What Is Email Deliverability?

• Email deliverability: This refers to whether your emails actually land in inboxes instead of spam folders. It’s different from email delivery, which only means the email was accepted by the recipient’s server—even if it got filtered out.
• Why it matters: If deliverability is poor, fewer people see your emails, engagement rates drop, and you risk getting blacklisted. Factors like sender reputation, authentication settings, and list hygiene all play a role.

Why Emails Don’t Always Land in the Inbox

• High Bounce Rates: Emails bounce when they can’t be delivered. Hard bounces happen when the email address is invalid or gone, while soft bounces are usually due to temporary issues like a full inbox or a server problem. A lot of bounces can hurt your sender reputation.
• Spam Filters and Blacklists: Spam filters scan emails for suspicious content, spammy subject lines, and bad sender reputations. If you end up on a blacklist, your emails may be blocked completely. Blacklists track domains or IP addresses that have been flagged for sending unwanted emails.
• Poor Sender Reputation: Think of sender reputation like a credit score for your emails. ISPs (Internet Service Providers) keep track of things like bounce rates, spam complaints, and engagement levels. If your reputation is low, your emails are more likely to be filtered out.
• Lack of Authentication: Email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC tell email providers that you’re a legitimate sender. Without these, your emails could be marked as suspicious and blocked.
• Unengaged or Poor-Quality Email Lists: If you’re sending emails to people who never open them or don’t recognize your sender name, it can hurt your deliverability. A clean, engaged email list is essential for high inbox placement.

How to Improve Email Deliverability

• Choose a Reputable Email Service Provider (ESP): Using a reliable ESP ensures your emails are sent from high-quality servers with a good reputation. Some of the best ESPs for deliverability include Mailgun, SendGrid, Postmark, and Amazon SES.
• Set Up Email Authentication: Authentication protocols help email providers verify your identity and improve trust.
  • SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Checks if your email is being sent from an authorized server.
  • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Makes sure your email stays unchanged during delivery.
• Keep Your Email List Clean: Clean you email list often by removing invalid addresses, spam traps, and inactive subscribers. Tools like NeverBounce and ZeroBounce make it easy to maintain a healthy list.
• Write Emails That Don’t Look Like Spam: Spam filters are smart—they scan for certain words, phrases, and formatting choices that are commonly associated with spam.
  • Avoid excessive capital letters, multiple exclamation points, and overuse of words like “FREE” or “URGENT.”
  • Use a recognizable sender name and a reply-to address.
  • To comply with email regulations, make sure to include an unsubscribe link at the bottom of your email. This allows recipients to opt-out if they no longer wish to receive communications from you.
• Monitor Your Sender Reputation: Keeping an eye on your sender score helps you stay in the good books of ISPs. Tools like Google Postmaster Tools and SenderScore let you track your reputation and identify potential issues before they hurt your deliverability.
• Segment Your Email List: Instead of blasting your entire email list with the same message, break it down into segments based on interests, engagement history, or demographics. Sending more relevant emails leads to better open rates and fewer spam complaints, which boosts your sender reputation.

Best Email Deliverability Services

• Mailgun: Mailgun specializes in email validation, reputation monitoring, and inbox placement testing. It’s great for developers and businesses that rely on transactional emails.
• SendGrid: SendGrid offers a full suite of deliverability tools, including detailed email analytics, spam filter testing, and authentication setup. It’s a solid choice for both marketing and transactional emails.
• Postmark: Postmark focuses on high deliverability for transactional emails, ensuring they reach the inbox as quickly as possible. It’s especially useful for businesses sending password reset emails, order confirmations, and other time-sensitive messages.
• GlockApps: GlockApps lets you test inbox placement, spam scores, and authentication records before sending emails. It also provides sender reputation monitoring to help you stay on top of potential issues.
• NeverBounce: NeverBounce is one of the best email verification tools out there. It helps clean your list by removing invalid addresses, spam traps, and role-based emails (like support@company.com) to improve deliverability.

Conclusion

If your emails aren’t reaching inboxes, you’re missing out on customer engagement and revenue. Improving deliverability is simple: use authentication protocols, clean your email list, optimize content, and monitor your sender reputation. Email deliverability services can also help with email validation, blacklist monitoring, and inbox testing to ensure your emails land where they should. Start optimizing today to ensure your messages reach the right place.

FAQs

What’s the difference between email delivery and email deliverability?

Email delivery just means the email was accepted by the recipient’s server. Email deliverability refers to whether it actually lands in the inbox instead of spam.

How often should I clean my email list?

It’s a good idea to clean your email list every 3 to 6 months to remove inactive subscribers and invalid email addresses.

What are spam traps, and how do they affect email deliverability?

Spam traps are fake email addresses set up by ISPs to catch spammers. If you’re sending emails to spam traps, it can hurt your reputation and land you on a blacklist.

How does email warm-up improve deliverability?

Email warm-up involves gradually increasing your email-sending volume to build trust with ISPs. This prevents emails from being flagged as spam when you start sending in bulk.