Deliverability: how to properly set up your marketing emails?
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2024 10:30 am
Deliverability and marketing automation go hand in hand : a CRM strategy without good deliverability will not allow you to achieve your sales objectives.
In a previous article, we offered you the chance to discover 10 best deliverability practices , particularly when setting up your marketing automation platform .
Today, we suggest you take a closer look at creating your marketing emails so that they comply with the rules of MailBox Providers. Because beyond good setup practices, each of the emails themselves have an impact on your deliverability .
142.16 billion emails were routed in France in 2022 according to DMA (Data & Marketing Association France), so here are 10 tips to preserve your reputation and maximize your chances of conversion !
1. Subject of the marketing email: first contact with your recipients
You might think that the subject line of your emails has no antigua and barbuda business email list direct impact on your deliverability… but it does! Well-formulated and attractive subject lines encourage your recipients to open your marketing emails. And the more your emails are opened, the more you gain recognition from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as a sender offering quality content targeting the right audiences.
Some tips to encourage your emails to be opened with a quality subject line:
Put the key subject at the beginning of the object
Suggest an email subject that covers the content of the email
Avoid spam words (SPECIAL OFFER)
Use few or no emojis as not all of them are read by ISPs
Do A/B testing
Limit punctuation (!!!) and capital letters (PROMOTIONS)
2. Mirror link, the good practice to apply
The mirror link is a link included in your email allowing recipients to access a web page on which an HTML copy of the message sent is placed. This link, often placed in the header of marketing emails, is not an obligation in terms of deliverability but rather a good practice to apply on a daily basis .
Indeed, it happens that emails are not correctly read by MUAs (Mail User Agents). By integrating a mirror link in the header of your email, you offer the recipient an alternative solution to read your message .
Your communication will therefore arrive safely via their browser and you will avoid being placed in spam by your recipients! And this is where " mirror link " and " deliverability " are closely linked: a good experience of your recipient towards your communications will prevent you from being reported as spam by MBP.
3. Your HTML as a treasure trove for MBPs
You may not know this but the code of your marketing emails is scanned by MailBox Providers to ensure that you are not spam or a virus. Therefore, you must be careful when writing your HTML to make it easier for robots to read.
Here are some essential prerequisites to pass the filters:
Check the quality of your code against international standards, particularly the World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C )
Avoid forbidden tags
Don’t forget about mobile users by thinking about code that is optimized for both desktop and mobile
4. The balance between text and design
If you would like to put your entire product catalog directly inside your newsletter… MBP has decided otherwise! If your HTML exceeds a certain weight, it will be automatically blocked by spam filters.
It is therefore better to respect the rule of 1/3 images and 2/3 text so that your email does not take too long to display (some recipients might get impatient and ignore your message) but especially so that its weight does not exceed 100k. Moreover, be aware that Gmail truncates your email if this is the case by inviting the recipient to click on the hyperlink "display the entire message".
Among the best practices to put all the chances on your side from a deliverability point of view of your marketing emails:
Add alt text in case images are not displayed
Limit emojis and punctuation that MBPs don't like
5. Personalization: each customer has their own content
A personalized email has a 29% higher unique open rate and a 41% higher unique click-through rate. This reinforces the core principle of deliverability: higher engagement rates with your marketing emails positively impact your reputation .
From the subject line to the product selection, every element of an email can be tailored to individual preferences and appetites. You just need to make sure you have the necessary information in your customer data platform to be able to use it in your marketing emails. Be careful, however, not to ask for too much because the GDPR stipulates that you can only keep in your database the information that you use .
6. What multimedia content is allowed?
On average, a European scrolls the equivalent of a 180m path on their smartphone every day. To capture their attention, innovative and disruptive digital content is essential. The problem is that some formats are poorly perceived and not read by MBPs .
Here are some simple rules to always keep in mind for good deliverability of your emails:
Limit yourself to small GIFs that display quickly
Favor a static image with a link redirecting to a hosted video rather than a video directly embedded in the heart of the email
Never include attachment(s)
7. Spam words: not everything can be said!
Spam words are words monitored by messaging services to limit promotional and fraudulent messages in individuals' mailboxes. The MBP algorithm is instructed to block these words .
But what are they? There is no defined and public list of words to ban. However, there are four categories of words that should be avoided:
Promotion-related words like “ free ,” “ gift ,” or “ special offer ”
Action words like “ don’t hesitate ,” “ limited time ,” or “ hurry ”
Health-related words like “ effortless ,” “ weight loss ,” or “ online pharmacy ”
Money-related words like " make money ," " profits ," or " easy money "
Spam words must therefore be banned from your emails , both in the subject and in the body of the email, otherwise your reputation will be damaged and your emails will end up directly in your contacts' junk mail.
8. Be careful with links in your emails
In the presence of a suspicious link, your communication may be perceived as dubious and automatically redirected to your recipients' spam folders by MBPs. This will cause a deterioration of your reputation and significantly reduce the chances of your email being opened.
Before each sending, remember to check that your links:
Are not broken
Redirect to the correct page
Are not blacklisted
Are hosted on a site with a good reputation
9. Hidden content: transparency for more trust
You don't do it on your website, so don't do it in your emails. Hiding tone-on-tone content is strictly forbidden by MBP filters, otherwise your communications will not reach their destination. Not only would your communications not be read, but your reputation would suffer!
On the other hand, certain elements must be clearly visible in your email: the brand name, the postal address, a telephone number and a contact email address.
