Email deliverability
Email deliverability refers to the ability of your emails to successfully reach your supporters’ inboxes rather than their spam or junk folders. It is different than delivery which only indicates the email didn’t hard or soft bounce.
Getting your email into inboxes is a high priority for Engaging Networks and we work hard at constantly monitoring deliverability across the platform. By employing third party DKIM, SPF, IP address warming and Feedback Loop processes, we persevere to ensure we can best deliver your mail.
What Engaging Networks Does
Engaging Networks has multiple PowerMTA email servers that are designed to send large amount of emails. These powerful servers are highly configured to allow us to dynamically process the email going out to ISPs, through multiple IP addresses.
To make sure that the IPs that we send mail from are well maintained, Engaging Networks:
Monitor and maintain best practices to avoid blacklists
Strive to maintain high reputation scores for our servers and IPs, which are currently at 95-98 percentile of all high volume mail senders according to Sender Score
Deliver mail by throttling based on delivery patterns to maintain good delivery
Maintain feedback loops with ISPs, where they are available, including Hotmail’s Junk Mail Reporting Program, Yahoo, AOL and Comcast etc
Within the platform Engaging Networks also:
Requires full email sender domain authentication for email sending
Automatically suppresses bad email addresses to prevent continually sending to addresses that have hard bounced or soft bounced a number of times
Requires unsubscribe links be included in broadcast and marketing automation emails
What Clients Need to Do
In addition to the measures taken by Engaging Networks to protect email deliverability, clients also need to adhere to best deliverability practices. Users who have the ability to send broadcast type emails using your organizations sending domain (from Engaging Networks but also other services) should be educated about email deliverability practices and the potential consequences of not adhering to them.
The following should be done to achieve and maintain good email deliverability and reduce complaints::
Fully Authenticate Your Email Sending Domain/s
SPF, DKIM, and Return Path (DKIM) must be configured in order to send emails from Engaging Networks
Only email supporters who are opted in to receive emails
If appropriate, use a clearly visible, unticked checkbox or unselected radio to collect consent on a page to reduce complaints from supporters who do not expect your emails
Explain what you’ll send, how often, and through which channels, and link to your privacy policy
If you’re relying on a soft opt-in (where permitted) clearly tell supporters you’ll email them about similar causes and link to your privacy policy
Maintain good email list hygiene to avoid spam complaints and bounces
Ask supporters who haven’t engaged recently with your emails if they still want to be opted in (i.e. reengagement campaign) and opt out those who do not reengage
Familiarize yourself with Engaging Networks Email Engagement Scores and utilize them in your audience building
Reconsider using purchased email lists or ensure the list is processed through an email validation service prior to sending to it
Utilize a service like ZeroBounce to ensure your email list is free of invalid, inactive, and spam-trap email addresses
Ensure it is easy for supporters to opt out/ unsubscribe from your emails to prevent spam complaints
It is required for Engaging Networks broadcast and Marketing Automation emails to include an unsubscribe link
Do not attempt to obscure the unsubscribe link in your emails and put it in a predictable place like the footer
Purely transactional emails (e.g., receipts or thank-you confirmations) don’t need an unsubscribe link. If you include any promotional or marketing content, the message becomes direct marketing and does require an unsubscribe link
Slowly warm up new sending domains
Send to smaller, engaged segments of your audience when you first begin sending emails using Engaging Networks or if you start using a new sending domain (e.g., a rebrand or name change)
Gradually increase sending size over time until you reach your full send list
Other tips
Consider using opt in with confirmation to be sure supporters intend to opt in
Be thoughtful about the content of your emails and avoid “spammy” language or formatting
Third party tools like https://www.mail-tester.com/ can be used to test email content
Segment your audience to send the most relevant content to supporters to improve engagement
Ask your supporters to whitelist your emails
This can include adding your emails to their contact lists or requesting they move emails from the promotions tab in the Gmail to the primary tab
Set up seed list monitoring with various email service providers
Create email addresses with mailbox providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook and add them to a seed list in Engaging Networks
Send emails to the seed lists and monitor those addresses for inbox placement
Monitor your sender reputation using Google Postmaster Tools (reach out to Engaging Networks support to help configure this)
Consequences of Poor Deliverability Practices
Poor deliverability practices can result in your emails going to supporters' spam folders, your domain being blacklisted by spam filtering services such as Spamhaus, and even compliance violations for legislation such as CAN-SPAM, GDPR and CASL. Bad practices can negatively impact your deliverability and often have a cascading effect.
As an example, if there is no clear way for supporters to unsubscribe from your emails, supporters might instead choose to mark your emails as spam which results in future emails going into supporters' spam folders. Then, because supporters cannot find your emails in their inbox, they cannot engage with them which further damages you sender reputation.
It is possible to hit spam traps if you continue emailing disengaged contacts or purchase cold lists. Spam traps are secret addresses (pristine or recycled) used by mailbox providers and blocklist operators, such as Spamcop and Spamhaus, to flag poor acquisition and list hygiene. Hitting them signals consent problems and can hurt your sender reputation or trigger listings with those services. It is hard to reliably identify traps and ltimately prevention is best - i.e. avoiding purchased lists, following good opt-in and opt-out practice, regular suppression of long-term inactives, and fixing typos.
Deliverability Pitfalls
Seemingly benign decisions can mistakenly cause damage to email deliverability. Some examples include:
Introducing bad email addresses by purchasing lists or by suddenly re-emailing stale lists (e.g. 5 years lapsed donors)
Recipients from purchased lists may not have consented to receiving emails from your organization and therefore may mark your emails as spam
The lists may include bad email addresses that bounce at a high rate
The lists may include a spam trap (read more below)
Spam filtering services monitor for suspicious or abusive email sending and can blacklist your sending domain for a variety of reasons including:
High spam compliant rate (supporters marking your email as spam or moving it to a spam folder in their inbox)
Sending emails to spam traps. Spam traps include non-existent email addresses, disabled email accounts that have been turned into traps and typo-ed addresses (e.g., gmial.com instead of gmail.com).
Sudden increasing in sending volume (e.g. going from 5k to 50k recipients in a day)
Mailbox providers have been known to disable email accounts after a certain period of user inactivity (e.g. 2 years of not logging in). Continuing to email these addresses despite them not being engaged can result in a large volume of emails bouncing at once which can damage your deliverability. Read more here about Yahoo disabling accounts in 2019.