Some of the top email deliverability questions.. answered!
Today, I wanted to talk about three of the top questions I get asked as a Deliverability Specialist.
What is Email Deliverability?
Some people confuse email delivery with Email Deliverability, so let’s start with understanding the difference between the two.
Email Delivery refers to whether an ISP accepts your email. It is also referred to as “acceptance rate.” Email Delivery measures if an email was accepted by the ISP (Internet Service Provider). Your IP address being blocked by an ISP or sending to a bad email address (bounce) are two of the factors that can affect email delivery.
Email Deliverability is the next step after it is accepted by the ISP. It is also referred to as inbox placement. Does the message end up in the inbox or spam folder? Email Deliverability is affected by three main factors: Authentication, Reputation and Content. A focus on those three areas will boost your chances of reaching the inbox; look for future articles covering these in more detail, in CI Communities.
Why is it important to run a warm-up plan?
ISP’s want to prevent spam or malicious email from being sent to the recipient. When you use a new IP address, you need to gain trust from the ISP’s, for them to allow your messages to be received by their recipients.
‘IP Warm-up’ is the process of slowly building up send volumes, with ISP’s, to improve their trust in the IP address and you, as the sender.
You should be aware, even if you have a good sending reputation today, if you begin using a new IP address, the ISP’s will still need time to fully trust it. Sending a large number of emails without warming up will set off “Whoa!” alarms with the ISP’s and can lead to your messages being blocked.
By setting and following a proper warmup plan, you can build-up your email volumes, whilst remaining inside each ISP’s ‘new IP’ limits. So long as you get good responses from your recipients, you will soon build a reputation with each ISP. Without this kind of positive reputation, blocks and other deliverability issues can occur, leading to problems that can take time to fix. So, get started on the right foot with a new IP address and warm-up!
Can you guarantee Inbox Placement?
No one can guarantee inbox placement. There are a lot of factors that go into whether you reach the inbox, so it is impossible for any ESP (Email Service Provider) to guarantee inbox placement. There are some email best practices that, at a minimum, can get you 95% of the way to the inbox, but even following all the best practices to a tee, can’t guarantee that extra 5%. Focus on being properly authenticated, maintaining a good sending reputation, and providing quality content that engages your contacts, and you’ll be well on your way to reaching the inbox for most. And if you start running into issues, work with a deliverability specialist to find ways to improve.
Peter
