Deliverability Defined

It’s starting to look like fall in many parts of the country, so you know what that means! Pumpkin spice! Just kidding. Back-to-school! Today, we’re going to do a little vocab lesson and make sure we’re all up-to-date on the lingo being tossed around in the deliverability world. 

We’re going to define each term, and if need be, point you to more in-depth resources about each one. Get your baggy sweatshirts and binders out, because this is a lecture you’ll want to listen to! 

Deliverability Terms

• Delivery — When an email is successfully delivered at the end of the email sending process.
• Deliverability — When an email reaches the inbox of a subscriber.
• Spam Filter — The algorithms and machine learning that filters emails for its users, and decides whether emails belong in the inbox, spam folder, or somewhere else.
• Complaint — When a subscriber marks a message as spam.
• Feedback Loop — The way that mailbox providers can send complaint information back to the sender.
• Mailbox Provider — The platform that a subscriber uses to host their mailbox.
• Domain — The part of an email address after the “@” symbol.
• Spam Trap — An email address that is used to catch senders with bad practices.
• Blocklist — A company or organization that compiles a database of risky domains or IP addresses.
• Authentication — Methods to help ensure that the person sending the email is who they say they are. The three types are SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
• Message Headers — The "transcript" of the email.
• MX Record — A domain record that specifies the mail server responsible for accepting email messages on behalf of a domain name.
• Open/Open Rate — Opens are tracked using an invisible pixel embedded in the email. Open rate is typically calculated by the number of opens divided by deliveries.
• Click/Click Rate/Click Through Rate — A click is tracked when someone clicks a link in an email. Click rates are typically calculated as the number of clicks divided by deliveries. 
• Click-to-Open Rate — The number of clicks vs. the number of opens.
• List Bombing — When subscribers are added to your form by a bot, and they didn't actually sign up to receive your emails.
• Double Opt-in/Confirmed Opt-in — When you require that anyone who signs up to your form has to click a link in an email to confirm that they actually signed up.
• Opt-in Confirmation Email/Permission Pass — An email that contains a link for subscribers to confirm that they want to stay on your list. Those who don't click to confirm should be removed from the list.
• Call-to-Action — The action step in your email that you're emphasizing.
• Seedlist — A list of test email addresses that report whether emails landed in their inbox or spam folder.
• Spoofing — When someone sends an email pretending to be another person, company, brand, etc.
• Allowlist/Safelist/Address Book — A way for subscribers to mark a sender as "safe" and ensure all of their messages go to the inbox.

Links

• Deliverability Defined 02: Sender Reputation: The Road to Inbox Placement
• Deliverability Defined 05: Avoiding Spam Traps the Right Way
• Deliverability Defined 06: Authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
• Deliverability Defined 07: Meaningful Metrics: Going Beyond Open Rates
• Deliverability Defined 09: Demystifying Blocklists
• How to ensure your emails are authenticated

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It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing. 

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If you've ever downloaded or used one of those free tools or applications that sync with your email inbox and automatically unsubscribes you from email that you don't open very often, there's a chance your email data is actually being used by someone else's inbox placement test to determine where their messages land.

It’s impossible to know if an email actually hits the primary inbox, but these free tools might be working behind the scenes to acquire that data for someone else. It’s a controversial practice that we want to shed some light on. 

In this episode, we talk about the ins and outs of inbox placement tests and how useful they are (if at all).

Main Takeaways

• There are so many factors influencing your inbox placement that it’s nearly impossible to know which one is the culprit. Suggestions can often lead to fruitless rabbit holes. 
• There are two ways to figure out where your email is landing with inbox placement tools: 1) seed lists, which are fake addresses that populate data back into the tool you’re using, or 2) panel data, which are real people using a free application that is aggregating their data in the background. (Google banned this in March 2019.)
• Seed lists aren’t going to act in the same way as real subscribers because they are fake. This isn’t bad, per se, but it doesn’t offer much help to marketers.
• Don’t treat inbox placement tests as an authority, treat them as a supplement to other tools for increasing your open and deliverability rates. Be sure to look at your own data in conjunction with anything coming from an inbox placement test.
• Inbox placement tests can scan for basic issues like long urls, large images, or HTML problems. These are useful if you’re new to the game. 

Links

• How to ensure your emails are authenticated
• Reply All #135 Robocall: Bang Bang
• Glock Apps
• 250 Ok
• Kickbox
• E Data Source

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing. 

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As you’ve no doubt discovered, email deliverability is a complex topic. There are a number of factors that affect deliverability for senders, and it’s easy to get lost in all of the information when something goes wrong. 

