the root of poor email deliverability

The Root of Poor

Email DeliverabilityInsights from Litmus’ 2017 State of Email Deliverability report

Poor deliverability costs brands money. It results in direct costs from remediating blocks and blacklistingsand—usually larger—indirect costs from not being able to reach all of your active subscribers and customers.

@LitmusApp @ChadSWhite

However, being blacklisted and, in particular, being blocked, are fairly common.


@LitmusApp

The good news is that being blocked or blacklisted doesn’t appear to be a major hindrance to email marketing success.


Marketers who describe their email programs as successful are only 19% less likely to have had their emails blocked in the past 12 months (31.6% vs. 38.8%). And successful programs are pretty much just as likely as other programs to be blacklisted.


Even though deliverability problems don’t stop email programs from being successful, that doesn’t mean that marketers shouldn’t do more to avoid blocks and blacklistings.


Deliverability problems are not a cost of doing business.


These situations are avoidable, as certain practices clearly lower email marketers’ risks, while others absolutely raise them—sometimes dramatically.


Based on our 2017 State of Email

Survey of more than 3,500 marketers,

our State of Email Deliverability report

identifies many of these beneficial and

risky email behaviors.


Over the next 45 minutes, we’re going

to discuss two sets of behaviors that

can help marketers improve their email

deliverability:

• Burnt Hand Deliverability Practices

• Root Cause Deliverability Practices


Chad S. WhiteResearch Director LitmusAuthor of Email Marketing Rules

Jay BrangiforteProduct Manager, DeliveryLitmus


Litmus’ web-based software works

with your existing email service

provider to give you better visibility

into subscriber experience problems—

and easily fix them.


Litmus offers:

• Email Previews in 70+ clients

• Builder, our email HTML editor

• Spam Testing in 20+ filters

• Checklist for quality assurance

• Email Analytics for new insights


Burnt Hand

Deliverability Practices

We call this first set of behaviors

Burnt Hand Deliverability Practices

because…


These are tools and behaviors that

are known to improve deliverability

that are actually used at higher rates

by brands that have been

blacklisted in the past 12 months

than by brands that haven’t been.


These tools and behaviors are all

potential parts of a deliverability

remediation plan that you’d use to

recover from a blacklisting. These

include…



35.3% of brands that have been blacklisted in past 12 months use it

25.1% of brands that haven’t been blacklisted in past 12 months use it


78.2% 75.6% 53.9%of brands that have been blacklisted in past 12 months use it

69.2% 66.0% 46.1%of brands that haven’t been blacklisted in past 12 months use it


63.2% of brands that have been blacklisted in past 12 months do it

53.9% of brands that haven’t been blacklisted in past 12 months do it

So a good remediation plan includes:

• Use email address verification

• Authenticate & encrypt your emails

• Do spam filter testing

• Manage your inactive subscribers

• Monitor your deliverability rate


But don’t wait until your brand suffers

serious problems before adopting an

deliverability remediation plan.

Proactively adopt the behaviors and

tools that can help you avoid trouble in

the first place.


Root Cause

Deliverability Practices


We call this second set of behaviors

Root Cause Deliverability Practices

because…

These are tools and behaviors that

are also used at higher rates by

brands that have been blacklisted

in the past 12 months than by brands

that haven’t been—but some of these

are known to be problematic.


These tools and behaviors aren’t

always a part of remediation plans

and therefore tend not to change

even after deliverability problems

occur.


But the most interesting and impactful

findings were around subscriber

acquisition sources. We looked at

those used by brands that suffered

recent deliverability problems and

those that hadn’t.


While none of those are among the

most popular subscriber acquisition

sources, they’re not uncommon.

They’re the 8th, 10th, 11th, 15th, and

16th most popular acquisition sources,

among the 20 we asked about.


Some of these acquisitions sources

are inherently problematic, but

some can be good if used properly.

Let’s talk about each of those…


Is the acquisition source redeemable?

• Email list rental


If you rent a list from a company, you

should supply the company with the

message that you want sent. The list

owner then sends that message on

your behalf to their list—which you

never see—using their usual name

and email address, not yours. @LitmusApp @ChadSWhite

The unsubscribe link included in this

email is an opt-out for the list owner

only, not you. The list owner typically

includes a tag in the subject line and

a message at the top of the email

indicating that the message is from

one of their partners.@LitmusApp @ChadSWhite

This arrangement helps ensure that

your message will be well received by

the recipients, because the list owner

would suffer unsubscribes and spam

complaints if they sent a message

from a partner that wasn’t a good fit

for their list.@LitmusApp @ChadSWhite

We polled more than 300 marketers

in July and found evidence of lots of

confusion around how a list rental

should be done. Some list rentals

were essential list purchases.



• Email list rental YES

• Co-registration


def. co-registration: When a brand

allows visitors to their website, users

of their app, etc. to sign up to receive

emails from third-parties, often while

or after signing up for email from the

brand




• Co-registration YES

• Email list purchase


What are the risks of buying a list?

• Violation of ESP’s terms of service

• Hard bounces

• Spam complaints

• Spam traps

• Low engagement

• Negative word of mouth@LitmusApp @ChadSWhite




• Email list purchase NO

• Lead gen form (ebooks, etc.)


What are the problems with lead

gen forms?

• Poor permissioning

• Pre-checked boxes & hidden opt-ins

• Poor expectation setting

• Poor anti-bot protections






• Lead gen form (ebooks, etc.) YES

• Signup via direct mail, etc.


What are the problems with

signups via direct mail, etc.?

• Transcription of handwriting






• Lead gen form (ebooks, etc.) YES

• Signup via direct mail, etc. YES


The pattern here is that some brands

are hesitant to lose subscribers—by

acknowledging bounces, enabling

unsubscribes, or turning off signup

touchpoints—even if doing so would

improve the health of their program.


If you don’t know the performance of

your subscribers by acquisition

source, put that at the top of your to-

do list, especially if your deliverabilty

isn’t great. Often problems are

caused by just one source.


Keep an eye on your

inbox…

In the follow-up email for attending

this webinar, we’re including a special

offer for a free trial of Litmus that

gives you access to our new Spam

Testing functionality. And for those of

you who are already Litmus users, be

sure to check it out.@LitmusApp @ChadSWhite

Thank You!

Any Questions?You can find all of our

State of Email Survey Research at

litmus.com/stateofemail