In today’s competitive e-commerce landscape, email marketing remains one of the most powerful tools for driving engagement and revenue. However, even the most perfectly crafted email campaigns can fall flat if they don’t reach their intended audience.
This is where email deliverability comes into play. Simply put, if your emails aren’t making it to your subscribers' inboxes, you’re missing out on significant sales opportunities.
For e-commerce brands, poor email deliverability can have a devastating impact. Studies show that a drop in inbox placement can reduce open rates by up to 20%, costing businesses thousands in lost revenue each month. Spam filters, sender reputation, and email list quality all influence whether your emails reach your customers or get trapped in the dreaded spam folder.
In this article, we’ll explore the factors that influence email deliverability, how to improve it, and tools you can use to check your deliverability performance — empowering you to ensure your email campaigns consistently reach your audience’s inboxes.
Email deliverability refers to the ability of an email to successfully land in a recipient's inbox rather than being filtered into the spam folder or rejected by the mail server. It’s not just about whether the email is sent, but whether it actually reaches its destination — the recipient’s inbox.
A strong email deliverability rate is essential for the success of any email marketing campaign because even the most compelling content or best promotional offer won’t matter if the email never gets seen by the customer.
Email deliverability is distinct from email delivery. While email delivery simply means the email was received by the recipient’s mail server, deliverability focuses on whether it was delivered to the inbox, avoiding spam filters or other barriers. This distinction is crucial because an email that ends up in the spam folder or blocked entirely by services like Gmail or Yahoo won’t have the chance to engage with the recipient.
For e-commerce businesses that rely heavily on email to generate traffic and sales, poor deliverability can dramatically affect performance. Factors like sender reputation, the quality of email content, and how recipients engage with your messages all impact whether your emails make it to their inboxes. Ignoring these elements can result in your emails not reaching their intended audience, leading to underperforming campaigns and lost revenue.
Several factors can affect whether your emails make it to your subscribers' inboxes or get caught by spam filters. Understanding these causes can help you address potential problems before they hurt your email marketing efforts.
Modern spam filters are highly sophisticated, often using AI to assess email content, sender behavior, and recipient engagement. They analyze patterns like how often recipients open, click, or delete your emails, flagging messages that seem spammy. Poor engagement, frequent use of spam trigger words, or questionable content can cause your emails to be redirected to the spam folder.
Each ISP, such as Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook, has its own criteria for filtering emails. These providers monitor sender reputation, engagement rates, and other factors to decide whether to deliver your email to the inbox. If your emails don’t meet their standards, ISPs may route them to spam or block them altogether.
Sender reputation, tied to your IP address, and domain reputation are critical in determining deliverability. A poor reputation can result from high bounce rates, low engagement, or frequent spam complaints.
ISPs and email clients use this data to determine the trustworthiness of your emails. A low reputation increases the chances of your emails being flagged as spam or rejected.
Improving your email deliverability requires attention to several best practices that can enhance the chances of your emails landing in the inbox. By addressing the factors that influence deliverability, you can optimize your email campaigns for better engagement and results.
Implementing a double opt-in process ensures that only subscribers who genuinely want your emails are added to your list. This reduces the likelihood of spam complaints and ensures higher engagement. Double opt-in confirms that the recipient is actively interested, leading to better sender reputation and improved deliverability.
Regularly cleaning your email list is vital for maintaining a strong sender reputation. Removing inactive subscribers, invalid email addresses, and those that consistently generate hard bounces or soft bounces helps prevent high bounce rates and spam complaints. Maintaining a healthy, engaged email list signals to ISPs that your emails are welcomed, improving overall deliverability.
Using a dedicated IP address helps you build a positive sender reputation based on your own email sending habits, rather than being impacted by the actions of others sharing the same IP. This is particularly important for high-volume senders, such as e-commerce businesses, as it allows for greater control over deliverability and reputation management.
Consistency in your email sending habits builds trust with both ISPs and subscribers. Sudden spikes or drops in sending volume can appear suspicious, leading to deliverability issues. A regular, predictable schedule helps avoid triggering spam filters and improves engagement rates by setting clear expectations for your audience.
The quality and relevance of your email content directly impact how recipients engage with your emails. Well-crafted subject lines, clear headers, and clean HTML design can boost open and click-through rates, which are key factors ISPs consider when determining whether to place your emails in the inbox. Avoid using spammy language or symbols that may trigger filters.
Automation helps ensure your emails are sent at optimal times and to the right audience segments. This improves engagement rates and allows you to scale your campaigns without compromising deliverability. Automated workflows also enable timely and relevant messaging, which can prevent spam complaints and increase open rates.
Segmenting your email list and delivering personalized content to each audience group can significantly boost engagement. By tailoring your emails to different demographics or behaviors, you create more relevant content, increasing the likelihood of recipients interacting with your messages. Higher engagement rates contribute to better sender reputation and inbox placement.
Monitoring and testing your email deliverability is essential to ensure your emails are reaching their intended audience and not getting trapped in spam filters or blocked by ISPs.
Here are some key methods to help you check and improve your deliverability performance.
There are several tools available that allow you to test your email deliverability. Tools like DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), SPF (Sender Policy Framework), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) help authenticate your emails, ensuring they are legitimate and preventing spoofing. Proper setup of these protocols improves your email's chances of landing in the inbox by proving to ISPs that your emails are from a trusted source.
Deliverability tools also allow you to run tests that simulate how your emails will be treated by different ISPs like Gmail and Yahoo. These tests can identify issues such as whether your emails might be caught in spam filters or if your domain has been flagged as suspicious.
Monitoring engagement metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and spam complaints provides insight into how your emails are performing. High open and click-through rates signal to ISPs that your emails are valuable to recipients, improving your sender reputation.
Conversely, high bounce rates, particularly hard bounces, and frequent spam complaints can hurt your deliverability. Keeping a close eye on these metrics helps you identify and address potential issues before they escalate.
Being listed on a blacklist can severely damage your email deliverability. Blacklists are databases used by ISPs to block emails from domains or IP addresses flagged as sending spam.
Regularly monitor blacklists to ensure your domain or IP address hasn’t been added to one. If you do find yourself on a blacklist, you can take steps to request removal and correct the issues that led to the listing.
While Opensend doesn’t provide blacklist monitoring, its visitor identification and segmentation capabilities integrate seamlessly with email platforms to ensure high-impact campaigns.
Email deliverability is crucial for ensuring that your marketing efforts are effective and that your messages reach the intended audience. Leveraging tools to check your email deliverability and staying aware of issues like blacklists will help maintain a strong sender reputation.
If you’re looking to optimize your email marketing strategy, Opensend can be your trusted partner. By identifying high-intent website visitors and providing actionable insights, Opensend empowers businesses to create highly targeted campaigns that drive engagement and revenue. With Opensend, you can ensure your email efforts are data-driven and impactful.
If you’re an e-commerce business, take control of your email deliverability today with Opensend’s expert solutions.
Sources:
4 best practices to build a clean and engaged email database | MarTech
23 Email Marketing Tips to Improve Open & Clickthrough Rates [+HubSpot Blog Data] | HubSpot
5 Ways To Boost Your Email Domain Reputation (2023) | Beehiiv