In this episode, we discuss some of the frequently asked questions we get at ConvertKit, and some practical strategies for improving your deliverability. 

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why are emails going to spam? 
• Why do subscribers "bounce" and what do I do with them? 
• What do I need to do to my DNS settings when using an email marketing platform? 
• How often should I send emails to my list? 
• Why am I sending on a blocklisted IP? 
• I used "some kind of email testing tool and my sender score is ____". What does this mean and how can I use it to help me?
• I just migrated from ____ and my open rate was ____. Why isn't it that high at ConvertKit?
• A subscriber reached out to me and they aren't receiving my emails, what can I do?

Links

• Deliverability Defined 02 - Sender Reputation: The Road to Inbox Placement
• Deliverability Defined 06 - Authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) 
• Adding a Custom Header to an Email in ConvertKit
• Glock Apps
• MailTester
• Spamhaus

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing. 

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It’s election season, and with that comes controversy, advertising, and extra emails in your inbox. In recent years, there have been claims that email providers, specifically Gmail, have filtered emails based on political beliefs. Congressman Greg Steube from Florida complained to the CEO of Google because he believed that his emails were being filtered to spam because he is a Republican. 

In a similar incident in 2019, Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic presidential candidate, sued Gmail for $50 million. The lawsuit claimed that Google implemented a 6-hour suspension on her campaign ads and placed her emails into spam folders. 

So, does Gmail filter emails based on political beliefs? As I hope we’ve shown throughout the previous episodes, the short answer is. no, it doesn’t. In this episode, we talk through several reasons why those claims are unfounded and what the real reason may be behind their emails ending up in spam folders. 

Main Takeaways

• It’s true that political emails tend to experience more deliverability issues because of the inherent nature of the industry. 
• Most senders try to remain relevant throughout the year to maintain a healthy reputation. In many cases after elections, senders either stop sending altogether or send much less consistently, so their sender reputation takes a hit. 
• Emails should contain at least some value to the reader. Some political emails just ask you to donate to their campaign or provide information about their platform, which is information you can find anywhere online. 
• Where emails end up speaks more to the skill of whoever is running a politician’s email marketing and less to any bias from Gmail.

Links

• Hey.com
• Gmail
• Google
• Markup

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It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing. 

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Gmail has become ubiquitous as the leading mailbox provider. Gmail is also often considered the most advanced in terms of filtering and features among online mailboxes. And with so many users, it’s critical to understand how Gmail thinks about deliverability. 

Apart from keeping your emails safe, Gmail also includes a ton of other features that are helpful to both senders and receivers. That said, it can be overwhelming if you’re just getting started. 

In this episode, we discuss how Gmail determines where to place emails, the promotions tab, Google Postmaster Tools, and how to fix spam filtering issues.

Main Takeaways

• Gmail’s priority is keeping your messages safe, which has led to a  complex algorithm used to identify spam. It considers domain reputation heavily and that may cause your emails to be filtered differently than in other mailbox providers. 
• When using your own domain, it’s important that you have a solid sender reputation and consistent email volume. If you don’t, a large portion of your emails will bounce.
• The promotions tab in Gmail separates the user’s subscription emails from the primary inbox where one-to-one messages land. If your email goes to the promotions tab and someone opens it, they truly wanted to do so, and they're going to spend time reading that email.
• Google Postmaster Tools help you know what your current reputation is as a sender. It will tell you if your domain reputation is good or bad and where you need to improve.

Links

• Gmail
• Google Postmaster Tools

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing. 

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You may think it's too soon to talk about holiday promotions, but for email marketing, the time is now! The holidays often involve the biggest promotions of the year, so it’s important to plan your strategy well ahead of time. 

For many senders, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest days of the year in terms of promotions and sales. But without proper preparation, senders can run into deliverability issues that can derail even the best marketing emails. 

In this episode, we talk about common mistakes, how to avoid them, and what you should start doing now to prepare for one of the busiest times of the year.

Main Takeaways

• Plan backward. Define what results you want for the holidays and then work backward to how you can achieve that with your email strategy. Start running re-engagement campaigns for subscribers who haven't opened your emails in the last 90 days. If subscribers don't re-engage, remove them from your list.
• Consistency is important. Make sure you’re sending emails to your list throughout the year and not just when you’re trying to sell something. Slowly ramp up your sending so that by the time you reach Black Friday and Cyber Monday, your email volume looks like a nice consistent incline instead of a sudden leap in volume.
• The most successful creators are the ones with an engaged list. Work on engaging your list better and not just growing it.
• Don't throw best practices out the window in pursuit of a sale. The push for sales can make it tempting to email any subscriber you can find. However, this can cause your holiday emails to get lost in the spam folder, which can significantly impact your business.

