What are the common deliverability issues for pharma companies using Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

Email marketer from EmailGeeks Forum emphasizes the need for careful audience segmentation in pharma email marketing. Because pharma sends often have mixed audiences, it’s important to segment based on patients, doctors, other providers to ensure the messaging is compliant and relevant.

Email marketer from Reddit discusses the challenge of creating engaging and personalized content for pharma emails. She suggests that generic or irrelevant content can lead to low open rates and high unsubscribe rates, ultimately harming deliverability. Focusing on audience segmentation and tailored messaging can improve results.

Email marketer from Quora shares that providing relevant content tailored to a specific audience, while remaining compliant, is important to ensure people open and engage with the material.

Email marketer from Medium shares that strict compliance with healthcare regulations (like HIPAA) is crucial for pharma companies. They explain that non-compliance can lead to legal issues and also negatively impact deliverability, as email providers may filter out non-compliant content.

Email marketer from Email Marketing Institute explains how sending frequency affects deliverability, mentioning that sending too many emails can lead to subscriber fatigue and increase unsubscribe rates, negatively impacting sender reputation.

Email marketer from CustomerThink mentions that improper setup of SFMC, such as incorrect domain authentication or not configuring sender profiles properly, can lead to immediate deliverability issues. He recommends verifying all configurations during the setup process and conducting regular audits.

Email marketer from LinkedIn explains that poor list hygiene is a significant deliverability issue for pharma companies. They highlight the importance of regularly cleaning email lists to remove inactive or invalid addresses, as outdated data can lead to high bounce rates and damage sender reputation.

Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that permission on the list should be checked, because in their experience med/pharma clients don't have super clean lists. They suggest eliminating shared and purchased lists to improve deliverability.

Email marketer from Email Geeks shares assuming you have a private domain/SAP setup with authentication, check sender score and overall IP reputation. Also if you have Google PMT in place, check the results there. They suggest even if you jump to a new IP, the issue is cyclical so it's more of a temporary fix.

Email marketer from StackExchange explains that monitoring and addressing complaint rates is crucial. They advise setting up feedback loops with email providers to identify and resolve issues that lead to complaints, as high complaint rates can severely impact deliverability.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that every time they've heard of a pharma client with deliverability problems, purchased lists were involved.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests to dig deeper before making assumptions about shared IP issues with SFMC and pharma deliverability problems.

Expert from Word to the Wise answers that when sending pharmaceutical mail you have to consider HIPAA guidelines. It is important to ensure privacy as well as adhering to CAN-SPAM laws.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that if DKIM is setup properly and GPT is set up, high complaint rates would indicate the client’s list data is the problem, not the platform.

Expert from Spam Resource explains how to protect against phishing attacks. The article also notes that it's important to set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to protect your domain.

Expert from Spam Resource explains that one of the common issues that they are dealing with is list bombing. List bombing is defined as when an email address gets subscribed to many different lists all at once. The abuse desks are the people who handle problems with email deliverability for the ESP.

Documentation from Salesforce Help advises pharma companies to actively manage subscriber engagement. The documentation specifies that monitoring open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates is important. Regularly segmenting and targeting engaged subscribers helps to improve deliverability and sender reputation.

Documentation from ReturnPath emphasizes the importance of actively monitoring sender reputation. They recommend using tools and services to track IP and domain reputation, identify potential issues, and take corrective actions to maintain a positive sending reputation and ensure deliverability.

Documentation from Salesforce Help describes how using a Sender Authentication Package (SAP) helps improve deliverability. It details that SAP includes features like a dedicated IP address, domain authentication, and account branding, which collectively enhance sender reputation and trust with email providers.

Documentation from Salesforce Help explains the importance of IP warming when using a dedicated IP address in SFMC. It states that a gradual increase in sending volume is necessary to build a positive sender reputation and avoid being flagged as spam. Proper IP warming is essential for maintaining deliverability.

Documentation from Litmus details that poor email design and rendering issues can cause deliverability problems. It stresses that ensuring emails are properly formatted and render correctly across various devices and email clients is essential for providing a positive user experience and avoiding spam filters.