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Deliverability 101

The Life Of An Email

From Creation to Inbox

Send

Email creation.

Email scheduled & sent to Spawner.

BenchmarkEmail.com Spawner

Spawner assembles emails.

The Spawner assembles each individual email to be sent, personalizing each email based on the recipient. This includes:

• Headers• Conditional Formatting• Personalization

• Tracking Links• Tracking Images

Emails are sent to Relay Pools.

Spawner

Small Pool #1

Small Pool #2

Medium Pool #6

Medium Pool #17

Dedicated Pool

A Pool is a collection of Relay Servers that are shared by clients with similar sending

habits.

Pools can vary by size and client-load.

Dedicated clients use the same system, but do not share with other senders.

Dedicated Clients and IPs

Benefits

• IP reputation is not affected by other accounts.

• Delivery speed is generally not affected by other accounts.

Dedicated Clients and IPs

Difficulties• IP reputation is the result of the sender’s practices.

• Dedicated clients are by default only provided a single IP address; for larger clients this

can slow delivery speeds as compared to a pool of four to five shared IPs.

• Additional IPS are available to all clients $30 per month/each.

• In some cases we provide more than one IP for dedicated accounts at no additional

cost.

Relay attempts to connect to recipient email servers.

If the servers are unable to connect, the email is marked as a bounce.

The Recipient Server accepts or rejects the email and provides a delivery log.

Based on the content and the reputation of the email, the recipient server chooses where the email is sent.

Inbox Spam Folder Quarantine/Deleted

So what is Deliverability?

• The likelihood that the email will be received in the inbox

• Identifying, investigating, and solving delivery issues

How do we measure Deliverability?

• Abuse

• Email Design & Content

• List Generation and Usage

• Recipient Engagement

• Sender Reputation

• Server Reputation

Abuse

User Complaints• Reported via feedback loop

• Direct Complaints sent to our support team

• Indirect complaints sent to Anti-Spam Organizations

Abuse

Spam Traps• Reported directly to our team via Anti-Spam Organizations

• Reported daily via MSN’s Smart Network Data Services (SNDS)

• Reported indirectly via our TelCo’s (AT&T, Rackspace, etc)

Email Design and Concept

Email Content• Keywords and Phrases

• Excessive use of punctuation

• Excessive use of non alpha-numeric Characters

• Caps lock

• Links

• Phishing

Email Design and Concept

Design• Image only campaigns

• Text only campaigns

• Colors and contrast

• Email flow

List Generation and Usage

Generation• Single Opt-in

• Double Opt-in

• Harvested

• Purchased

• Acquired (via company merger or purchase)

Sign Up

List Generation and Usage

Usage• Why did the recipient sign up?

• When did the recipient sign up?

• How long has it been since the recipient last emailed?

• Are the emails relevant to the recipients interests?

Engagement

Are recipients opening your emails?

• Are they clicking links?

• How long has it been since they last

opened an email?

• Have they ever opened an email?

Sender Reputation

Who is sending the emails?• Have they sent emails before? When?

• How did recipients react to prior emails?

• Are they a known spammer?

• Is their website hosting malicious content?

• Is their website blacklisted?

?

Server Reputation

Where are the emails coming from?

• Is the IP known for sending spam?

• Is the IP blacklisted? By who?

• Is the IP whitelisted?

• How have recipients reacted to emails sent by this IP?

Common Deliverability Tickets

• High bounces

• Emails received in junk folder

• Email not received

• Emails blocked or rejected

• Spam Traps

• High abuse rate

Bounces

• How old is the list?

• How was the list gathered?

• Is the list single opt in?

• Is the list confirmed opt in?

• Are there any visible misspellings? (Yhoo/Gmal/Htmail)

Quality of list

Bounces

• Check the delivery logs, usually they will give

you the answer.

Are the bounces domain specific?

Emails Received in Junk

• Keywords and phrases

• Caps lock

• Check Links

• Phishing

• Excessive use of non alpha-numeric characters

and punctuation

Content, Design, & Subject Line

High Abuse Rates

Abuse Rate tickets are usually initiated by the ESP.

Complaints are the result of either

• Negligence of list hygiene

• Purchased/Harvested lists

• Clients who have forgotten they opted in

Future of Deliverability

The Future of Deliverability

The Bar is raising.

Every major ISP is constantly changing their systems

and practices to stay ahead of the spammers. This

means that the bar is always moving. As a team, it is

our responsibility to help educate our clients to

understand this.

The Future of Deliverability

What are the ISP’s doing?

• Analyzing email and user trends

• Separating personal and promotional

• Improving the interaction with email

The Future of Deliverability

What can you do?

• Pay close attention to your reports

• Spring cleaning - List hygiene

• Better segmenting and list grouping

• Content driven emails

?

The Future of Deliverability

What is Benchmark doing?

• Engagement Monitoring

• Advanced throttling and server grouping

• Automated features that work for you

• Constant update and education

Thank you for your time!