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Improving Email Deliverability
Table of Contents
Introduction
This article offers a few valuable guidelines to help your content reach the recipients’ inbox and avoid it from landing in their spam folder.
Email programs (like Gmail, Yahoo, Exchange, etc.) rely on the following key factors to determine if an incoming email is a spam:
- Is the sender in the contact address book? (It is not mandatory, but being in a recipient’s contact book ensures that your emails are never treated as spam.)
- Did the recipient flag the sender’s previous email as spam?
- How many recipients have flagged the previous emails from the sender as spam? (It is more likely that over 10% of your recipients have Gmail addresses. So, Gmail can review how other recipients have treated your email.)
- Does the content of the email have words that commonly appear in spam emails?
Tips to Improve Email Deliverability
Below are a few tips to help you improve your email deliverability.
Use double opt-in lists
The difference between double and single opt-in is that with double opt-in (also called confirmed opt-in), people get a confirmation email after entering and submitting your form with their email address. They do not get subscribed until they click the confirmation link they receive on their email. Following are the advantages of using double-opt-in lists:
- Deliverability rates for the lists that use double opt-in are significantly higher compared to single opt-in lists.
- Unsubscribe rates are lower than the open and click-through rates.
- Double opt-in lists reduce spam complaints.
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Remove subscribers who haven’t opened or clicked in six months
If people do not open or click on your emails, taking them off your list might hurt, but it will help with the deliverability rates for the people you keep.
Send emails at the right frequency
Too many emails can reduce your subscriber’s list. Firing fewer emails can kill your revenue. So what do you do to maximize deliverability? Find the right frequency by testing thoroughly.
A good benchmarking is one email per week. You can try scaling up to twice weekly, as long as you have great content. You can even drop back to once a month. But if you exceed any of these two boundaries, you might lose your audience.
Random and unusual email activity leads to lower sender scores and IP blacklisting. Avoid sending spikes by maintaining regular email schedules. Deliver the best for consistent outbound email scheduling.
Authenticate your emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
Email authentication protocols such as Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) help Internet Service Providers ensure that the email is from the company claiming to have sent it.
Authentication assists in addressing the problems of email spoofing and phishing and eventually leads to a reduction in the percentage of legitimate emails that are mistaken for spam.
Vtiger CRM supports SPF and DKIM authentication. To learn more about it, click here.
Avoid using the same From and To addresses
Emails are marked as spam if both the sender’s and recipient’s email addresses are the same.
Avoid using free/personal email addresses
Instead of using your free/personal email address, such as your Gmail or Yahoo address, use your company domain-specific email address to send emails.
Personalize your email content
Personalize your emails using Vtiger CRM’s Email Templates.
Avoid using the same content in the subject and body of the email. Also, avoid misspellings, avoid using all capital letters in the email subject and the body, too many exclamations (!!!), and spammy phrases such as Buy Now, Free, Guarantee, No Obligation, etc.
Avoid copying content from other applications
When you paste content directly from other applications like MS Word, MS Powerpoint, etc., unnecessary characters are added automatically. Instead of creating templates outside and copying them, you can build them directly in Vtiger CRM.
Avoid sending graphics/images alone
Emails with a single graphic/image are sure to have delivery issues. You should balance your emails with image and text content. It is recommended to write at least two lines of text for every graphic.
Include text in your emails
It is a good practice to use text content along with HTML in your emails to prevent them from landing in spam. Besides, it covers you when the recipient cannot view HTML content.
Include a physical address in your email
Physical address means the mailing or postal address of your business. You can put it at the end of your emails; that is the footer. Putting a physical address in your emails indicates that your business is genuine. Thus, it prevents your emails from landing in the spam folder.
Avoid large attachments
In general, .jpg, .gif, .png, and .pdf attachments are safe to send. Certain executable attachments such as .exe, .zip, .swf, etc., must be avoided.
Pay attention to your links in emails
Spam filters check the URLs in the email. Linking to a domain that has a poor reputation leads to penalization.
Additionally, you must avoid linking to URLs that contain folders with 1-2 characters (such as domain.com/e/something/ or domain.com/es/) because some spam filters block such URLs. Also, do not include links that use link shortening services, which may cause delivery issues.
Don’t hide the unsubscribe link
Include unsubscribing links in your emails to improve deliverability rates. If an unsubscribe link is unavailable or mislocated, there are chances that emails will be marked as spam.
Ask the recipient to whitelist your domain
When your recipient authorizes your domain, your email will not land in the spam folder.
Analyzing Email Performance
Analyze your email performance frequently by checking your spam score. To learn about how to get the spam score, click here.