What are the best resources and first steps for someone starting to learn about email deliverability?
Summary
What email marketers say13Marketer opinions
Email marketer from StackOverflow explains that gradually increasing your sending volume (warming up your IP address) is important, especially when starting with a new domain or IP address, to establish a positive sender reputation with ISPs.
Email marketer from Email on Acid shares that optimizing email design and code is important to ensure proper rendering across different email clients. Poorly coded emails can trigger spam filters and negatively impact deliverability.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign shares segmenting your email list based on subscriber behavior and preferences allows you to send more targeted and relevant emails, increasing engagement and reducing the likelihood of spam complaints.
Email marketer from GlockApps shares that regularly testing your email placement using tools helps you identify whether your emails are landing in the inbox, spam folder, or being blocked altogether, allowing you to adjust your strategy accordingly.
Email marketer from Litmus shares implementing email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is essential for verifying the authenticity of your emails and preventing spoofing, which can significantly improve deliverability.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares resources for understanding blacklists, major spam detection agencies, and troubleshooting deliverability issues including links to Glockapps, Google support, Spamhaus FAQs, and a Microsoft PDF. He also recommends following experts on social media and provides links to wordtothewise.com and spamresource.com for up-to-date information.
Email marketer from Postmark shares maintaining a consistent sending volume and frequency helps establish a predictable sending pattern, which ISPs favor and can improve your sender reputation over time.
Email marketer from Sender.net shares the first step is to build a clean and engaged email list, removing inactive subscribers and validating new email addresses to reduce bounce rates and improve sender reputation.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that understanding email deliverability begins with grasping core concepts such as sender reputation, authentication methods (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and list hygiene practices.
Email marketer from HubSpot shares Implementing double opt-in, where subscribers confirm their email address before being added to your list, helps ensure that you are only sending emails to engaged and valid recipients, improving deliverability.
Email marketer from Email Geeks advises creating a checklist to simplify the process and starting with cleaning up the email list.
Email marketer from Reddit explains that setting up feedback loops with major ISPs allows you to identify and remove subscribers who mark your emails as spam, helping to maintain a positive sender reputation.
Email marketer from ZeroBounce shares Monitoring and maintaining a low bounce rate is important. High bounce rates indicate issues with your email list and can negatively impact your sender reputation, so regularly clean and validate your list.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource explains that actively managing bounces is a critical step. Implementing a system to track and remove hard bounces from your list helps maintain a clean sending reputation and prevents future deliverability issues.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that correctly configuring your authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is essential. Proper authentication verifies your identity to ISPs and helps prevent spoofing, contributing to better deliverability.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that focusing on the recipient experience is paramount. Understanding what your audience wants and delivering valuable content is key to avoiding spam complaints and improving engagement.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that monitoring your sender reputation is critical, because it's what ISPs use to make decisions about whether or not to accept your mail. Steve points out that IP addresses and domains can become tarnished, which will impact all email marketing efforts.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Microsoft answers that monitoring your sender reputation through tools like Sender Score and Google Postmaster Tools provides insights into how ISPs view your sending practices, enabling you to address any issues proactively.
Documentation from RFC explains that SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is an email authentication method designed to detect forging sender addresses during the delivery of email. SPF allows receiving mail servers to verify that mail claiming to come from a specific domain is authorized by that domain's administrators.
Documentation from Spamhaus answers Avoiding spam traps is crucial; these are email addresses used to identify spammers. Regularly cleaning your list and using double opt-in can help prevent sending to these addresses.
Documentation from Google Support answers that setting up SPF and DKIM records is crucial. Ensure your sending domain is properly authenticated to improve deliverability to Gmail users.