Email Marketing Deliverability
When it comes to mass communication techniques, getting the word out is only half the battle. You also have to make sure people are getting the message.
That’s why television networks live and die by their ratings. It’s simply not enough to broadcast a show to 3 million homes nationwide, people have to actually turn on their TVs and watch the program.
In the same way, focusing only on the number of emails sent out during an email marketing campaign is missing the most important part – whether or not the emails actually got to the intended inboxes.
There are several steps that can be taken to make sure an email marketing campaign isn’t derailed by emails that are lost or flagged as spam, and it takes a concerted effort to achieve a successful deliverability rate.
Delivering the goods
An email campaign’s deliverability rate is calculated by dividing the total number of delivered messages by the total number of messages sent. As a general rule of thumb, if you have a high deliverability rate, more people are being reached successfully and therefore your email campaign can be considered a success.
In 2009, the average deliverability rate for email marketing campaigns was around 90%. There are certain things that can land you in that unwanted 10%, but avoiding those pitfalls is easy once you know what to do.
Roadblocks
Before anyone can ever open an email, several important steps must be taken to ensure the email lands in the correct inbox. The first thing to be taken into account when planning an email campaign is how Internet Service Providers view your efforts.
ISPs tend to block emails from Internet Protocol addresses that they don’t recognize. A common technique used by spammers is to constantly shift IP addresses to cover their tracks. Having a static IP address will let your ISP know that you mean business and aren’t out to flood anyone’s inbox with email scams, so your reputation and the reputation of your email service provider matters.
As an email marketing campaign matures and evolves without any spam, your static IP address will become more trusted, allowing for higher deliverability rates. Once you have designated a single IP address from which your emails will originate, setting up a forward and reverse Domain Name System will further legitimize your efforts.
Forward DNS basically meets the ISP halfway by telling it who you are and that your IP is trustworthy, while reverse DNS takes the IP address that is trying to make the connection and checks to see if there is a registered domain associated with it. Both are essential steps to ensure your legitimate email efforts don’t end up getting your IP blacklisted by ISPs based on the sheer number of emails sent.
The other SPF
Once you have established yourself as a reliable source of emails, the next step is protecting your IP address from spammers trying to co-opt the reputations of reliable publishers. Sender Policy Framework is a more specific DNS entry that lists which IP addresses are approved to send mail for your domain.
This system was created to help prevent spammers from using your legitimate IP address for nefarious purposes. Of the many systems proposed to prevent forgeries, it’s the most widespread and the most easily implemented.
By using a static IP address, having both forward and reverse DNS set up for your domain name and adding SPF information to your record, you’re letting the ISPs know that you’re one of the “good guys,” which makes it far less likely that your email will be mistaken for spam.
A lot of work goes into making sure an email marketing campaign isn’t mistaken for spam and isn’t taken over by spammers, and while it may seem like a lot of effort, every step is essential to ensure deliverability rates are as high as possible.
