Ways to improve email deliverability

[Elizabeth_K]

We talk a lot about email engagement and open rates, but your deliverability is important too! Before your email can be opened and have links clicked, it needs to make it into your contacts’ inboxes. Deliverability measures how likely your emails are to land in an inbox instead of being marked as spam or flat-out blocked by your contacts’ Internet Service Provider (ISP). 

So, how do you increase your deliverability? The good news is that Constant Contact has a fantastic sending reputation, so just by using our services you get to share in that reputation. The rest is up to you by following good industry practices:

Make sure your contacts have given you permission to email them and never purchase a list! All of Constant Contact’s sign-up tools ensure that you are documenting consent, which satisfies our own Email Permission Policy. We also have tools that help ensure your contacts really do want to hear from you:

• Advanced Email Permissions - Lets you track implied vs. express permission in your account.
• Confirm Opt-in email - Provides a higher level of certainty that everyone who signs up for your list really wants to be there and protects your sign-up form against bots and non-permission-based additions.
• Reconfirm Opt-in email - Lets you ask your existing subscribers if they still want to hear from you and can be used to sunset email addresses that are no longer interested in receiving your messages) that you can use to ensure your contacts really do want to hear from you. 

Using these tools can make a big difference in preventing bounced emails!

Buying a list and importing it into your account is a good way to end up with a high bounce rate, lots of spam complaints, and a list review because those contacts never gave their permission! It’s about quality over quantity anyway. (Learn more about implied vs. express email permissions here.)

Improve trust with good branding, including email authentication. 

When you see a mismatch between an organization’s name and their email address, it’s a red flag for spam. You want a domain email address that matches your website domain for maximum brand identity. When you’re using a third-party email marketing tool, like Constant Contact, authenticating your outbound emails verifies to your contacts’ mailbox providers that the message actually came from your organization, and makes it more likely you land in the inbox. (If you’re just starting out and don’t have your own domain yet, you can still self-authenticate your emails!) Learn more about email authentication here. 

Then, in terms of your email content you should have:

• A good subject line and preheader combo. If you’re not sure how to craft one, there’s help here!
• Consistent and recognizable branding. (Did you know we have a BrandKit to help you save time?)
• A clear call-to-action, and if you include links, make sure you’re not linking to an unsafe website. Here is a list of common spam triggers.
• A good ratio of text and images. Image-only emails are also a red flag for spam!

If you haven’t tried it yet, give our Check for Errors tool a go - it helps you use industry best practices that give you the best chances of landing in the inbox.

Segment your audience based on their interests. I write ad nauseam about list segmentation (it’s one of my favorite tools), but when you send shorter emails to a targeted audience that finds the content pertinent, you are less likely to get marked as spam. You may find yourself sending more emails overall to cater to different audiences, but the emails are easier to write because you’re not trying to cram a ‘lil something in for your whole audience. Your segments can be as simple or as complex as you need them to be, and can change as your organization grows.

Check your bounces after every send. Emails can bounce for a variety of reasons, and getting into the habit of managing them after every send can save you some deliverability headaches. This article can help you figure out what email addresses are having deliverability issues and how to best rectify them.

We’d love to hear from you! Let us know if you’ve had luck improving your deliverability and what you did to get there. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you want more insight into any of the topics listed above, and make sure to check out the Email Delivery Success Hub for the latest on email authentication too.