How can I effectively use SparkPost's delivery index and other KPIs to measure and improve email marketing health and deliverability?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from SuperOffice explains the need to personalize email marketing campaigns. The better you can personalize your email marketing, the more likely it is that users will engage, and your reputation with mail providers will improve.
Email marketer from Litmus shares that A/B testing different subject lines is essential to improve open rates. Test various subject lines to determine which ones resonate best with your audience and drive higher engagement.
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that key KPIs to track include open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, complaint rates, and unsubscribe rates. Analyzing these metrics helps understand if emails are reaching the inbox and if recipients are engaging with the content.
Email marketer from GlockApps explains that using deliverability testing tools to check inbox placement rates with various ISPs can highlight deliverability issues before a major campaign launch. This proactive approach helps you identify and fix problems early on.
Email marketer from Email on Acid shares that previewing your emails across various devices and email clients is important to ensure consistent rendering and a positive user experience. This helps prevent deliverability issues caused by broken layouts or code.
Email marketer from SendPulse explains that to improve email deliverability, it's crucial to authenticate your email (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), maintain a clean email list by removing invalid or inactive addresses, and avoid spam trigger words in your email content.
Email marketer from HubSpot shares that segmenting your email list allows you to send more targeted and relevant content to specific groups of subscribers. This personalized approach increases engagement and improves overall email marketing performance.
Email marketer from StackOverflow details how to setup DKIM keys for a domain. Ensuring your DKIM keys are correctly setup will ensure that email providers can correctly verify the email is correctly sent from the specific domain.
Email marketer from Reddit r/emailmarketing forum mentions that regularly cleaning your email list by removing inactive subscribers is crucial for maintaining a good sender reputation and improving deliverability. Use double opt-in to ensure quality subscriptions.
What the experts say6Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource explains that proactively monitoring your sender reputation across different ISPs and blocklists is critical. Address any issues promptly to prevent significant deliverability problems and maintain a healthy email program.
Expert from Email Geeks responds that a significant drop in opens while unique clicks remain the same indicates an issue that requires further investigation, starting with breaking down the data by recipient ISP.
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that engagement data, such as opens and clicks, is an important factor in deliverability. Low engagement can negatively impact your sender reputation. Focus on sending relevant content to engaged subscribers to improve overall deliverability.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that SparkPost's delivery index likely correlates positively with factors affecting deliverability, but the strength of this correlation is hard to determine and varies among ISPs. He suggests it's a useful tool for identifying areas for improvement, but optimizing solely based on this metric would be a mistake.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests that changes in opens and clicks, smoothed over multiple mailings, are likely meaningful KPIs for deliverability success.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that the most meaningful measure of email health is revenue tracked back to email or RoI for your business. All other metrics are secondary, and you need to determine over time whether they correlate well to actual business value.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from DMARC.org explains that DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is an email authentication protocol that builds on SPF and DKIM to provide a more robust defense against email spoofing and phishing attacks. Implementing DMARC helps protect your brand and improve deliverability by instructing receiving mail servers on how to handle emails that fail authentication checks.
Documentation from RFC explains that SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is an email authentication method that helps prevent spammers from using your domain to send unauthorized emails. Implementing SPF records can significantly improve your email deliverability.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools highlights the importance of monitoring your sender reputation within their platform. This tool provides insights into your domain's reputation with Gmail users, helping you identify and address deliverability issues.
Documentation from SparkPost explains that the Delivery Index is a benchmark that shows the current state of your email program compared to past performance. It is calculated based on engagement and spam complaint metrics. A higher score indicates better deliverability and sender reputation.