Does asking for replies in email marketing improve deliverability?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from SuperOffice shares that a key way to build engagement with new subscribers is to ask a question so they can reply to your email. As you build that engagement you ensure your emails are delivered.
Email marketer from Litmus shares that engagement is a crucial part of deliverability. Asking questions to users in your email to make them reply is a good way to create engagement.
Email marketer from Neil Patel Blog explains that asking questions that prompt replies can significantly increase engagement with your emails, leading to improved sender reputation and deliverability.
Email marketer from Reddit explains that asking a question in an email subject line can help with deliverability as it encourages the recipient to reply and therefore signals positive engagement to email providers.
Email marketer from HubSpot Blog shares that encouraging recipients to reply can improve sender reputation by signaling to ISPs that your emails are wanted and valuable, positively impacting deliverability.
Email marketer from Mailjet Blog explains that while not a direct factor, asking for replies can indirectly improve deliverability by fostering engagement and building a positive sender reputation with mailbox providers.
Email marketer from Quora mentions that a reply is a strong indicator of engagement. By asking a question to a new customer, it encourages the reply and builds a rapport and shows engagement.
Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that to improve deliverability you need to make sure you are providing value. When value is offered the recipient will engage in different ways, this can include a reply to the email.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that generating engagement, like replies, positively impacts filtering algorithms, although it's not a guaranteed solution.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks shares that at many consumer mailbox providers, replying to a message automatically adds the sender's address to the user's address book, which can prioritize future inbox delivery from that sender and improve deliverability.
Expert from Spamresource shares that a reply is a strong signal of engagement. By encouraging customers to reply, this will impact email deliverability in a positive way.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that getting recipients to reply to your emails is an easy way to improve sender reputation. When the receiver replies to your email, this indicates a wanted email and helps build a better deliverability rate.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests that if a sender's address is in the recipient's address book, the email is more likely to be delivered to the inbox.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Return Path shared that email engagement is a key part of understanding if your deliverability will be successful. An engaged customer is more likely to not mark the email as spam and engage with a response.
Documentation from Microsoft shares that fostering engagement through interactive content, including prompts for replies, signals to their filtering systems that your emails are valuable and contributes to improved deliverability.
Documentation from SparkPost explains that engagement metrics, including replies, are crucial for assessing sender reputation and deliverability, indicating that actively encouraging replies can positively impact your sender score.
Documentation from RFC answers that the SMTP protocol uses reply codes to diagnose any deliverability issues that occur. Making sure you get replies will reduce the potential for issues.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools indicates that high spam rates negatively affect deliverability, and engaging content that encourages replies can help reduce spam complaints and improve inbox placement.