You’ve worked hard to create beautiful campaigns – now how do you make sure they get delivered? Having a list of subscribers is a good start, but only guarantees that your email will be sent – not received. Our guide about Understanding Email Deliverability lays out the steps you need to take to get your campaigns into your subscriber’s inboxes. This excerpt outlines the steps you need to follow to run successful email marketing campaigns: The Basic Delivery Model Assemble the right list The ideal audience wants to receive your email, has given you consent to email them and most important, i ..read more

Our section is your reference for best practices in email marketing. It’s full of valuable information about writing great content, building great lists, and most importantly, building a great reputation. Some of the topics we cover are: How do I make sure my email doesn’t go to the junk folder? How do I avoid spam complaints? How do I coach my clients on building their list(s)? What is a Spam trap? Is my content affecting my delivery? How does engagement affect my reputation? How do I effectively track my results and use them for future campaigns? Are there anti-spam laws that apply to me I ..read more

The term “trap” is very appropriate, in that these addresses are out there to catch people either not using proper list building practices, people harvesting emails, purchasing lists from a 3rd party, or marketers who have very poor list hygiene (whether knowingly or not*). Dormant Traps The 1st kind are used by ISPs and are usually addresses that have been dormant for a long period of time and this can vary anywhere from a few years to as little as 6 months. These addresses would have returned a hard bounce during this time but now no longer receive email, other than to catch this sort of act ..read more

Today I’d like to help you understand how important your reputation is, explain the different factors involved and what a few of the larger ISPs generally look for. Reputation is key to delivering emails successfully and the golden rule to maintaining a solid reputation comes down to one thing – send email to people who want it. If you were being called repeatedly by telemarketers at home every time you sat down to dinner despite telling them you were not interested, what would you do? Complain to the phone company? Disconnect your phone? Think about moving to Siberia? Well, that might be a li ..read more

I really don’t think people know how much their complaint rate affects delivery. If I told you 80-90% of delivery related problems are caused by complaints, would you believe me? Let me start by explaining how we get this data and how Feedback Loops (FBLs) work exactly. A bit of history Once upon a time (way back in 2003), the clever people at AOL starting using a little Spam button at the top of their interface that people could click on if they received an email they didn’t like. AOL soon realized they could not only use this little button to help people setup their own personal filters, but ..read more

Follow this checklist to make sure your communication is optimized and help you improve your email marketing effectiveness. General information ☐ From Name and Email: Is the sender recognizable? ☐ Reply-to address: Is it a real email? (check for typos or unwanted spaces) and avoid noreply and role accounts. ☐ Subject: Make sure you have no typos in your subject and that it’s explicit. Optimize your subject line. If you use merge fields: ☐ Preview as: Check at least 3 different contacts to make sure the information displays properly Header: ☐ Do you have the link to show the email on the browse ..read more

What is a Role Account? Role accounts (admin@, support@, sales@) are email addresses that are not associated with a particular person, but rather with a company, department, position or group. They are not generally intended for personal use, as they typically include a distribution list of recipients. Why are role accounts an issue? It is impossible to prove everyone who will receive emails at these addresses has given consent to receive them. This is especially important when it comes to sending commercial-based marketing communications because you can never control who or how many people wi ..read more

All the stats you need to check to improve your email marketing effectiveness and stay away from trouble. And a few quick tricks! Opens: Percentage of people who opened the email. Based on the number of people who displayed the images and those who clicked on a link within the email. Good open rates are between 20% – 40%, but senders who follow good email practices can hit an average of 60%. You can affect open rates by being a recognized sender, writing a clear subject and having a good pre-header text. Being straightforward and honest with your subscribers in your subject line will be more e ..read more

The first step to take to discover if you’re on the right path is knowing what your destination is. But you know what the goal is: improve your email email marketing results! Three core aspects of the strategy There are three core aspects of the strategy behind the messages you will create: The Output you can achieve The Time you spend on it The Resources at your disposal Hitting the sweet spot for your company that strikes the balance will determine the ultimate level of quality of your strategy. So before you send out your first campaign, ask yourself three questions to determine what the ba ..read more