15 Best Practices For Increasing Email Delivery Rate – 2022 Update

Maintain Your IP Reputation for Success

Your IP address plays a crucial role in ranking your brand's or company's reputation in email marketing.

Having a dedicated IP address will help increase your email delivery rate and make you a legitimate sender.

A quick tip is to send your emails to engaging users first, as it will boost your sender's reputation, which means you need a strategic email campaign that will increase your reach.

Remember, ISP is focused on trustworthy, credible, and valid IP addresses, so ensure that you defend your emails from going into the spam folder.

Email Authentication Protocols For Your Domain

For most people, an email domain may not be seen as a crucial element for your marketing campaign; however, your domain reputation is equally important as your IP address.

As mentioned before, ISPs are responsible for your success, and that's why you need to authenticate your email with specific protocols.

To protect your domain reputation from unauthorized use, you must ensure that the email provider recognizes your domain credentials. Below are four protocols that you must follow:

DMARC

DMARC or Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance is email security designed to stop any phishing email or invalid emails that can become a threat to your recipient's inbox.

DMARC also helps companies keep track of every email sent from their domain, and mail servers can reject any phishing attack from cybercriminals.

SPF

SPF or Sender Policy Framework record is a standard authentication technique to protect senders and recipients from spam traps, spoofing, or even phishing attack.

This protocol sends the email provider a list of approved IP addresses and hostnames that can be sent from your domain.

Only the approved address will have permission to be sent on your domain's behalf, which builds a strong domain reputation.

DKIM

Another great way to control your email domain is by setting up your DKIM or DomainKeys Identified Mail.

This authentication protocol is a digital signature that is completely optional, but it adds extra cybersecurity to your domain. It is just another way to authenticate emails sent from your domain.

Ultimately, the mailbox provider will eventually decide whether the email goes to the spam folder or is rejected.

MX

MX or Mail Exchange record is not an essential protocol, but it can be crucial to use it correctly.

The priority of this record is to ensure that the main servers accept from the correct domain.

Applying this protocol will completely reject the message if the email does not have an MX record.

A great tip if you have an MX record authenticated is that you can have more than one which can point to different mail providers, these work best for brands with severe or high traffic.

Maintain Sender Score

When sending emails to your customers, your sender score is essential to influence your email delivery.

When you start your email marketing campaign, it is imperative that you remain consistent when sending out emails because it can increase your email delivery.

A terrible sender score is one of the main reasons your emails are not delivered, even though you may have the best content.

The sender score is on a scale of 0 to 100, and the lower the score, the higher chances of your emails being rejected.

To prove the worthiness of your email, you must focus on a few key elements, such as spam trap, bounce rate, spam complaint rate, and so on.

You must keep checking your score to have an excellent sender reputation as a business.

Master the Double Opt-In Method

The double-opt-in process is one great way to increase email deliverability that businesses worldwide must implement.

Building an email list is crucial, but when you use a single opt-in, your emailer might be unaware of what they agree to, and it could backfire as spam complaints.

Spam complaints are your worst nightmare as they give ISPs reason to block your server because they will assume you are sending spam emails.

A great way to improve this scenario is by optimizing your opt-in process so that you will be able to harvest the proper email addresses and boost email deliverability.

In double opt-in, subscribers interested in your content will verify their consent through email.

As an email marketer, make sure that you understand this process, as it will help build a healthy sender reputation and ensure that you have an engaged email database.

Clean Up Your Mailing List

While it is good to have an extensive email database, what good does it do if you have a low email open rate because of inactive subscribers?

Holding on to these dead-weight users on your email list will only hinder your reputation and increase a higher bounce rate.

Even after the double opt-in process, spam traps, typos, duplicate email addresses, etc., may end up on your mailing list.

If you have a high email deliverability rate, you must clean your database now and then so your emailing efforts do not go in vain.

Another quick solution that will benefit your marketing effort is to re-confirm your inactive users and scrub out invalid emails.

Manual Emails are Always Better Than Mass Email

At one point in time, mass emailing was a powerful strategy that allowed businesses to share their content easily.

Today recipients worldwide are not interested in generic emails but personalized and customized according to their interests.

So if you are planning to send bulk emails, the chances of you landing in spam folders are high.

Keep in mind that mass emailing is still very common amongst businesses today, but there are specific steps you can take to ensure you don't end up on the wrong side of ESPs.

To get a high email open rate, all you need to do is personalize your emails so that they are relevant to your target audience. Read on to know more about what goes in your mail.

