You may have caught Joe Manna’s great blog post last week describing six ways to improve your email deliverability, or maybe you got an email from me a while back about not “peeing in the (email server) pool.”
Email deliverability has clearly been a hot topic around our company. Today I’d like to lay out what I call the three pillars of email deliverability. The three pillars are important for you to keep in mind to see who’s responsible for getting your emails to your recipients’ inboxes. Think of a stool with three legs, you take one away and the whole thing falls over. The same is true with email deliverability, all three pillars must be in place to uphold consistently high deliverability percentages.
Three Pillars of Email Deliverability
- Email Systems Infrastructure — This involves operating secure email servers, valid SSL certificates, providing and enforcing valid email headers for receiving email servers and managing safe pools of IP addresses. This also includes monitoring and managing email bounce backs and rate limiting messages from ISPs. Infusionsoft takes care of this pillar. We have invested in all the infrastructure and email expertise so our small business clients can benefit from our proven success in establishing a strong email systems infrastructure.
- Partnerships and ISP Relations– Having trustworthy and on-going relationships with email deliverability experts like Return Path and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) ensures that we are immediately notified if any deliverability concerns occur. This includes managing feedback loops, opening tickets with ISPs and addressing complaints in a timely fashion. Infusionsoft also takes care of this pillar.
- Sender Practices– The behaviors, practices, frequency and guidelines in how users conduct their email marketing is crucial to maintain a healthy relationship with ISPs, and consequently a high deliverability rate. This includes advising confirmed opt-in email marketing, mandating that only ‘clean’ content can be sent, and the types of businesses permitted. This is where the Don’t Pee in The Pool campaign comes into play. While Infusionsoft can help with the third pillar of excellent email deliverability, ultimately it is the responsibility of the sender for the marketing and promotional content and sending practices.
Making sure that your emails actually get delivered is crucial when you have important information to get out. But we realized that there isn’t a lot of clarity or resources out there that break down exactly why some emails make it to an inbox (and why some emails don’t).
Essentially, whether your email gets delivered depends on your sending reputation, which is all about the relationship we build with our Internet Service Providers (ISPs). On a high-level, that reputation is based on five very concrete data points that each ISP considers when assessing the email sent through their system: volume, complaint rates, “hard bounce” rates, spam trap hits, and authentication. We’ve put together a bunch of materials that go into greater depth about this and they’re available for all at Infusionsoft’s Email Resource Center.
Follow Best Practices & Get Help
We ask for your assistance in getting the word out on this. We need you as a marketer to step it up and do the right thing. Our team has compiled the best resources so you can prevent contaminating the pool of IPs with your practices. Our team is here to help you do the right thing. Here just a few of the articles I suggest you need to read:
- How to write an effective email subject line
- Creating a great subscriber experience
- Who’s responsible for your Email Deliverability?
- High Spam Complaint Rates: How can I lower my spam complaints?
- Infusionsoft’s Acceptable Use Policy
- The Relationship Between E-Mail Marketing Sending Frequency and Spam- Part 1
- The Relationship Between E-Mail Marketing Sending Frequency and Spam- Part 2
Free Email Deliverability Webinar
We’re hosting a free Webinar on email deliverability on Wednesday, April 22 at 4PM ET. Register now to reserve your space! I hope to see you on the Webinar. Feel free to invite your colleagues on this too, they will get a lot out of it.
You can also read our full press release on this: Infusionsoft Takes On Email Deliverability
–Marc
