Essential Insights ✨
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Crafting effective email campaigns aims to motivate recipients to engage with new features, webinars, or products. However, if these emails aren’t reaching the primary inbox, your efforts might go unnoticed.
That’s why performing an email deliverability audit is crucial. It’s a complex method encompassing infrastructure, content, and sender reputation, identifying issues and solutions to boost open rates.
Table of Contents
Recognizing Email Deliverability Challenges
While email deliverability topped priorities in our State of Email Survey, many marketers are unsure about their current deliverability rates.
Nearly 20% of permission-based emails are filtered as spam, impacting your subscriber reach. Assessing deliverability — your email’s journey to the inbox instead of spam — is necessary.
Rising Spam Complaints
A common sign of deliverability issues is increasing spam complaints. Enhancing email design isn’t sufficient if users flag emails as spam. Ensuring clear permission and a visible unsubscribe option reduces complaints.
Master Email Deliverability
Apply best practices to enhance deliverability and reach more subscribers.
Unpacking the Email Deliverability Audit
An email deliverability audit examines your marketing efforts to identify factors preventing emails from reaching the inbox. This evaluation addresses sending infrastructure, sender reputation, and email content, contributing to improvements.
Opting for DIY or Professional Audits
Whether you perform the audit in-house or outsource it, depends on your email volume and complexity. While larger campaigns might benefit from expert analysis, smaller teams can gain significance by utilizing professional insights.
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Conducting Your Email Deliverability Audit
Regular audits are significant for email success. Using available tools, you can evaluate deliverability metrics independently and develop an actionable plan for improvement.
1. Defining Objectives
Establish your audit aims, whether rectifying existing issues, verifying infrastructure reliability, or improving open rates.
2. Metrics and Tools Selection
Utilize tools such as Litmus for comprehensive authentication checks and issue identification. Augment these insights using platforms like Google Postmaster Tools.
3. Running the Audit
Temporarily pause marketing emails and explore deliverability metrics, identifying strengths and areas for improvement. Analyze elements from authentication protocols to sender reputation to gather insights.
4. Prioritizing Fixes
Develop an implementation strategy by addressing critical issues and quick wins using an impact-effort matrix for effective resolution planning.
5. Implementation Plan Preparation
Outline necessary fixes, assign responsibilities, and set deadlines. An effective remediation plan can not only resolve issues but also sustain improved deliverability long term.
Resolving Deliverability Issues
Encountering issues with email reputation, like a drop in inbox placement, necessitates an audit to identify correctable elements.
- Improve authentication protocols by ensuring all four are correctly configured for security.
- Regularly clean email lists to eliminate invalid addresses and improve engagement rates.
- Maintain consistent sending schedules to promote reliable sender reputation.
- Segment email lists to deliver targeted and personalized content for better engagement.
Sustaining Optimal Email Deliverability
Regular monitoring of your email systems, infrastructure, content, and sender reputation is crucial. Employing best practices not only enhances deliverability but also boosts email performance.
1. Infrastructure Management
Ensuring proper setup of SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and considering BIMI can enhance trust and improve inbox placement.
2. Content Optimization
Craft minimalistic emails with balanced text-to-image ratios to avoid spam filters and meet client-specific requirements.
3. Sender Reputation
Maintaining a favorable sender score and reputation by consistently delivering valuable content to engaged audiences is paramount.
Strive for Inbox Placement
Post-audit, implementing identified improvements ensures your emails reach the inbox, resulting in increased engagement and conversions.
In cases where audits don’t resolve issues, consulting experts could provide new insights. The email landscape is intricate, demanding ongoing attention and optimization.
Good luck with your audit, and happy sending!
