How do landing pages impact email deliverability, especially with Gmail?

Summary

Landing pages significantly impact email deliverability, especially with Gmail. Gmail actively checks landing pages, ranks websites, and uses these rankings in their delivery process. Relevance, user experience, avoiding spam triggers, and technical configurations like DKIM and SPF are crucial. Landing pages with promotional content or those violating Google's guidelines can be flagged as spammy. Content consistency, mobile optimization, and fast load times are essential for a positive sender reputation and inbox placement. Overall sender and domain reputation is greatly impacted by linked landing pages.

Key findings

  • Gmail's Active Monitoring: Gmail actively monitors landing pages and uses website rankings to influence email delivery.
  • Relevance is Key: Irrelevant landing pages signal a disconnect to email providers, negatively impacting deliverability.
  • User Experience is Crucial: Poor landing page user experience (slow loading, intrusive pop-ups, thin content) increases bounce rates and harms domain reputation.
  • Spam Triggers Should Be Avoided: Spam trigger words and phrases can cause emails to be marked as spam.
  • Mobile Optimization is Essential: Lack of mobile optimization leads to higher bounce rates and decreased engagement.
  • Content Consistency is Important: Mismatched content between email and landing page confuses users and impacts deliverability.
  • Load Times Matter: Slow landing page load times frustrate users and negatively impact sender reputation.
  • Honesty and Transparency are Needed: Deceptive practices and hidden costs harm sender reputation.
  • DKIM Improves Trust: Using DKIM shows landing page domain alignment and improves deliverability.
  • SPF Verifies Authorization: Properly configured SPF records verify sending authorization and improve deliverability.
  • Poor quality content can be flagged: Landing pages with promotional content or that violate googles guidelines will be flagged and can impact sender reputation.
  • Domain reputation can be harmed: A domain being linked to spam or bad websites can result in blacklisting.

Key considerations

  • Optimize for Gmail: Understand that Gmail actively monitors landing pages and adjust strategies accordingly.
  • Ensure Relevance: Ensure your landing page content is directly relevant to the email's promise.
  • Prioritize User Experience: Optimize landing pages for speed, clarity, ease of navigation, and high quality, useful content.
  • Avoid Spam Triggers: Scrub landing page copy and HTML to avoid triggering spam filters.
  • Optimize for Mobile: Prioritize a seamless mobile experience.
  • Maintain Content Alignment: Maintain consistent messaging between the email and the landing page.
  • Optimize Load Speed: Optimize images and code to minimize page load times.
  • Maintain Honesty and Transparency: Be upfront about costs and offers to build trust with users.
  • Implement DKIM Authentication: Utilize DKIM to authenticate emails and improve trust.
  • Configure SPF Records: Configure SPF records to authorize sending servers and enhance deliverability.
  • Avoid Promotional content: Avoid promotional content so that landing pages will not be flagged as spam.
  • Domain Linking: Don't link your domain to any websites that harm your reputation.

What email marketers say
9Marketer opinions

Landing pages significantly impact email deliverability, especially with Gmail. Relevance, user experience, and avoiding spam triggers are crucial. Consistent content between email and landing page, mobile optimization, and fast load times are essential for a positive sender reputation and inbox placement.

Key opinions

  • Relevance: Irrelevant landing pages signal a disconnect to email providers, negatively impacting deliverability.
  • Spam Triggers: Spam trigger words and phrases can cause emails to be marked as spam.
  • User Experience: Poor landing page user experience (slow loading, intrusive pop-ups) increases bounce rates and harms domain reputation.
  • Mobile Optimization: Lack of mobile optimization leads to higher bounce rates and decreased engagement.
  • Content Consistency: Mismatched content between email and landing page confuses users and impacts deliverability.
  • Load Times: Slow landing page load times frustrate users and negatively impact sender reputation.
  • Deceptive Practices: Hidden costs or misleading information harm sender reputation.

Key considerations

  • Relevance: Ensure your landing page content is directly relevant to the email's promise.
  • Spam Filters: Scrub landing page copy and HTML to ensure that you do not trigger spam filters.
  • User Experience: Optimize landing pages for speed, clarity, and ease of navigation.
  • Mobile Friendliness: Prioritize a seamless mobile experience.
  • Content Alignment: Maintain consistent messaging between the email and the landing page.
  • Page Load Speed: Optimize images and code to minimize page load times.
  • Honesty and Transparency: Be upfront about costs and offers to build trust with users.
Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum believes Mobile-first is crucial. JohnSmith describes that most users open emails on their phones, so a non-responsive landing page is a deliverability killer. It signals a bad user experience to email providers.

March 2023 - Email Marketing Forum
Marketer view

Email marketer from ActiveCampaign explains that fast landing page load times are critical. Slow-loading pages can frustrate users and increase bounce rates, which can negatively impact your sender reputation and email deliverability.

August 2022 - ActiveCampaign
Marketer view

Email marketer from Reddit explains that a poor user experience on a landing page (e.g., slow loading times, intrusive pop-ups) can lead to users quickly leaving the page, increasing bounce rates and potentially harming your domain's reputation and email deliverability.

April 2023 - Reddit
Marketer view

Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog explains that the relevance of your landing page to the email content is crucial. Irrelevant landing pages can negatively impact deliverability as they signal a potential disconnect to email providers like Gmail.

