Outlook for 2008:
Essential Email Marketing Deliverability Guide
By Megan Ouellet, Director of Marketing for Listrak
December 5, 2007
Spam messages are on the rise. According to IronPort, there are over 62 billion spam messages sent per day, up from 31 billion last year. And the threat is greater than ever as spam messages contain viruses and large images that clog email servers. To combat this, ISPs, corporations, and individual end users are implementing new technologies and strategies to secure their inboxes by blocking unsolicited messages. While these precautions are necessary, many times messages from legitimate email marketers are casualties of this war as they may inadvertently contain characteristics used by spammers and are, therefore, mislabeled as spam by ISPs or the end users themselves.
Ensuring that your emails are delivered to your recipients’ inboxes and that they render correctly when viewed may seem like an uphill battle, but there are several factors that you can address that will greatly increase your deliverability. However, before you begin you must first make sure you have an accurate account of what your current deliverability metrics are. According to the Email Experience Council (eec), four-fifths of ESPs calculate deliverability by deducting all failed messages from the total mailed. The remaining one-fifth calculates it by deducting only hard bounces. The eec also found inconsistencies in bounce data and bounce management practices from ISPs and ESPs, which makes it difficult for companies to measure their results accurately. It is critical that you work with your ESP to learn how it calculates its delivery rate and how it handles and labels both hard and soft bounces. Knowing these items will help you identify problem areas so you can quickly make adjustments to fix any issues.
Listrak, a leading provider of email marketing solutions, has put together the following email deliverability best practices guide to help you increase your deliverability by addressing the major challenges that lead to filtered or blocked messages. This white paper specifically focuses on email reputation, authentication, accreditation, content, and email sending technology.
