Email deliverability is a cornerstone of successful communication for businesses and individuals alike. Without a high deliverability score, even the most well-crafted messages risk landing in spam folders, unseen by their intended recipients. This can lead to lost opportunities, reduced revenue, and diminished trust in your brand.
The good news? You can take actionable steps to maximize your email deliverability score. In this guide, you'll find 10 practical steps to help your emails land in inboxes where they belong.
Understanding Email Deliverability Score
Before diving into ways to improve email deliverability, it's essential to understand what it is and why it plays a pivotal role in your email strategy.
What is Email Deliverability?
Email deliverability refers to the ability of your email to reach a recipient's inbox, rather than being filtered into spam or getting blocked altogether. It's different from simple "email delivery," which just indicates that an email was accepted by the recipient's mail server—where it ends up after that is another story.
Email deliverability is about inbox placement, and it's influenced by factors like sender reputation, email content, and engagement from recipients.
Why Your Email Deliverability Score Matters
Why should you care about deliverability scores? Poor email deliverability can negatively affect your business in many ways.
For starters, emails landing in spam mean unopened messages. Whether you're running an e-commerce store or managing a nonprofit, low visibility can hurt your campaigns. Over time, this can impact your brand's credibility and reduce your ROI on email marketing efforts. High deliverability keeps your messages effective and your audience engaged.
Building a Healthy Email List
A strong email list is the foundation of good deliverability. Start by ensuring that your list is made up of active, genuine subscribers who want to hear from you.
Avoid Purchasing Email Lists
Buying email lists may seem like a shortcut to reaching a larger audience, but it almost always backfires. Purchased lists are often riddled with invalid or inactive addresses, and they rarely target the right audience. Worse, they can lead to high bounce rates and spam complaints, which will tank your deliverability score like a lead balloon.
Use Double Opt-In for Subscriptions
Double opt-in means that subscribers verify their email address after they sign up. This extra step weeds out false or incorrect entries and ensures your list is populated with people genuinely interested in your content. Authentic engagement begins with an engaged audience.
Regularly Clean Your List
Even the most carefully curated email lists accumulate some dead weight over time. Periodically remove inactive subscribers, bounced addresses, or users who haven’t interacted with your emails in months. Cleaning your list improves engagement rates and signals to inbox providers that you're a responsible sender.
Optimizing Email Content and Layout
What you send matters just as much as who you send it to. Crafting content that resonates with your readers—while following best practices for format—can keep your emails out of the spam folder.
Craft Relevant and Engaging Subject Lines
Your subject line is your email’s first impression. To avoid spam filters, skip overly promotional language or ALL CAPS. Instead, aim for concise, descriptive subject lines that spark curiosity. For example, instead of saying "HUGE SALE—CLICK NOW!", try something like "Exclusive Offer Just for You This Week."
Limit the Use of Spam Trigger Words
Certain words like "free," "urgent," or "guaranteed" can trip spam filters. While it's not about avoiding them entirely, use them sparingly and in context. Focus on writing value-driven content and limit excessive use of symbols like exclamation points.
Ensure Mobile-Friendly Design
Over half of all emails are opened on mobile devices. If your design doesn’t work well on smaller screens, you risk losing readers. Use responsive email templates, readable fonts, and a single-column layout to ensure usability on all devices.
Advanced Technical Steps to Boost Deliverability
For more advanced users, implementing technical measures can offer substantial improvements in deliverability.
Set Up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Records
ISPs use these email authentication protocols to verify that your messages are coming from legitimate sources.
- Sender Policy Framework (SPF): Confirms that the servers sending your emails are authorized by your domain name.
- DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM): Adds a digital signature to verify the authenticity of the sender.
- Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC): Prevents unauthorized emails from being sent on your behalf.
Setting these up involves making changes to your DNS records, so talk to your IT team or hosting provider for guidance. These protocols significantly decrease the likelihood of your emails being flagged as spam.
Monitor Sending Frequency and Volume
Sending inconsistent or excessive emails can harm your sender reputation. Aim for a regular sending schedule that aligns with subscriber preferences. If your email volume spikes suddenly, ISPs may mark your emails as suspicious.
Track Key Metrics with Email Analytics
Use analytics tools to monitor bounce rates, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. High bounce rates or declining open rates could signal deliverability issues. Addressing these problems early can prevent long-term damage to your reputation.
Use Professional Services Like Bounceless
If you’re unsure where to start, professional email hygiene platforms like Bounceless can help refine your email list, track bounces, and identify problem areas. Services like these automate some of the more time-consuming aspects of improving email deliverability, allowing you to focus on content strategy and subscriber engagement.
Conclusion
Improving your email deliverability score takes consistent effort, but the rewards are worth it. Start with a healthy email list, optimize your content for clarity and engagement, and implement the necessary technical configurations to ensure legitimacy. By following these 10 steps, you'll not only improve inbox placement but also build stronger connections with your audience.
Don't let your emails go unnoticed—start optimizing today and enjoy the benefits of improved communication, better engagement, and elevated business growth.