June 2022 - Neil Patel's Blog
Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum shares the opinion that Relevancy is king! JaneDoe explains that if your email promises one thing and the landing page delivers something different, Gmail and other providers will penalize you, impacting deliverability rates.

April 2021 - Email Marketing Forum
Marketer view

Email marketer from HubSpot Blog shares that ensuring consistency between the content of your email and the landing page is crucial. Mismatched content can confuse users and lead to higher bounce rates, negatively impacting deliverability.

June 2024 - HubSpot Blog
Marketer view

Email marketer from Litmus shares that optimizing landing pages for mobile devices is essential. A poor mobile experience can lead to higher bounce rates and decreased engagement, potentially affecting deliverability as email providers prioritize user experience.

March 2024 - Litmus
Marketer view

Email marketer from Campaign Monitor explains that avoiding deceptive practices on landing pages, such as hidden costs or misleading information, is crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation and good email deliverability.

March 2024 - Campaign Monitor
Marketer view

Email marketer from Mailchimp Resource Library shares that avoiding spam trigger words and suspicious phrases on your landing pages can prevent emails from being marked as spam, thus improving deliverability. This includes being mindful of excessive capitalization and exclamation points.

November 2021 - Mailchimp Resource Library

What the experts say
3Expert opinions

Landing pages have a significant impact on email deliverability, especially with Gmail. Gmail actively checks landing pages, ranks websites, and uses these rankings in their delivery process. Landing pages with promotional content or those violating Google's guidelines can be flagged as spammy and negatively affect deliverability. Google also uses landing page quality (user experience, relevance, ease of navigation) as a factor related to deliverability.

Key opinions

  • Gmail's Active Monitoring: Gmail actively monitors landing pages and uses website rankings to influence email delivery.
  • Spammy Content: Promotional or guideline-violating landing pages can be flagged as spam, harming deliverability.
  • Landing Page Quality: Google considers landing page quality (user experience, relevance) as a factor in deliverability.

Key considerations

  • Website Ranking: Ensure your website follows SEO best practices to improve its overall ranking.
  • Content Guidelines: Adhere to Google's guidelines for website content and user experience.
  • User Experience: Prioritize creating a positive user experience on your landing pages.
  • Avoid promotional content: Avoid promotional content so that landing pages will not be flagged as spam.
Expert view

Expert from Spam Resource explains that a landing page with promotional content, or a landing page that violates Google's guidelines can be considered 'spammy' and can negatively affect email deliverability, especially with Gmail.

February 2022 - Spam Resource
Expert view

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that Google uses landing page quality as a factor in determining ad rank, which is also closely related to email deliverability. Pages that provide a good user experience, are relevant to the email content, and are easy to navigate are favored.

January 2022 - Word to the Wise
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks explains that landing pages affect delivery, particularly at Gmail. They check out landing pages, rank websites, and use website rankings as part of their delivery process.

July 2024 - Email Geeks

What the documentation says
5Technical articles

Landing pages significantly impact email deliverability by affecting sender and domain reputation. Poor user experience (thin content, excessive ads, deceptive practices), linking to low-quality or malicious content, and association with spam or malware can harm reputation and lead to blacklisting. Utilizing DKIM and configuring SPF records helps improve trust and verify sending authorization, enhancing deliverability.

Key findings

  • User Experience Matters: Poor landing page user experience negatively impacts website reputation and email deliverability.
  • Sender Reputation: Linking to low-quality or malicious landing pages harms sender reputation.
  • Domain Reputation: Association with spam or malware can blacklist your domain, severely impacting deliverability.
  • DKIM Improves Trust: Using DKIM shows landing page domain alignment and improves deliverability.
  • SPF Verifies Authorization: Properly configured SPF records verify sending authorization and improve deliverability.

Key considerations

  • Prioritize UX: Ensure landing pages provide a good user experience with high-quality content.
  • Avoid Harmful Links: Refrain from linking to low-quality or malicious content.
  • Maintain Clean Reputation: Ensure landing pages are not associated with spam or malware.
  • Implement DKIM: Utilize DKIM to authenticate emails and improve trust.
  • Configure SPF: Configure SPF records to authorize sending servers and enhance deliverability.
Technical article

Documentation from Google Search Central highlights that landing pages should provide a good user experience. Pages with thin content, excessive ads, or deceptive practices can harm your website's reputation and, indirectly, email deliverability.

April 2022 - Google Search Central
Technical article

Documentation from Microsoft Documentation clarifies that sender reputation is based on several factors, including the quality of the content linked in your emails. Linking to low-quality or malicious landing pages can negatively affect your sender reputation, impacting deliverability to Outlook and other Microsoft email services.

May 2022 - Microsoft Documentation
Technical article

Documentation from RFC Editor clarifies that Using DKIM will show that the landing page domain aligns with the sending domain, helping to improve trust and deliverability with Gmail.

September 2024 - RFC Editor
Technical article

Documentation from Spamhaus explains that a domain's reputation is a key factor in determining email deliverability. If your landing pages are associated with spam or malware, your domain can be blacklisted, severely impacting your ability to reach inboxes.

May 2023 - Spamhaus
Technical article

Documentation from IETF explains the importance of SPF. Make sure your landing page domain's SPF record is properly configured. It helps verify that the sending server is authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain, improving deliverability.

January 2022 - IETF