What are the specific rules and guidelines to deliver emails to the Chinese market?
Summary
What email marketers say11Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that building a strong sender reputation and IP warming is crucial when targeting the Chinese market to improve email deliverability.
Email marketer from EmailGeeksForum explains that sending emails during peak online activity hours in China (e.g., lunchtime and evenings) can increase engagement and open rates.
Email marketer from Reddit highlights the importance of using local Chinese email service providers (ESPs) for better deliverability rates due to their familiarity with local regulations and infrastructure.
Email marketer from SmartInsights advises to segmenting your email lists based on demographics, interests, and behavior to deliver more relevant and personalized content to your Chinese subscribers.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that Sendgrid had to partner with Sendcloud, as they have servers in China for customers that had large audiences in China, as this was the only way to get emails accepted.
Email marketer from Red Letter Marketing shares that your email content must be culturally relevant and adhere to local customs, and to avoid using sensitive topics, political content, or anything that contradicts Chinese laws and regulations.
Email marketer from CampaignMonitor shares that optimizing your emails for mobile devices is crucial, as the majority of internet users in China access the web via mobile devices.
Marketer from Email Geeks advises to make sure your ESP/MTA has DBCS capability - double byte character support
Email marketer from LinkedIn shares that establishing a strong relationship with Chinese ISPs can help improve deliverability by allowing you to address any deliverability issues directly and proactively.
Email marketer from Quora advises to ensure your sending IP addresses are not blacklisted in China and to monitor your IP reputation regularly to maintain good deliverability.
Email marketer from HubSpot shares the importance of localizing your email content, including translating subject lines and body text into simplified Chinese.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that deliverability to China requires attention to bounces and complaints, which are indicators of trouble and necessitate list cleaning or suppression.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that China has incredibly complicated rules for email delivery, requiring local language expertise and, in some cases, a local business presence.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that when they worked for a large marketing clown, they contracted with Jacco and Webpower for Chinese deliverability assistance and even mail relay.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that delivering emails to Chinese recipients is very different due to legal requirements, filtering, and culture. Also, ecomm in China doesn’t run on email, rather it’s mostly on local walled garden chat systems.
Expert from Word to the Wise mentions that you must review and adjust your authentication practices, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, in order to ensure that you are meeting the base levels of requirements for Chinese markets.
What the documentation says6Technical articles
Documentation from Alibaba Cloud explains that China's regulations require all email service providers to obtain a license from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to operate legally within the country.
Documentation from MXToolbox explains that having a properly configured reverse DNS (rDNS) record can improve email deliverability in China by confirming that your sending IP address is associated with your domain.
Documentation from Sinorbis explains that while not directly related to email marketing, having an ICP (Internet Content Provider) license can indirectly affect email deliverability as it establishes your legitimacy in the Chinese digital space.
Documentation from ReturnPath shares the importance of actively monitoring and managing bounce rates, as high bounce rates can negatively impact your sender reputation and email deliverability in China.
Documentation from Tencent explains that using email authentication methods such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC can help improve email deliverability in China by verifying the sender's identity and preventing spoofing.
Documentation from RFC explains that use UTF-8 character encoding to ensure proper display of Chinese characters in your emails, as some older systems may not support other encoding formats.