Links

• ConvertKit

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing. 

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There are a lot of email service providers (ESPs) out there and many misconceptions about how to choose the one that works for your needs. To understand what an ESP can and can’t do to help you with deliverability, it’s good to start by looking at the function of an ESP and the role it plays in your email marketing. 

While each ESP has its own specialty, its main purpose is to help email marketers reach their audience. At its most basic function, the ESP handles the entire delivery infrastructure. It’s complex work that’s taken care of for you; if you don’t know it’s happening, it’s doing its job. 

In this episode, we talk through what ESPs are, their purpose, what they can and can’t do, and what to look for when choosing the ESP that’s right for you. 

Main Takeaways

• There are many different ESPs, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. However, good deliverability is something you should always be looking for when choosing an ESP. 
• The right ESP can help your deliverability by doing the behind-the-scenes heavy lifting, and providing a healthy infrastructure to send from.
• ESPs can only do so much. As a sender, you can still experience unique spam filters, open rates, click rates, and more that may require your attention. Deliverability is a team effort. 

Links

• ConvertKit
• Deliverability Defined 002 - Sender Reputation: The Road to Inbox Placement
  
  

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It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing. 

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Today we’re talking about list validation. And to help bring some additional insight to our conversation, we’re joined by Lauren Meyer, the VP of Industry Relations and Compliance at Kickbox, a list verification company.

With a background in communication and email deliverability, Lauren brings a lot of experience to the table. 

We discuss spam traps, list validation, and some great ideas for keeping your list healthy (which is essential for deliverability). Lauren also talks about how she ended up in her current role at Kickbox.

Main Takeaways

• Email validation is a way to identify invalid and non-deliverable email addresses and verify legitimate addresses. This gives marketers the ability to improve their delivery rates and engagement.
• Follow your data and constantly ask yourself where the pain points are coming from. Don’t let a small problem become a big one. 
• Approach deliverability from a more personal perspective. Create user journeys and send emails that your audience actually wants to read.

Links

• KickBox
• MailJet
• Kate Barrett from eFocus Marketing
• Lauren on LinkedIn
• Lauren on Twitter

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing. 

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Blocklist is a cryptic word that can cause panic for an email sender. No one wants to be “blocked” from sending an email. It can be complex, but it’s important to know how blocklists work to ensure that you remain in good standing as a sender. In this episode, we unravel blocklists and how to not end up on one.

Main Takeaways

• A blocklist is an organization that compiles a list of IPs, (potentially domains as well) that they believe to be risky.
• Anyone can create a blocklist — what matters is who your mailbox provider decides to use as their authority for blocking. You could be allowed on one and blocked on another. 
• IPs and domains are typically added to blocklists for hitting too many spam traps, and shared IP addresses may cause you to end up on a blocklist. 
• Do not attempt to delist yourself. Reach out to your ESP for help. They will be able to do more to get you delisted. 
• A bounce rate above 2% may indicate that you’re on a blocklist. 
• The URLs you include in your email have their own reputation and could end up on a blocklist, affecting your deliverability. 

Links

• Spamhaus
• Deliverability Defined 005: Avoiding Spam Traps the Right Way

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing. 

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If you’re following the email marketing world, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Hey.com from creators of Basecamp. A lot of people have a lot of opinions on Hey, and because our podcast is all about email deliverability, we believe it’s a relevant discussion for us to have.

There’s not a ton of innovation in the email space, so having something like Hey to give us good conversation is a welcome change. If you need a quick catch-up, check out hey.com to see what it’s all about. 

Whether you’re pro-Hey or anti-Hey, this episode is a deep dive into the pros, cons, and everything in between, along with our opinions and what it means for email at-large.

Main Takeaways

• Hey’s unique value proposition is that they are showing you email that you want to see, and giving you more control over who can email you.
• Hey encourages you to organize your email from the beginning — an important feature to anyone whose inbox has run wild. However, this can lead to lumping unimportant and important emails from the same sender into one box. 
• Hey does a good job of combing social media features with email features that result in a positive user experience.
• Hey will automatically block “spy pixels” (open tracking pixels), which are tiny images that tell senders if emails have been opened or not. This is good for privacy hawks, but could be very bad for those trying to gather analytics on their email open rates.

Links

• Hey.com
• Hey CEO Tour
• Sender Reputation: The Road to Inbox Placement
• Reply All #135 Robocall: Bang Bang
• Alyssa's Hey Email
• Superhuman
  
  

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing. 

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