Is Litmus pre-send spam testing sufficient for deliverability monitoring?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from StackExchange suggests using multiple tools. Pre-send checks help identify problems, but post-send checks are important to see if the messages have gone into inboxes or the spam folder.
Email marketer from SendGrid explains that a multi-faceted approach is needed for monitoring email deliverability. This involves using pre-send testing to detect potential deliverability issues before sending, but it also involves ongoing monitoring of metrics like bounce rates, complaint rates, and engagement to gain a comprehensive insight into how your emails are performing.
Email marketer from Neil Patel shares that focusing on list hygiene, proper authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and monitoring sender reputation are crucial for email deliverability and suggests using tools for both pre-send and post-send analysis.
Email marketer from Email on Acid suggests that while pre-send testing ensures emails render correctly and avoid spam filters, post-send monitoring of inbox placement and engagement is crucial to assess actual deliverability and make necessary adjustments.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that a good strategy includes both pre-send testing, to catch obvious errors, and post-send monitoring, to analyze actual inbox placement rates.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that MXToolbox.com has automated monitors, including Delivery Center for SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI monitoring and management. It dynamically monitors sending IPs and offers managed reputation services, alerting to factors affecting inboxing.
Email marketer from Gmass explains that list hygiene is essential. You need to remove hard bounces and users who haven't been active in a long time. If you don't do this, your emails may go to spam.
Email marketer from GlockApps shares that using a deliverability monitoring tool helps you measure inbox placement rates, identify potential authentication issues, and find out which spam filters are blocking your emails. The deliverability score is also helpful to measure improvements.
Email marketer from Litmus explains that pre-send testing helps identify potential deliverability issues like broken links, rendering problems, and spam trigger words, but it doesn't replace post-send monitoring which tracks actual inbox placement and engagement.
What the experts say2Expert opinions
Expert from Spamresource.com explains that relying solely on pre-send testing is insufficient. Monitoring deliverability requires a holistic view including authentication, list management and looking at metrics from seed testing, and post-send feedback loops to understand the user experience.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that while pre-send testing helps catch errors and spam triggers, it's not enough for comprehensive monitoring. You need to combine it with post-send monitoring of inbox placement, engagement metrics, and sender reputation to truly understand deliverability.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from RFC explains SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records are essential for email authentication, helping to prevent spoofing and improving deliverability by verifying the sender's domain. SPF records need to be configured correctly and updated to accurately reflect authorized sending sources.
Documentation from Mailjet explains that deliverability monitoring should include both pre-send checks (authentication, content analysis) and post-send analysis (bounce rates, spam complaints, engagement metrics) to get a comprehensive view of email performance.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools explains that monitoring sender reputation through their tools is essential for understanding how Google perceives your email sending practices, impacting deliverability to Gmail users. It highlights that while pre-send checks are important, real-world performance data is critical.
Documentation from DMARC.org explains that DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) builds on SPF and DKIM to provide a policy framework for email authentication. Implementing DMARC allows domain owners to specify how email receivers should handle messages that fail authentication, providing valuable feedback for monitoring and improving deliverability.