5 Tips to Increase Your Email Deliverability

You put a lot of work into creating your email campaigns each month.

The last thing you want is to have your email flagged as spam, and not be seen by the audience you’re trying to reach.

If you’re a Constant Contact customer, you’re in luck! We do most of the heavy lifting to make sure your emails get where they need to go.

But there are also steps you can take to keep spam reports low and make sure your newsletters and announcements get delivered.

Here are 5 tips to keep in mind:

1. Become a Trusted Sender

Encourage the recipient to put your ‘From Address’ in their address book, trusted sender list or approved sender list (whatever the name may be in their email client). Make it easy for recipients to add your ‘From Address’ to their trusted sender or contact list by keeping it short, easy-to-remember and easy-to-type.

2. Understand email filters

Check your from line, subject line and email copy, and avoid using language and techniques that might look like spam to a content-based spam filter.

Avoid the following:

• Spam-like words: Free, guarantee, credit card, sex etc.
• All capital letters: Resist the temptation to use capital letters and over-punctuate. When you use all capital letters, there is no differentiation in your words. This makes them harder to read. It makes your email look like spam and dramatically increases the likelihood of your email being filtered.
• Incomplete information: Your physical address is required by law. If you’re a Constant Contact customer, you can update this information in the footer of your email.
• Excessive punctuation!!!: This is likely to trip email filters especially when used in conjunction with spam-like words and capital letters.
• Excessive use of $$, and other symbols: Again, this tactic is likely to trip email filters. Use just one dollar sign for currency and use descriptive words instead of symbols to get your message across.
• Misleading (or missing) subject line: Always match your subject line to your email content and never employ spam tactics like leaving the subject line blank or using Re: so that the recipient thinks it is a reply to a previous email.

3. Analyze your bounce reports

In addition to spam reports, look at your bounces as well. If you’re seeing the same addresses bouncing again and again, there may be a problem and you may want to consider removing them from your list.

Here are a few reasons why your emails may have bounced:

• Non-existent email address: Check for typos and make sure your contact didn’t provide you with a false email address.
• Undeliverable email: If bounced emails are in the “Undeliverable” category, that means that the receiving email server is temporarily unavailable, was overloaded, or couldn’t be found.
• Mailbox full: If your contact has so many emails in their inbox that they can’t receive more, your emails will bounce back until there’s space for them.
• Blocked email: If the email addresses are placed within the “Blocked” category, the receiving server has blocked the incoming email.

4. Monitor your “reply to:” address

Many recipients are fearful of using the unsubscribe function as it has been used by spammers to verify an address, rather than as a legitimate unsubscribe. So, be alert to unsubscribe requests coming to your “reply to:” address and permanently remove those email addresses right away.

5. Use a reputable service

There’s no need to go it alone. We take care of the proper protocols, develop relationships with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and are whitelisted to be sure your permission-based email gets through. We maintain strong permission policies and have an active anti-blocking team working on your behalf.

We do all of these things, so you can go back to doing what you do best — running your business.

Small changes make a big difference

Keep these tips in mind when putting together your next email newsletter or announcement.

It won’t take a ton of effort, but can have a major impact on your overall marketing results.

Ryan Pinkham
Ryan is interested in helping small businesses and non-profits recognize their full-potential through marketing and social media. He loves to hear your story and learn the creative and innovative ways that you’re marketing your business.