What does ‘email deliverability’ mean?
As the name suggests, the term ‘email deliverability’ refers to the likelihood that an email would actually reach the intended recipient’s inbox instead of ending up in their spam folder or being completely blocked by their email service provider (ESP).
If you want a more in-depth understanding of this topic, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: How do I improve it?
There are a lot of ways to improve your email deliverability, including:
- Using double opt-in
- Having a sender policy framework in pace
- Keeping your email list clean
- Avoiding spam-like behaviour
Let us take a closer look at each one:
First, using double opt in ensures that most, if not all, of the email addresses that get added to your mailing list are not only valid, but are also actively being used, minimising your risk for bounced emails. All it really takes is asking leads to confirm their email address and intent to receive communication from you a second time before you start sending them any emails.
Second, having a sender policy framework in place, you become more trustworthy in the eyes of email servers. In fact, not having one may actually cause your emails to bounce.
Third, keeping your email list clean (i.e., removing inactive, invalid, and unresponsive users from it) is also a great way to improve your email deliverability. You see, when a lot of your emails bounce, regardless of the reason, mail servers view that as a sign that you are sending out spam—which brings us to the next point: avoiding spam-like behaviour.
Email and IP addresses that are known for sending spam are blacklisted and automatically blocked by ESPs. So, if you want to improve your odds of having your emails reach your intended recipients’ inboxes, you need to make sure that you do not exhibit spammer-like behaviour.
This means avoiding things such as:
- Using subject lines with questionable words such as ‘make $ online’ and ‘amazing opportunity’
- Using strange formatting such as different font colours, capitalised words, and out-of-place punctuation
- Sending out too many emails too fast
If you think you have been blacklisted, do not worry. You can still fix the situation by doing any of the following things:
- Asking the owner of the email blocklist you are on to remove you
- Addressing the issues causing you to be flagged for spam and waiting for the problem to get fixed
- Coordinating with your email marketing service provider to address the issues
Question #2: What is the difference between email deliverability and open rate?
The main difference between email deliverability and open rate is that the former measures the odds that your email would actually reach the intended recipient’s inbox, while the latter measures the total number of recipients who opened your email against the total number of recipients who received it.
Also, unlike email deliverability, your email open rate is much easier to measure because all the variables are known: the number of recipients and the number of recipients who opened the email. You can calculate it using the following formula:
Total number of recipients who opened the email / total number of recipients x 100 = open rate
This means that if an email you sent out was received by 20,000 people and opened by 10,000, your open rate, using the formula above, would be 50%:
10,000 / 20,000 x 100 = 50%
Question #3: Why is high email deliverability important?
High email deliverability is important because it means your emails are actually reaching your intended recipients’ inboxes. After all, even if you craft the most compelling marketing emails, they would not do your business any good if your target customers do not actually see them.
Here’s a useful article from Mailchimp to know why email deliverability matters.