Whether your email marketing strategy is a single-shot campaign or a complex series of campaigns, it’s important to know how to perform an email deliverability audit. There exist several aspects to be considered in an email deliverability audit, including email deliverability check to make certain your emails reach the inbox. You should also identify any issues with your email marketing and receive advice on how to resolve them. Your email deliverability audit should also include metrics, tools, and results. To document your findings, use a project management tool which documents metrics and results. This way, you can follow any changes that need to be made.
List Hygiene
When conducting an email deliverability audit, check for a number of issues and action items. It’s a good idea to look at marketing acquisition practices, list hygiene, and your IT authentication records. While improving your sender reputation and eliminating your email address from blacklists may be time-consuming, you’ll be able to immediately address problems that may affect your email deliverability. Incorrect email address verification can also cause your email to be marked as spam and sender reputation may suffer.
As a marketer, you’re probably aware of the importance of a good email list. Unfortunately, there are people who attempt to subscribe with malicious email addresses. This type of email can be used to send spam or monitor your list. Email list hygiene is critical, but it’s not easy. You’ve got to balance minimizing friction for your prospective subscribers with preventing the addition of errant email addresses.
Email delivery audit is important for any email marketing business. If your emails don’t get delivered to your subscribers, you may lose customers. This means that you should run an email delivery test and do regular list hygiene. This process involves cleaning your email list on your own or by means of an email checker. Leveraging an ESP-approved email deliverability audit is essential to achieving a high open and click rate and improving your overall email deliverability. These are only a few of the many benefits of email list hygiene.
To ensure the efficiency of your email list, you should avoid buying email lists and focus on building a permission-based list. Moreover, you should use a well-placed landing page, pop-up, or form to capture information. Finally, never send emails to a catch-all list without validating it first. By following these steps, you’ll be on your way to better email deliverability.
Address Verification
One way to improve email deliverability is to verify email addresses of all recipients. The best way to do this is by using a double opt-in option. Make sure that you verify email addresses during the sign-up process and include an unsubscribe link in your emails. You can also use a dummy email account, which is free to register. You can then send an email to the address and see if it bounces. If it does, take measures.
Another way to improve email deliverability is to switch to a dedicated IP address. This is more effective if you’re sending high volumes of emails. A trusted ESP will track shared IPs and keep spammers out. Mailgun, for example, actively monitors shared IPs to keep bad actors off the platform. While this may be a technical or costly process, it will make a significant difference in the overall deliverability of your emails.
Another important aspect of email deliverability is the bounce rate. A bounced message indicates that your email service provider has rejected your message and tends to classify it as spam. To ensure that your emails are delivered, you must send relevant emails that add value to your recipients’ lives. You can also run an email deliverability audit by manually monitoring your mail server log file, or by using an email service provider’s email delivery report tool. You can also do both methods at the same time.
Don’t forget to find out what your current delivery rate is. You can do this at your domain registrar’s website by means of an email delivery test. It’s important to get the latest stats. Look at your delivery rates from recent months. If they are lower than expected, you can use email automation software to improve them. You should also keep track of your email lists. This way, you can improve your deliverability rates. And, if you’re still unsure, try using an email service provider’s test email service.
Spam Complaints
One of the most significant sources of spam complaints is mass mailing. As a result, most email service providers subscribe all their subscribers to FBLs, which gather data on spam complaints. A poorly implemented unsubscribe process can significantly increase the likelihood of your emails being flagged as spam and decrease your email deliverability rates. Ideally, the unsubscribe process should require only a single click and not require further actions.
Your open rate should be between 20 and 30 percent. Anything lower than this may signal issues with your message content, or even spam folder data. At this point, it might be time to clean your list. A message with a 10% open rate is a red flag, as most ISPs treat it as spam. In addition, it will negatively impact your sender reputation. It can lead to your emails being flagged as spam by the email provider and will affect your reputation.
If you’re worried that your campaign is getting flagged for spam, keep track of your spam complaint rate. Most email providers monitor complaint rates over the past 30-60 days. If it’s higher than this, the sender is at risk of long-term deliverability problems that can take months to fix. Spam complaints during an email deliverability check are a critical indicator of whether or not your campaign is working. If you’re not monitoring your complaint rate, you are likely to lose customers.
Your email infrastructure includes:
- incoming mail servers,
- outgoing mail servers,
- sending domains,
- IP addresses,
- mail transfer agents.
These elements are the backbone of your email program. Hence, it’s important to keep it reliable and healthy. During your email deliverability audit, you should focus on campaigns that have more spam complaints. A simpler email is less likely to end up in spam folders. You can also use the Inbox Placement feature in Mailgun to identify spam complaints and determine whether your email campaigns have problems with unsafe and spammy websites.
SMTP Servers
SMTP is a protocol that is used to transfer emails from one server to another. The SMTP server communicates with the mail server that is receiving an email. However, it’s not the only part of email delivery which is controlled. The SMTP port numbers include: 25 and 587.
Dedicated IPs are the best choice for high-volume email senders. These are IP addresses that are exclusively dedicated to your campaign. They provide the highest level of deliverability. If you don’t use a dedicated IP, you might end up sending spam emails to inboxes based on the reputation of the sender’s domain. Shared IP addresses are also fine for low-volume senders, but they are not optimal for high-volume senders.
When conducting your email deliverability audit, make sure to include an MX record for the sender domain. Invalid MX records can negatively impact email deliverability. Besides, a proper MX record helps navigate email following SMTP rules. Email content is also an important factor in email deliverability. SMTP policy considers these characteristics. If you haven’t already implemented them, take the time to implement a solution.
A good email deliverability audit will show you if your emails have been authenticated. Spam checker will come in handy. If your emails have been rejected because of blacklists, you’re in for a major disaster. Using Mxtoolbox is the easiest way to check your email’s blacklist status. The tool also gives you a detailed report on email delivery. So if you want to be sure that your emails are being delivered, you need to check SMTP servers.
Unsubscribe/Abuse Rates
A good email deliverability audit will include metrics and elements that will help your emails reach the inbox and check whether your email is regarded as spam. While the audit should be comprehensive, it should start with the must-haves and collect low-hanging fruit first. Once you’ve gathered these metrics, you should make a list of the things you need to improve before tackling the high-hanging fruit. Once you’ve documented the low-hanging fruit, you should then create an impact-effort matrix, identify the projects you’ll need to take on, and measure your overall email deliverability.
Unsubscribe/abuse rates in an email deliverability audit show the number of users who have opted-out of an email campaign. A higher unsubscribe rate means a lower reputation for your domain, and may even get you flagged as spam by your ISP. However, if your unsubscribe rate is relatively low, it means that your campaign is working well. The unsubscribe rate represents the number of unsubscribes divided by the number of emails delivered. For example, if 20 subscribers have opted-out of an email campaign, that would be a 0.6% unsubscribe rate. While 0.5% is considered a good unsubscribe rate, it depends on the industry and your email marketing efforts.Invalid email addresses can ruin your email deliverability. That’s why utilizing an email checker is crucial. Whether your message is spam or not, you should never use the words “spam” in the subject line or the message itself. It’s better to avoid spam trigger words in your messages. Your messages may be checked with a spam checker. If you have unsubscribed or spammed people as a result of sending emails that contain these words, you will quickly find yourself with a low reputation and a high unsubscribe/abuse rate.
