How to troubleshoot email deliverability issues with Yahoo and AOL for non-profits?
Summary
What email marketers say11Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Sendinblue recommends warming up your IP address gradually when starting to send emails to AOL and Yahoo. This involves slowly increasing the volume of emails sent over time to establish a good sending reputation.
Email marketer from Gmass recommends segmentation based on user behaviour. For instance, you may create a segment for those users who donated previously vs who have not to target them effectively.
Marketer from Email Geeks highlights the importance of proper email address collection, emphasizing that adding people to mailing lists without prior consent will lead to recurring deliverability problems. She reinforces that 'lather, rinse, repeat' is unsustainable if consent isn't properly obtained.
Email marketer from Customer.io highlights the importance of personalization within emails. This could mean including their name, tailoring donation amounts or simply referencing previous donation campaigns.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that pausing sends for 7-10 days won't necessarily fix spam placement issues. He recommends identifying the root cause, such as high spam complaint rates, ignored emails, or problematic data collection. Ensuring email relevance is crucial, and the sender domain should be enrolled in Yahoo's complaint feedback loop.
Email marketer from Litmus recommends testing your emails before sending to ensure they render correctly on different email clients, including Yahoo and AOL. This can help avoid issues that might lead to spam complaints.
Email marketer from Reddit states that sender reputation is key. Check your IP and domain reputation on various blocklist checkers. A poor reputation will directly impact deliverability to Yahoo and AOL.
Email marketer from EmailGeek highlights the significance of email content. Ensure your email content is not spammy. Avoid using excessive capital letters, exclamation marks, and trigger words. Make sure the subject lines are relevant and not misleading.
Email marketer from Mailjet suggests that non-profits need to focus on building a clean email list by using double opt-in and regularly cleaning out unengaged subscribers. Sending relevant content tailored to different segments of their audience can also help improve engagement and deliverability.
Email marketer from StackExchange suggest signing up for feedback loops (FBLs) with Yahoo and AOL. FBLs provide data about users marking your emails as spam, enabling you to remove those users from your list and improve deliverability.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that the client collects email addresses primarily through donations and organic website signups, ensuring consent is given for all subscriptions.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks suggests sending only to engaged users (those clicking emails or visiting the website) and suppressing as much as possible. He notes that deliverability issues are often preceded by warning signs like lower opens, clicks, and donations.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that engagement data is the critical piece to deliverability. Deliverability problems at Yahoo and AOL are very rarely IP or infrastructure problems, but instead related to the engagement of the recipients. Use engagement data to filter out unengaged users.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that using valid HTML is important as poorly formatted HTML can increase spam scores, potentially affecting deliverability to Yahoo and AOL.
Expert from Spam Resource warns about list bombing and its impact on deliverability, they explain that list bombing is where spammers sign up email addresses to many different email lists, it impacts reputation and deliverability.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from DMARC.org explains that Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) is an email authentication protocol. It is designed to give email domain owners the ability to protect their domain from unauthorized use, commonly known as email spoofing.
Documentation from M3AAWG suggests that non-profits should implement a clear and easy opt-in process, provide an obvious unsubscribe link in every email, and segment their mailing lists based on recipient engagement. It is crucial to actively manage your subscriber list and remove inactive users.
Documentation from AOL Postmaster states that AOL requires senders to authenticate their email using SPF and DKIM. They also advise monitoring your sender reputation and keeping complaint rates low.
Documentation from Yahoo Help Central explains that bulk senders should authenticate their email with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. They should also monitor their reputation using Yahoo Postmaster tools and adhere to Yahoo's sending limits. Spam complaints should be addressed promptly.
Documentation from SparkPost explains that maintaining good list hygiene is crucial. Regularly remove inactive or unengaged subscribers. Use a suppression list to avoid sending to users who have unsubscribed or marked your emails as spam.