How can I diagnose email deliverability issues when using Constant Contact?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Quora advises avoiding URL shorteners in your emails, as they are often associated with spam. Using full, transparent URLs helps build trust with recipients and improves your sender reputation.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that it's important to ensure your Constant Contact account is properly configured with your domain. They suggest contacting Constant Contact support to verify your setup and check for any known issues with their platform affecting deliverability.
Email marketer from Litmus Blog shares that analyzing your email content for spam triggers can help improve deliverability. Tools like Litmus can scan your email for common spam keywords, broken links, and other issues that might flag your email as spam.
Email marketer from GMass Blog mentions the importance of warming up your IP address gradually when starting with a new Constant Contact account. Sending emails in small batches and increasing the volume over time helps establish a positive sender reputation.
Email marketer from Mailjet Blog explains that monitoring your bounce rates is essential for identifying deliverability problems. High bounce rates indicate issues with your contact list or sending practices. They advise segmenting your list based on bounce types (hard vs. soft) to manage them effectively.
Email marketer from Email on Acid Blog explains that list segmentation can significantly improve deliverability. By segmenting your audience based on engagement and demographics, you can send more targeted and relevant emails, which reduces the likelihood of recipients marking your messages as spam.
Email marketer from Sendinblue Blog shares that checking your sender reputation is crucial for diagnosing deliverability issues. Tools like Sender Score and Google Postmaster Tools can help you identify if your IP address or domain is blacklisted or has a poor reputation.
Email marketer from SuperOffice Blog advises testing your emails across different email clients (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) and devices to ensure they render correctly and don't trigger spam filters. They recommend using email testing tools to preview your emails before sending them to your entire list.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum shares that Constant Contact sometimes has issues with their shared IP addresses being blacklisted. They suggest checking if Constant Contact is aware of any recent incidents and requesting a dedicated IP address if you're sending a high volume of emails.
What the experts say7Expert opinions
Expert from Spamresource shares that seed listing helps evaluate email deliverability. They recommend adding seed addresses to your mailing lists to measure inbox placement rates and understand how different ISPs are handling your email.
Expert from Email Geeks shares his process when starting a consulting role, which includes understanding the client's perceived issues, requesting a campaign send to his seed list for analysis, and utilizing tools to assess authentication and infrastructure settings.
Expert from Email Geeks shares finding multiple signup forms for the same company with different results when Googling '(company) newsletter signup'.
Expert from Email Geeks mentions that signup forms on the website aren't always the actual or used form, leading to discrepancies in mail delivery and setup understandings.
Experts from Email Geeks recommend to trace specific subscribers in Constant Contact and rule out execution or segmentation issues. Also check the ESP to see if the mail was sent and delivered. Al mentioned that sign up issues are normally segmentation issues rather than deliverability ones. He recommends asking Constant Contact support if the user was included in the send and if it bounced. Steve mentioned you can say 'there was no delivery attempt' if you have access to your own mailserver.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that setting up and monitoring Feedback Loops (FBLs) is crucial for diagnosing deliverability issues. FBLs provide valuable insights into complaints from recipients, allowing you to identify and address problems with your sending practices.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests focusing on deliverability metrics like bounce rates, open rates, and click rates instead of just blocklists. He recommends using inbox testing tools and monitoring for spikes in these metrics.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Microsoft explains how DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) works to authenticate outgoing email. DKIM provides a digital signature that verifies the email's origin and content, helping to prevent spoofing and improve deliverability to Microsoft email addresses.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools Help explains that using Google Postmaster Tools allows you to monitor your domain's reputation with Gmail users. This tool provides data on spam rates, IP reputation, and feedback loop information, which can help you identify and address deliverability issues.
Documentation from Constant Contact Help Center explains that improving email deliverability involves cleaning your contact lists by removing inactive or invalid addresses, authenticating your emails with SPF and DKIM records, and avoiding spam trigger words in your subject lines and body content.
Documentation from RFC documentation explains the technical details of SPF records and how they authenticate email senders. It's crucial for email administrators to understand and correctly configure SPF records to prevent email spoofing and improve deliverability.
Documentation from SparkPost explains that proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC) is critical for ensuring deliverability. Implementing these protocols helps verify that your emails are legitimate and reduces the chances of them being marked as spam by ISPs.