Write Engaging Subject Line and Copy

Having a constant sender name is needed for your email delivery success. Businesses must write engaging subject lines and copy their subscribers to open their emails.

Remember, your subject line is your salesperson, so make sure you make a good impression with your copy.

Credit: https://www.mailerlite.com/ultimate-guide-to-email-marketing/subject-line

A lousy subject line makes ISPs send your email straight to the spam folders and is the biggest reason you miss out on email deliverability.

Ensure that your copy is excellent because you want your customers to feel connected with your company.

Never send the same copy cover and cover again, as it may sound pushy or too promotional.

Always Avoid Spam Words

According to this report, approximately 22% of all emails are opened within the first hours of sending; for you to make the most of this opportunity, you need to watch out for email spam trigger words.

As much as creating enticing, witty subject lines are vital; you need to avoid particular spam catchphrases like:

• FREE!!
• Do it today
• Don't delete
• Urgent
• Special promotion
• Free gift
• Get out of debt
• Business opportunity for you

Credit: https://www.yesware.com/blog/email-spam/

These are just some words that will get picked up by spam filters, even if you are sending genuine content.

It is best to avoid these trigger words at all costs. Here's a list of over 150 spam words that you should avoid.

Have a Consistent Schedule

One of the most crucial components of your email marketing campaign is consistency.

As a business, you constantly want to send emails to your customers to educate them about your offers, discounts, and updates and, at the same time, build a relationship with them.

However, erratic and random will definitely give your IP a low sender score.

It is best to have a fixed schedule so that your customers will receive your content and you are not bombarding them with information.

On the other hand, sending frequent emails can increase the risk of being forgotten, so stick to a consistent email schedule.

Know Your Subscribers

To have a successful email marketing campaign, you must know your subscribers, as it will help you develop a strong bond with them.

Sending irrelevant or invalid emails will hurt your sender score as your customers won't welcome them.

Setting the right expectations will ensure that you drive the proper email engagement, which will benefit your overall deliverability rate.

Some of the best practices in boosting your open email rate are by focusing on:

• Location of your subscriber
• Demographics
• Buyers persona

Remember that all your subscribers on your email list are not alike, so you must implement different strategies to get the best outcome.

Avoid Including Images

If you are looking to increase email delivery, it is crucial that you avoid including images in your marketing campaign.

As much as images offer flexibility to share your ideas, products, and services, very few marketers understand how to use them.

Most of the time, images in emails overpower the text in your copy. Your copy is a critical element of your mail, so make sure it is prominent and engaging enough.

Keep in mind visual content is not completely bad, but it should be practiced correctly, or else you will have your emails going to the spam folder.

Use this guide to efficiently incorporate images in your emails to get the best outcome.

Avoid Using Links in Your Copy

You would want to protect your subscribers at all costs as a business.

Email links are routine, but cybercriminals can misuse them if they ever hack your account or email spoof.

It can also be part of a phishing attack or malware download, ruining your sender's reputation.

If you make it a point from scratch to avoid any links in your copy, your customers will immediately recognize these bogus emails.

This is why it is vital that you focus on your email structure and well-written copyright from the start, so your customers are well aware of what to expect from you.

Optimize For Mobile

In the US, over 65% of subscribers open their emails on smartphones or tablets, which confirms that mobile optimization is essential for a successful delivery rate.

Mobile-friendly emails mean that your users should view your content easily without having to zoom in or out.

To gain maximum engagement from your users, you need to approach email designs that are compatible with different-sized smart devices easily.

Some quick factors that you need to consider are:

• Use a responsive email template
• Break your email text properly
• Use the right-sized images (if any)
• Make the Opt-out button evident
• Use CTAs
• Consider the length of your subject line

These are just some things you can implement to optimize your mobile-friendly emails effectively.

Make it Easy to Opt-Out

As a marketer, you would want to have disinterested subscribers on your mailing list. Hence, it would be best to make it easy for your recipients to opt-out whenever they feel like it.

The best way to do this is by making your unsubscribe button or option evident and creating a quick process.

You can also consider creating an optional feedback form to know why your recipient chooses to opt-out.

Some individuals may even want to opt-out of specific email campaigns, which gives you a reason to explore and implement different strategies for your campaign.

As much as this process will improve your email delivery rate and increase engagement, you will also be abiding by the CAN-SPAM Act.

Read below to know more about the CAN-SPAM Act.