You have spent time crafting the perfect email, but it means nothing if it never reaches your subscriber's inbox. Email deliverability refers to your ability to successfully land your emails in the primary inbox rather than the spam folder or the promotions tab. For small businesses that rely on email marketing, good deliverability is essential to getting results.
Understanding Why Emails Go to Spam
Email providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo use sophisticated filters to protect their users from unwanted email. These filters look at dozens of factors to decide whether an incoming email is legitimate or spam. Understanding what triggers these filters is the first step to avoiding them.
Common reasons emails end up in spam include sending from an unauthenticated domain, using spam trigger words in subject lines, sending to invalid email addresses, having a high complaint rate, and sending emails that look like they were designed by a spammer.
Authenticate Your Email Domain
Email authentication is one of the most important technical steps you can take. There are three key authentication protocols you should have in place.
SPF Records
SPF, or Sender Policy Framework, tells receiving email servers which servers are authorised to send email on behalf of your domain. Without SPF, receiving servers have no way to verify that an email claiming to be from your domain was actually sent by you.
DKIM Signatures
DKIM, or DomainKeys Identified Mail, adds a digital signature to your emails that verifies they have not been tampered with in transit. Think of it as a seal on an envelope that proves the contents have not been altered.
DMARC Policy
DMARC builds on SPF and DKIM to provide a complete authentication framework. It tells receiving servers what to do with emails that fail authentication checks, whether to deliver them, quarantine them, or reject them entirely. Setting up DMARC protects your domain from being used for spoofing and phishing.
Maintain a Clean Email List
Your email list quality has a direct impact on your deliverability. Sending to invalid, inactive, or unengaged addresses hurts your sender reputation and increases the likelihood of your emails being filtered as spam.
Regularly clean your list by removing addresses that bounce, subscribers who have not opened an email in six months or more, and any addresses that look suspicious or invalid. Most email platforms provide tools to identify and remove these addresses automatically.
Write Like a Human, Not a Spammer
The content of your emails matters for deliverability. Avoid common spam trigger patterns like using all capital letters in your subject line, excessive exclamation marks, or phrases that sound too good to be true. Write naturally and provide genuine value to your subscribers.
Balance Text and Images
Emails that are entirely images with very little text are a red flag for spam filters. Always include a good amount of text content alongside your images. This also improves accessibility for subscribers using screen readers.
Include an Unsubscribe Link
Every marketing email must include a clear, easy-to-find unsubscribe link. This is a legal requirement under most email regulations, and it also helps your deliverability. When people cannot easily unsubscribe, they resort to marking your email as spam, which directly damages your sender reputation.
Monitor Your Sender Reputation
Your sender reputation is a score that email providers assign to your domain based on your sending behaviour. A good reputation means your emails are more likely to reach the inbox. A poor reputation means they are more likely to be filtered.
Keep an eye on your bounce rates, spam complaint rates, and engagement metrics. Most email platforms provide dashboards that track these metrics. If you notice a decline, take immediate action to identify and fix the cause.
Send Consistently
Irregular sending patterns can trigger spam filters. If you normally send one email per month and suddenly send five in a week, it looks suspicious. Establish a consistent sending schedule and stick to it. Gradual increases in volume are fine, but sudden spikes can cause problems.
The Payoff of Good Deliverability
Improving your deliverability means more of your emails reach real people who want to hear from you. This leads to higher open rates, more clicks, and ultimately more business. The technical steps might seem tedious, but they are well worth the effort when your emails consistently reach the inbox.