Understanding the difference between email delivery and email deliverability is crucial for marketers aiming to optimize their email marketing strategy. Many mistakenly equate a high email delivery rate with successful deliverability, but both elements play distinct roles in your campaign’s success.
Understanding the Difference: Email Delivery Rate vs. Email Deliverability
Even a positive delivery rate doesn’t guarantee that your emails have successfully reached your audience’s inboxes. This post will delve into the specifics of email delivery rates compared to deliverability, providing insights on how to enhance both for your email campaigns.
Exploring Email Delivery Rate and Deliverability
One common confusion among marketers is thinking deliverability is merely about the delivery rate. However, that’s not the case. While the delivery rate is crucial, it doesn’t tell the complete story of email deliverability.
Here we clarify:
Defining Email Delivery Rate
Email Delivery Rate indicates whether your emails are successfully reaching the servers of your subscriber’s email providers without bouncing. Essentially, it measures the percentage of emails delivered out of those sent.
Think of it as the first step in email distribution, similar to a courier delivering a package to your door but not yet handling it inside.
Understanding Email Deliverability
Email Deliverability refers to where your email lands once it reaches your subscriber’s mailbox—whether in their primary inbox, spam, or another folder. Factors such as your domain setup, authentication, and email reputation significantly influence it.
Deliverability is akin to deciding where you place that delivered package in your home. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) similarly decide whether to highlight or hide your message.
Correlation of Bounce Rate to Delivery Rate
Email service providers scrutinize your bounce rate closely. Persistent high bounce rates may result in future email blockages.
Bounce types to consider:
- Soft bounces are temporary disruptions due to factors such as server outages or full inboxes, potentially allow for later redelivery.
- Hard bounces indicate permanent deliverability issues, caused by invalid email addresses or outright blocking, requiring immediate removal from your mailing list.
To maintain a healthy delivery rate and consequently your email deliverability, address hard bounces instantly and monitor soft bounces before they escalate.
Understanding the Link Between Delivery Rate and Deliverability
Even a robust delivery rate is no guarantee for email success. Despite low bounce occurrences, emails might not reach the intended inbox or may be filtered into spam folders.
It’s not uncommon for marketers to confuse delivery metrics, such as bounce rates, with deliverability without realizing that real deliverability insights are rarely provided.
Hence, you may encounter deliverability issues despite a seemingly perfect delivery rate.
Ensure your emails reach the inbox
Understand the factors affecting email deliverability. Implement best practices to make sure your emails reach your subscribers.
The Importance of Managing Both Email Delivery Rate and Deliverability
Crafting an email campaign typically spans about two weeks, with marketers juggling several emails simultaneously. The invested effort can be undermined by insufficient attention to email delivery or deliverability.
An overlooked algorithm rejection can prevent subscribers from accessing your campaign.Enforcement of email deliverability is imperative for a thriving marketing strategy.
Calculating Your Email Delivery and Deliverability Rates
Though many email service platforms, like Litmus Email Analytics, help track various performance metrics, understanding your delivery rate requires a simple calculation.
Delivery Rate = (# of emails sent – # of bounces) / # of emails sent x 100
For email deliverability, since direct insights into where your emails land are unavailable, adopting external platforms like Google Postmaster Tools or MX Toolbox might be beneficial.
What is Considered a “Good” Delivery and Deliverability Rate?
Striving for close to 100% delivery is ideal; however, maintaining a goal of 90-98% ensures you stay competitive.Litmus aims for a 95%+ delivery rate, and anything under 80% should prompt immediate action.
Email deliverability is slippery and depends on multiple elements, including an ever-changing digital landscape and constantly updated ISP algorithms.
Here are elements to consider in optimizing both delivery and deliverability:
Key Factors Affecting Email Delivery and Deliverability (And How to Fix Them)
Often, unexpected email performance drops reveal issues with inbox placement. GasBuddy’s experience with unnoticed blocked emails provides a valuable lesson in remaining vigilant to prevent deliverability mishaps from arising.
According to Melanie Kinney of GasBuddy, unforeseen failures impact your emails’ ability to reach customers.
Understanding the cause—blocked listings, infrastructure issues, or content problems—is vital; prior diligence avoids costly mistakes.
These steps can solve issues with delivering or deliverability:
1. Proper Authentication Infrastructure Setup
“Authentication is essential,” says Jaina Mistry, Director of Brand and Content Marketing; infrastructure often holds the key. Correctly configuring your email servers with a dependable ESP can protect against delivery rate dips and positively impact deliverability.
Strong domain authentication stands out as a pivotal factor in verifiable communication.
- Sender Policy Framework (SPF):Specifies IP addresses or domains authorized to send emails using your company’s domain.
- DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM): Authenticates the integrity and authenticity of emails using public-private keys.
- Domain Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC): Requires domains to define how non-authentic messages are managed.
Consider pursuing optional infrastructure like Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI)to boost brand distinctiveness.
2. Maximizing Subscriber Engagement and Content Quality
Engagement metrics, including open and click rates, can affect inbox placement. Negative feedback such as spam complaints and unsubscribes encourages more restrictive filters to be enforced.
User experience is paramount, and it is crucial that messages are tailored to subscriber preferences to boost engagement. Customized emails enhance deliverability.
Start by analyzing which segments succeed and lag, adjusting campaigns as necessary and considering re-engagement strategies for disengaged subscribers, cutting those that don’t engage away.
Insightful data aids creative engagement techniques, including dynamic/interactive content, ensuring newsletters are optimized for engagement.
3. Building and Maintaining a Positive Sender Reputation
An ISP’s evaluation of your email-sending character, known as sender reputation, highly affects delivery sustainability. It breaks down into:
- Sender behavior: Sudden email volume fluctuations may trigger spam alarms.
- Subscriber behavior: Encourage subscribers to interact with your emails to enhance this score.
- Email list hygiene : A pristine mailing list is crucial to maintaining a robust reputation by immediately addressing bounces, spam traps, or block listings.
Effective email marketing hinges on mastering email delivery and deliverability strategies.
Spam folder no-more
Implement best practices to keep your emails out of the spam folder. Improve your deliverability rates and reach more inboxes.
Taking the Preventative Approach to Email Strategy
Addressing delivery and deliverability issues after the fact may result in chaos. Regular check-ins, quarterly reviews, and a detailed understanding of email health can help maintain smooth operations and circumvent email placement issues.
To safeguard your campaigns’ success:
- Routinely validate authentication infrastructure
- Monitor email volume and dispatch frequency
- Employ strict email list hygiene
- Adopt double opt-in email strategies
- Continuously run spam filter tests
With the right tools, even non-experts can bolster their email deliverability against the odds.
Reach the Inbox with Effective Testing and Tools
Partnering with sophisticated monitoring solutions like Litmus Spam Testing can preemptively isolate deficiencies, enabling remedies before messaging goes awry.
“It took us less than 48 hours to identify and fix our issue, and to get removed from the blocklists. Without Litmus, we wouldn’t have known where to start.”
By harnessing advanced insights, brands can secure their email delivery success, maintaining robust communication lifelines with key audiences—ensuring receipt in intended inboxes.
Say goodbye to spam folders
Ensure your emails reach the inbox. Run infrastructure checks and get step-by-step fixing guidance.
Kayla Voigt
Kayla Voigt is a freelance writer
For a deeper dive into email marketing optimization, click here for more email marketing tips and strategies.
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