5 email delivery tips to help you increase sales

Email marketing won’t work if your emails don’t land in your inbox. Use five proven email delivery tactics to start getting more clicks… sometimes in just a few days.

Email is still a powerful marketing tool: over half of the world’s population uses it. Unlike social media, email doesn’t limit reach due to algorithm updates and doesn’t hide messages behind trending posts. When you hit send, you’re talking directly to your people.

But here’s the catch: email has its own algorithm. You build your sender popularity with your mailbox providers – Google, Yahoo or Outlook. With every email you send, that popularity grows or breaks, depending on how you play the game.

You can improve your email deliverability

Good news? Building trust with mailbox providers is entirely in your power. Email deliverability – the variety of emails that reach your inbox – is not dependent on some mysterious force you cannot control. This is caused by your behavior as a sender. From list quality to sending frequency, every alternative you make leaves a mark on your email popularity.

Want to hit your inbox and make email work for you? Start with these five good habits to improve your email deliverability.

1. Keep your email list fresh and healthy

A high bounce rate is one of the worst stains on a sender’s popularity. If over 2% Your emails are being bounced, mailbox providers are taking notice – could it’s someone spamming random email addresses? You lose trust and your future emails may find yourself in the spam folder.

Unfortunately, reflections are easy to get. People change email addresses all the time, and skilled contacts are much more likely to decline. Average email list fades by 28% every yr. Moreover, you have subscribers who have stopped engaging with your emails.

To keep your bounce rate low and help emails reach your inbox, remove outdated and inactive contacts. An email verification service does this quickly and accurately – and with automation, you can check your list frequently without much effort.

2. Authenticate your emails

If you send mass emails every day, you need to authenticate them. Major mailbox providers – akin to Google and Yahoo – now require email authentication to accept your emails.

What is email authentication? This is a set of protocols – DKIM, SPF and DMARC – that confirm that an email actually comes from your organization and not from an impersonator. Adding this extra check will help your messages pass spam filters.

Once arrange, email authentication requires little ongoing maintenance. If you’re undecided where to start, your email platform or IT team can help. There is also no shortage of services that may help you authenticate and secure the deliverability of your email.

3. Warm up your IP address and domain

Another way to build or improve your popularity is to warm up your IP address and sending domain – especially if you’re just starting out or have taken a break and resumed sending emails. Instead of sending 1000’s of emails at once, do this steadily increase the volume. This helps build positive engagement, which suggests you slowly start gaining space in other people’s inboxes.

You can warm up your domain manually by sending emails to small groups of engaged subscribers. If you want more control over increasing your email volume, you can use an email warmer tool that automates the process.

Send regular emails. Not only does it keep your IP address and domain warm, but it also makes it easier for others to remember you.

4. Avoid spam complaints

Few things hurt email deliverability greater than reporting it as spam. For mailbox providers, this is one of the biggest red flags – a clear sign that folks don’t need your emails. To maintain trust, maintain your spam criticism rate below 0.3% (this is not more than three reports for every 100 emails sent).

Staying below the 0.3% threshold is easy if you send emails responsibly:

• Build your personal email list and never add any subscribers who have not opted in.
• Stay away from deceptive topics. Transparency and simplicity at all times win.
• Include a distinguished unsubscribe link in every email to give people an easy way out.

Also, don’t bombard your subscribers with emails – some will mark your message as spam just to stop hearing from you.

5. Strive for consistent engagement

Of course, you want your emails to be engaged – the more people click, the higher the conversion rate. However, healthy engagement rates also play a role in email deliverability. Opens, clicks, replies and forwards are all positive signals. They tell inbox providers that your content is noteworthy, so your possibilities of landing in the inbox increase.

To get those clicks, split your list and send each group incredibly relevant emails. Think about behavior-based triggers and personalized emails that talk about what they care about most. And don’t clutter your list. Sending regular emails helps maintain a good popularity and increases brand awareness.

Additional email delivery tips to help your small business stay in your inbox

Once you’ve mastered the basics – keeping your list healthy, authenticating your emails, preparing your domain, and organising a sending schedule – here are some additional tips that may improve your email deliverability:

• Keep your emails slim. Servers may reject emails that contain large images or too complex formatting. Keep this in mind when designing your emails.
• Test before sending. Use an inbox placement tester to determine whether your email is likely to find yourself in your inbox or spam folder. These tools help detect any problems before you contact us.
• Avoid spammy language. Words like or won’t affect email deliverability if you have a good popularity. But make sure your content doesn’t like spam – each filters and real people pick up on this tone.
• Use a real return address. Unanswered emails can seem impersonal and prevent recipients from communicating with you. Use a real inbox that your team can monitor.
• Invite replies. Opens and clicks are great for deliverability, but responses are an much more positive indicator of relevance. Ask questions and encourage subscribers to write back to you. Just remember to monitor responses and respond when they seem.

They say the money is on the list. However, your list won’t bring you any profit if your emails find yourself in your spam folder. To set yourself up for success, adopt these habits and proceed to send emails that folks love and engage with.

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