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How to maximize email deliverability for greater campaign success

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Your email delivery results improve when you send only email that is wanted and expected, and purge old, inactive contacts.

Partner Logo Here Best practices for list management

•Mail to people who want and expect your email. Contacts who opt in are your best prospects

•Confirm or double-confirm subscribers who opt in•Encourage recipients to add you to their address books; make it easy for

them to do so•Have a clear privacy policy for subscribers •Develop online forms that encourage people to indicate their interests;

use this data to create targeted subscription lists •Make it easy and obvious for contacts to opt out (beyond CAN-SPAM

requirements)•Honor “unsubscribe” requests immediately•Determine an optimal mailing time and frequency, and stick to it, for

consistency

Partner Logo Here Best practices for list cleaning and maintenance

•Clean your lists on a regular basis•Understand the engagement cycles of your sales process•Identify the point where recipient engagement drops; segment disengaged subscribers by useful criteria, such as whether they ever made a purchase•Re-engage inactive contacts with messaging and offers targeted to their specific segment•Purge inactive, unengaged contacts when necessary

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Stages in spam filtering

Email delivery is a process, and various filters interact with an email during different, overlapping stages of the process. Stage 1: Should this email be accepted?• IP address reputation, blacklists, botnets• Deferral (to get more info, or because the receiver is

overloaded)Stage 2: Where should this email be delivered? Inbox or junk folder?• Content evaluation

Stage 3: How should this email be displayed? • With images? With annotation?

Partner Logo Here Best Practices for Passing Spam Filters

•Send to people who want and expect your email•Use a consistent “From” address•Make sure your company name and contact info is obvious•Clear, strong subject line + compelling, concise content•Make sure links point to valid domains•Have a high ratio of text to images; avoid image-only email•Minimize or avoid Flash and JavaScript•Make the opt-out process easy and obvious•Comply with all CAN-SPAM requirements•Use email authentication

Partner Logo Here What is content filtering?

Content filters look at and beyond what is displayed to the end user.

Headers, footers, pre-headers, HTML structure, text parts, images, domains and more are all analyzed as part of the content screening, and compared to other email, both good and bad.

Content filters can let wanted email through even if the IP address has a poor or unknown reputation.

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Best Practices for Passing Content Filters•Write a subject line that creates an expectation that the body copy will fulfill•Short, compelling emails are more deliverable (and tend to get better results)•Don’t use “Dear” as a salutation•Don’t use “click here” or “click below” to offer links to people. Use link title, color, and placement to signify links•Other words and phrases that might make your legitimate email look spammy include “free”, “bonus”, “amazing”, “buy direct”, “bargain”, “no investment”, and so on•Toll-free phone numbers may get your email tagged as spam if there are additional suspicious signs•Use ALT text for your images, so people can see why they might want to view them•Using all caps is a SPAM CHARACTERISTIC•Use exclamation points sparingly, and don’t use several in a row!!!!

Partner Logo Here Tracking and Reporting

Develop and use your own benchmarks. Know what your average delivery, bounce, and engagement rates are, so you’ll see anomalies clearly and quickly.

Don’t use someone else’s numbers as a benchmark; numbers vary widely from industry to industry. Also: different ESPs calculate them differently.

•The more targeted and personalized your email is, the higher your rates will be; in B2B, a clickthrough rate of 10%–20% is usually considered good.

•Consistently low rates suggest that your email is uninteresting or your list is bad. This will lead to higher “delete” rates, which will affect your reputation and delivery.

According to the DMA’s most recent (2010) Response Rate Trend Report , the average email to a house list generated:

•19.47 percent open rate and 6.64 percent click-through rate•1.73 percent conversion rate;• Bounce-back rate of 3.72 percent and an unsubscribe rate of 0.77

percent.

Partner Logo Here Best Practices for Sending Email

Don’t send on Tuesday morning just because you read that’s the best time. Test and benchmark your own mailing schedule.

•Clean your lists before sending•Allow enough time•Send small batches first•Preview and test emails •Test and benchmark your own mailing schedule•Include a plain text version

Partner Logo Here Top Ten Delivery Best Practices

1. Abide by all CAN-SPAM rules and guidance.

2. Build your lists carefully, with people who will want to receive your email

3. Maintain your lists assiduously; purge and re-engage

4. Send content that subscribers care about

5. Develop consistent campaigns

6. Don't overload an email with images; heavy imagery is a spam trademark.

7. Use a consistent "From" header address.

8. Use clean and correct HTML formatting.

9. Test. Preview your email on major email clients and mobile devices.

10. Track your results.