Email deliverability can be a complex topic, and it’s important to keep in mind that there isn’t a magic formula to guarantee your emails will land in the inbox. However, there are several variables outlined here that you can control that will increase your chances.

1. Clean & organize your list

When you begin sending marketing emails from a new platform, a freshly updated and organized list is an important step in starting out on the right deliverability foot.

When migrating your account, you will most likely need to export a list of contacts from your previous email service provider (ESP). When you import your audience list from your previous email marketing account, addresses will automatically be in the Active status and ready to receive messages from you. However, to protect your sender reputation, you’ll want to be sure to change the status of some of your contacts by placing any addresses who have previously unsubscribed into the Opt-out status and any address that has previously bounced into the Error status. The easiest way to do this is by following the steps below.

Unsubscribed contacts

1. Export a list of all unsubscribed email addresses from your previous ESP(s).
2. Import your list of unsubscribed contacts and place it into a group named “Unsubscribed”.
3. Head to your Audience tab, click on the Groups section, and click on the “Unsubscribed” group to open it.
4. Click on the Actions button and select Change status of all from the dropdown menu.
5. In the pop-up window that appears, select Opt-out and then click Save.

Bounced email addresses

1. Export a list of all bounces from your previous ESP(s).
2. Import your list of bounced contacts and place it into a group named “Bounces”.
3. Head to your Audience tab, click on the Groups section, and click on the “Bounces” group to open it.
4. Click on the Actions button and select Change status of all from the dropdown menu.
5. In the pop-up window that appears, select Error and then click Save.

Previously active email addresses with no activity in the last 12 months

To remain compliant with our Permission & Privacy Policy, you will need to remove any subscribers from your audience who still show as active but have not purchased or opened any emails within the last 12 months. This step is important because it will help protect your reputation within the transition, as sending to too many unengaged subscribers can cause your engaged subscribers to not receive your mailings in their inbox.

2. Authenticate your domain

Email authentication allows mailbox providers to ensure that the email is truly coming from the sender, and not someone pretending to be the sender. Although our system automatically handles certain elements of authentication for you, there are three additional types of email authentication that should be set up to protect your sender reputation: DKIM, DMARC, and SPF.

DKIM

DKIM is an authentication method that helps ensure the sender’s email address is legitimate and not being spoofed by a third party. Many major inbox providers require DKIM authentication for anyone sending through an ESP.

To set this up, please read this DKIM article (and feel free to forward it to your IT team as you will need their help with this). If you have a tiered account, you may also want to check out our DKIM for tiered accounts article.

DMARC

DMARC is another email authentication tool that’s designed to give email domain owners the ability to protect their domain from unauthorized use, like email spoofing.

Like DKIM, many major inbox providers require that anyone sending through an ESP have a DMARC policy on their domain. In order to protect your sending reputation and prevent any delivery trouble, it’s vital that you set up both DKIM and DMARC before sending any mailings from your account. For more information, please refer to this article.

SPF

Your organization’s Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record allows receiving servers to see that we are authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain. This is why we recommend that you also update your SPF record with our unique URL. To do this, your IT team would just need to include “_spf.e2ma.net” in your existing SPF record. For more information, please refer to this article.

3. Plan a transition strategy

It’s pretty common for open rates to fluctuate when you switch ESPs, either by increasing or decreasing. This is because mailbox providers are not used to seeing your domain send from the IPs associated with our URL, so they will need to re-evaluate your reputation. During this re-evaluation period, engagement rates often rise and fall before eventually leveling out.

The best way to signal to mailbox providers that you are sending inbox-worthy mail is to incrementally ramp up your sending.

While you’re ramping up your sending, here are some important things to keep in mind:

1. Choose the increment that you want to use as you increase your sending. Start with a number and double it each day.
2. Remain aware of your contacts’ engagement reactions throughout the process.
3. Hold at a number if issues appear to occur. Don’t stop sending or start sending to fewer contacts; just hold steady at the current number until things seem to get back to normal.

It is often advised to focus on a stronger ratio of engaged subscribers on the new platform and slowly add the less engaged subscribers from the old platform over time. This can help create a smoother transition but it does also burn the reputation of the old platform, which is not a fair thing to do. In most circumstances, there is no need to focus on an engagement ratio during your transition. Focus on a quantity ramp-up rather than a quality one, and everything will transition just fine.

4. Export previous engagement history

Engagement history is one of the most important tools to have at your disposal when troubleshooting deliverability experiences. For your internal team, having the engagement history from your past ESP will be invaluable in the troubleshooting / planning processes.

If your former ESP doesn’t allow all engagement data to be exported, you can still create a comprehensive picture of your engagement by exporting what you can and taking screenshots of the rest.

5. Build engaging and desirable content

There’s a lot that can be said about creating engaging and desirable content. Not only is it the entire purpose of the marketing industry, but from a deliverability perspective, things start better when coming from a more direct and minimalistic perspective.

 The foundation of strong deliverability is sending desirable content to subscribers who have asked for it.

Start with a focus on visibility, conciseness, and strategy. Some marketers want to use their email campaigns for a large newsletter e-blast. While this “shotgunning” approach can seem to create a point of interest for all, a lot of marketers don’t realize that this can actually hurt deliverability when overused. Instead, using subscriber information gathered through signup forms or purchase history to segment your audience can allow you to tailor the content in your campaigns and create a better ROI than the giant newsletter approach.

Tips for creating content that strengthens your deliverability experience

1. Communicate early to your subscribers about major changes to your send behaviors, such as a change in domain or content approaches.
2. Give subscribers the ability to choose the frequency and type of content that they would like to receive from you. Activating your Subscription Center can help with this.
3. Focus on one main point / call to action and include other options below it that support this point rather than distract from it. For example, use a button that links out to your content as the focal point of your call to action.
4. Intermix value-providing campaigns between promotional campaigns. Too much promotional content can cause subscriber burnout, so make sure to show your gratitude for your subscribers’ engagement by giving back through a loyalty program, a free gift, etc.

Sometimes marketers are not in full control of the types of content that they send to their audience. Newsletters have to be sent, big sales announced globally, and so on. The important thing to remember about these tips is that they are guidelines for strengthening your deliverability. Incorporating these principles into your sending practices can help stabilize and even strengthen your deliverability experience when paired with the other recommendations in this article.