect users. Fortunately, we’re here to help, with a step-by-step strategy for maximizing and retaining high deliverability rates.
How to Improve Email Deliverability in 2024: Step by Step
The first thing you’re going to need to improve your deliverability rates, is an insight into your current email reputation and deliverability scores. While it’s hard to get a comprehensive view of the factors influencing your deliverability rates, you can use a range of tools to determine whether you have issues you need to overcome.
Email deliverability assessment tools, such as SenderScore, and Google Postmaster tools, can offer insights into various factors that influence deliverability scores, such as delivery errors, IP reputation problems, and spam complaints. It’s also worth checking whether your company’s domain is listed on any anti-spam blacklists before you start working on your strategy.
Once you have a clear view of your current sender reputation (and the impact it’s having on deliverability scores), here’s how you can give your deliverability rates a boost.
Step 1: Authenticate your Domain
Before anything else, you need to ensure the technical aspects of your email marketing strategy are tuned for success. Email authentication is becoming increasingly important, thanks to new sender guidelines implemented by companies like Google and Yahoo in 2024.
Email authentication methods help to show your recipient’s server your message comes from a legitimate, verified domain, reducing your risk of ending up in the spam folder. Here are the key things you’ll need for an authenticated domain:
- Sender Policy Framework (SPF): SPF is a form of email authentication method used to verify whether incoming emails come from a legitimate server, rather than a relay server. You’ll need to create an SPF record to establish this.
- DomainKeys Identified Mails (DKIM): DKIM ensures alternations haven’t been made to messages sent by your domain during transmission. It involves using a public key encryption that links a digital signature with a domain name DNS.
- Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC): This authentication method leverages both DKIM and SPF techniques to authenticate emails and validate the message isn’t part of a phishing or spam attack.
You may also need to ensure you maintain valid DNS records, to ensure the traceability of your domains and IPs. Your virtual assistant can help with all of these authentication methods.
Step 2: Grow your Email List Organically
A lot of the factors that can harm your email sender reputation, and deliverability rates, are a result of sending messages to people who don’t actually want to hear from you. When you’re trying to grow your email list as quickly as possible, it can be tempting to purchase lists of contact details to expand your reach, but this can be dangerous, as it boosts your chances of sending messages to customers who don’t want to connect with you.
Instead, focus on growing your email list organically, with the help of lead magnets, landing pages, and newsletters that deliver genuine value. Consider using double opt-in to confirm that customers do want to receive messages from you, and allow them to control what kind of content they receive with sender preferences.
Additionally, ensure you make it easy to unsubscribe from your email list. Not only is this crucial for adhering to marketing regulations and requirements, it also reduces the risk of customers marking your emails as “spam” when they can’t opt-out. Every time a customer marks you as spam, this has a direct impact on your deliverability rate, and sender reputation.
Step 3: Warm Up your IP Address
Email can be a powerful tool for business leaders, but that doesn’t mean you should dive into sending countless campaigns to your customers straight away. Before you send messages from a new email address, you should be working with your VA or marketing experts to “warm up” your IP. This is a crucial way to improve email deliverability.
This basically means sending a small number of emails to active and engaged users initially. When these contacts open and engage with your emails regularly, it shows internet and email service providers that your emails are relevant, elevating your sender reputation.
After a few weeks, you can start to send more emails on a more frequent basis. Just make sure you’re keeping a close eye on your email metrics, so you don’t annoy customers with too many messages. If your unsubscribe rates or bounce rates increase with your email volume, consider reducing the number of messages you send.
Brevo shared some useful tips on the best cadence and frequency for email campaigns, suggesting different companies benefit from sending emails at certain times, on certain days. However, you’ll need to use your own analytics and insights to create the perfect email calendar.
Step 4: Avoid Spam Trigger Words
Various things that can “trigger” spam filters used by email service providers, including the words you use in your subject lines, and email content. Over the years, ESPs have identified certain terms that appear more frequently in spam emails. Unfortunately, many of these terms are also the words companies use to try and optimize their lead generation activities.
Avoid financial words, like “Free”, particularly if you’re not actually offering something free in your email. Other terms to avoid include:
- High-urgency words: Such as “Now”, or “Immediately”.
- Capitalized words: Any words written all in capital letters
- Symbols and numbers: Exaggerated numbers or numerous exclamation points (.ie 0% Risk!!!)
Experiment with terms, offers, and phrases in your subject lines, introductory (subheading text) and your email content, for deeper insights into which terms trigger the spam filters.
Step 5: Regularly Clean and Segment Your Lists
Just as it’s important to ensure you’re only connecting with engaged prospects through double opt-in strategies, and giving consumers easy opt-out options, it’s also crucial to regularly clean disengaged contacts from your list. Over time, if you keep sending disengaged customers messages, you risk them marking those messages as spam.
To protect your reputation, and improve email deliverability, regularly assess your email list, looking for inactive users and people who have stopped opening your messages.
If you don’t want to delete contacts straight away, consider using a “re-engagement” strategy initially to try and encourage customers to connect with your company again. You can offer disengaged customers discounts and offers, or allow them to change their email preferences on your website.
While you’re cleaning your list, it also makes sense to look for ways to segment your customers based on their demographic data, location, behavioral data, and previous purchases. This will allow you to create more targeted email campaigns that resonate with your customer’s specific needs and interests.
Step 6: Create More Engaging Emails
By far, one of the most important ways to improve email deliverability in 2024, is to focus on creating higher-quality email content. The messages you send to customers should immediately capture their attention and deliver consistent value. The more people enjoy your emails, the more they’ll interact with them, and the less likely they’ll be to mark you as spam.
High email engagement rates show ISPs that recipients enjoy your messages, and improve your email reputation. You can improve the quality of your emails by:
- Optimizing email design: Use well-designed, responsive email templates with clean layouts, and fast-loading images. Make sure your emails are accessible, by optimizing them to perform well on every device, and using legible fonts and high-contrast colors.
- Personalize the content: Create different email campaigns for each of your audience segments, focusing on their specific needs, goals, and pain points. Think about what customers want to see most from your emails, from updates from your latest blog posts, to promotions and special offers.
- Include interactive content: Consider experimenting with interactive widgets that add something unique to your email messages. Embedded video players, polls, surveys, and even “spin the wheel” games can make emails more engaging.
Keep an eye on your email metrics to determine which strategies are driving the most sales, visits to your website, and positive feedback from customers.
Step 7: Constantly Monitor and Optimize
Finally, the only way to ensure you can improve email deliverability rates consistently, is to keep a close eye on your metrics. Regularly assess your domain reputation and sender scores using the tools mentioned above, and leverage the tools included in your email marketing software.
Most email automation tools will allow you to track crucial metrics, such as click-through rate, unsubscribe rates, spam complaints, and bounce rate. This should help you to identify whether the strategies you’re using to boost deliverability are working.
Some email tools will even give you access to spam box checkers and inbox render tests, that can give you a deeper insight into the experience your emails are giving customers.
Improve Email Deliverability in 2024
Your email campaigns have the power to boost your lead generation efforts, improve relationships with customers, and increase revenue. However, you won’t accomplish anything unless your emails consistently make it to your customer’s inbox.
Using comprehensive strategies to improve email deliverability in 2024 will ensure you can get the best return on investment from your email efforts, and protect your brand’s reputation.
For more tips on how to enhance lead generation and grow your email list in 2024, check out our free eBook here, or contact get in touch.