Ever received an email that got sent straight to the spam folder? Let us explain why and how it matters. Email campaigns play the biggest role in SEO and link building success. Without emails and responses, you will not be able to procure or contact your target audience. However, this is dependent upon a factor called Email Deliverability.
A Brief About Email Deliverability
Email deliverability is the number or ratio of emails that are actually delivered to your contacts without them being blocked by ISPs or marked as spam. For any growing business, emails help procure contacts and references. Email marketing has been around for quite some time and is growing every day due to the influx of content marketing and link building.
When you send an email to an email address, the ISP checks it before actually delivering it to the inbox of the concerned person. If the credential and content look okay, the person receives the mail. Otherwise, it is directed to the spam folder where it gets deleted after a certain period of time.
This is not a random event but is instigated by many factors which we will see in this article. Let us first see these factors and then learn how to improve your email deliverability score.
Major Factors That Influence Email Deliverability
As mentioned above, there are certain factors that prevent you from delivering your email to the person that you wish to contact. They are:
The above factors are some of the major reasons why most amateur emailing campaigns fail. Let’s look at them briefly.
ISPs Do Not Trust You
An Internet Service Provider (ISP) is a company or an organization that provides internet services to individuals and organizations. Their primary purpose is to provide access to the internet and allow you the necessary tools to surf, download, and stream from, the internet. These ISPs engage in strict protocols when it comes to phishing or spam attacks. In order to pass their scrutiny, your emails and websites should have enough credibility online.
You Do Not Have Proper Authority
This can be interpreted in two ways. One is that you do not know the person to whom you are sending the email. Another is that your website or emailing credentials are not trustworthy. In other words, you do not have the authority to establish yourself as a legitimate emailer. Such status leads to a drop in email deliverability.
Your Credentials are Not Verified
For any sender, credentials are of utmost importance. This is where you either lose or gain a customer or a contact. When your mail arrives in an inbox, your credentials are shown on top. If your credentials are suspicious, people usually delete them right away and leave a negative comment.
Example:
Such credentials can get you into trouble with cybersecurity and can lead to deindexing of your services.
Your Sender Score is Low
Sender score is the basic criteria that ISPs look at when screening emails. It is your score as an emailer based on your history of successes and positive reviews. If your sender score is low, your email gets pushed to spam with no second thoughts. A good sender score is anywhere from 96 to 100. You can use this to check your Sender Score before starting a campaign.
Your Content is Spammy
No one likes spammy content. If you create content that does not resonate with your audience, even that could be treated as spam. Spam could be anything from repetitive email content to multiple addresses, products and services that are fake and try to beguile innocent users and such. Spam is treated very seriously by the ISPs and is very hard to recover once your email address has been added to the spam list.
Susceptibility to Cloning Phishing Attacks
The importance of online safety and cyber security can never be overstated. When you are online, you need to be aware that there are organizations that try to steal your information and impersonate you by hacking your contacts. According to statistics, 91% of cyber attacks start with phishing emails. These events lead to clone phishing attacks in which your contacts are sent a number of emails from a similar-looking email address. These are usually sent to procure money or to steal data from your contacts.
Once you become a victim of such attacks, it is best to inform your contacts regarding this as soon as possible. You can handle this through cyber security too.
Negative Comments
Comments and reviews move the online world these days. When people do not like your emails, they tend to leave comments about them. These negative comments can adversely affect your further emailing campaigns. Such comments influence your sender score as discussed above. It is best to receive regular feedback and improve, through the ways we’ll describe below.
How Do You Improve Your Email Deliverability
Now that we have seen the reasons for drops in Email Deliverability, let’s focus on how to improve it. To do this, the basic idea is to adopt certain disciplined practices before starting your emailing campaigns.
- Boost your IP address
To pass through any ISP check, your IP (Internet Protocol) address must be worthy. This might come off as too vague, but if you do proper marketing of your brand and your website, your reputation in the industry increases. This leads to people knowing your brand and address. And this is how you boost your IP address.
You can start by sending emails to only known contacts and potential customers. This builds authority around your email address. Once you have established yourself with enough contacts and positive responses, your Sender Score increases and once it is above 100, you can start cold emailing processes with confidence.
- Set up a Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
Setting up a Sender Policy Framework is a great way of highlighting to ISPs that your site or email address is credible. The ISPs can use this to cross-verify your claim and provide your clean access once everything is confirmed.
- Increase Sender Score or Reputation
Once you have established an emailing list, work on how to improve your Sender Score. Sender Score is like a credit score for your email: don’t let your score get too low. Do this in the form of positive responses, added subscribers, and non-spammy content. Once the internet starts trusting you, your sender score will go up. And as mentioned earlier, try to maintain your score to 100 and keep monitoring it.
- Consistency is Key
Sending emails with erratic schedules creates a sense of disorganization. Time your emails to a proper schedule and deliver them consistently. This will help you create an impression in the minds of your users who will get used to getting your emails like they receive the morning newspaper. You can be assured that your content is read by your contacts and this improves your email deliverability.
- Optimize Your Opt-in and Opt-Out Process
When people really like your emails, they tend to subscribe to regular content. Sometimes, they subscribe to emails as part of an account creation process. Once registered, they get added to your emailing list for regular emails about your products and services. While this is a great idea to procure contacts, it is better to offer a double-check while opting for emails. Users will find it a nice gesture on your part.
Opting out from emails usually means the loss of a potential customer. But if you make it hard, people will get annoyed with your brand. Make the opt-out process simple to keep the bridge standing. Customers will come back if you offer such transparency.
- Use Clear Subject Lines
Your emails should contain a clear subject line for consistency and reputation. Your emails should not contain any suspicious lines that would deter a user from reading further. Avoid words like ‘Free’, ‘Click This’, or ‘Money’ as CTAs. These spike a high amount of mistrust in users and you might get pushed to the spam folder forever.
- Clean Your Emailing List
Your emailing list is your biggest asset. It contains the contacts you have reached out to and seen success. But also remember, your list might include the ones who have marked you as spam and blocked you. You should regularly filter out such contacts and refresh your emailing list. This helps you focus on what you have, as you build from a small circle.
8. Be Consistent with Your Sender Name
Consistent sender name helps you in building trust for your company. When you make use of a constant sender name for your emails, especially those with the company names, it helps the receiver to easily recognize your company and builds trustworthiness with them. This trustworthiness will help you in sustaining your open rates.
Related Read:
- How To Earn Links Naturally
- 5 Ways to Improve Your Conversion Rate
- 5 Email Marketing Tools Every Marketer Should Know In 2023
Wrapping Up
Email deliverability can never be achieved without emailing discipline. The way you treat spam emails that you receive is exactly the way that every other user would treat one. Particularly, emails regarding business pitches and requests are not considered very important. One important way to ensure email deliverability is to diversify your content and ensure that it resonates with your audience.
The methods mentioned above should get you going in your emailing campaigns. However, to increase your site’s authority organically, link building is a great way. Visit us at LinkDoctor to start your SEO and link building journey.
FAQs
1. Does Email length affect Email Deliverability?
Yes, the length of your email affects email deliverability. But it is not as harmful as the other reasons for low email deliverability.
2. Do images affect Email Deliverability?
No, images do not affect email deliverability. But adding only images to your emails is not advisable. You need content to support your images.
3. How is Email Deliverability calculated?
Email Deliverability is calculated by taking the number of delivered emails and dividing it by the total number of emails you have sent.