10. Unsubscribe from marketing emails: the reader is king
Unsubscribe rate is the percentage of users who voluntarily left your email list following a campaign. It indicates the number of subscribers who chose to unengage from your marketing emails . Know that if a consumer is not satisfied with the offers they receive by email, they will unsubscribe on their own in 60% of cases.
A high unsubscribe rate has negative implications, reducing the deliverability of your emails and the overall reputation of your company. This can lead to being identified as spam by major email service providers such as Gmail or Yahoo. It is therefore essential for you to identify these contacts to systematically exclude them from your contact lists and communications (reject list). By avoiding annoying consumers who are not interested in your communications, you are acting positively on your reputation and you are meeting the requirements of the GDPR.
On the Splio platform:
Email addresses present in our customers' reject lists are automatically excluded from their mailings.
Contacts generating 3 consecutive soft bounce messages are automatically added to the bounce list.
5 checks to make to avoid sending your marketing emails to spam
According to 74% of consumers, spam is an email they did not ask to receive. In the majority of cases, they will report your email as spam or unsubscribe from your communications. If many of your contacts take one of the two actions mentioned above, your reputation with MBPs would suffer greatly.
In a previous article, we offered you the chance to discover 10 best deliverability practices , particularly when setting up your marketing automation platform .
Today, we suggest you take a closer look at creating your marketing emails so that they comply with the rules of MailBox Providers. Because beyond good setup practices, each of the emails themselves have an impact on your deliverability .
142.16 billion emails were routed in France in 2022 according to DMA (Data & Marketing Association France), so here are 10 tips to preserve your reputation and maximize your chances of conversion !
1. Subject of the marketing email: first contact with your recipients
You might think that the subject line of your emails has no antigua and barbuda business email list direct impact on your deliverability… but it does! Well-formulated and attractive subject lines encourage your recipients to open your marketing emails. And the more your emails are opened, the more you gain recognition from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as a sender offering quality content targeting the right audiences.
Some tips to encourage your emails to be opened with a quality subject line:
Put the key subject at the beginning of the object
Suggest an email subject that covers the content of the email
Avoid spam words (SPECIAL OFFER)
Use few or no emojis as not all of them are read by ISPs
Do A/B testing
Limit punctuation (!!!) and capital letters (PROMOTIONS)
2. Mirror link, the good practice to apply
The mirror link is a link included in your email allowing recipients to access a web page on which an HTML copy of the message sent is placed. This link, often placed in the header of marketing emails, is not an obligation in terms of deliverability but rather a good practice to apply on a daily basis .
Indeed, it happens that emails are not correctly read by MUAs (Mail User Agents). By integrating a mirror link in the header of your email, you offer the recipient an alternative solution to read your message .
Your communication will therefore arrive safely via their browser and you will avoid being placed in spam by your recipients! And this is where " mirror link " and " deliverability " are closely linked: a good experience of your recipient towards your communications will prevent you from being reported as spam by MBP.
3. Your HTML as a treasure trove for MBPs
You may not know this but the code of your marketing emails is scanned by MailBox Providers to ensure that you are not spam or a virus. Therefore, you must be careful when writing your HTML to make it easier for robots to read.
Here are some essential prerequisites to pass the filters:
Check the quality of your code against international standards, particularly the World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C )
Avoid forbidden tags
Don’t forget about mobile users by thinking about code that is optimized for both desktop and mobile
4. The balance between text and design
If you would like to put your entire product catalog directly inside your newsletter… MBP has decided otherwise! If your HTML exceeds a certain weight, it will be automatically blocked by spam filters.
It is therefore better to respect the rule of 1/3 images and 2/3 text so that your email does not take too long to display (some recipients might get impatient and ignore your message) but especially so that its weight does not exceed 100k. Moreover, be aware that Gmail truncates your email if this is the case by inviting the recipient to click on the hyperlink "display the entire message".
Among the best practices to put all the chances on your side from a deliverability point of view of your marketing emails:
Add alt text in case images are not displayed
Limit emojis and punctuation that MBPs don't like
5. Personalization: each customer has their own content
A personalized email has a 29% higher unique open rate and a 41% higher unique click-through rate. This reinforces the core principle of deliverability: higher engagement rates with your marketing emails positively impact your reputation .
From the subject line to the product selection, every element of an email can be tailored to individual preferences and appetites. You just need to make sure you have the necessary information in your customer data platform to be able to use it in your marketing emails. Be careful, however, not to ask for too much because the GDPR stipulates that you can only keep in your database the information that you use .
6. What multimedia content is allowed?
On average, a European scrolls the equivalent of a 180m path on their smartphone every day. To capture their attention, innovative and disruptive digital content is essential. The problem is that some formats are poorly perceived and not read by MBPs .
Here are some simple rules to always keep in mind for good deliverability of your emails:
Limit yourself to small GIFs that display quickly
Favor a static image with a link redirecting to a hosted video rather than a video directly embedded in the heart of the email
Never include attachment(s)
7. Spam words: not everything can be said!
Spam words are words monitored by messaging services to limit promotional and fraudulent messages in individuals' mailboxes. The MBP algorithm is instructed to block these words .
But what are they? There is no defined and public list of words to ban. However, there are four categories of words that should be avoided:
Promotion-related words like “ free ,” “ gift ,” or “ special offer ”
Action words like “ don’t hesitate ,” “ limited time ,” or “ hurry ”
Health-related words like “ effortless ,” “ weight loss ,” or “ online pharmacy ”
Money-related words like " make money ," " profits ," or " easy money "
Spam words must therefore be banned from your emails , both in the subject and in the body of the email, otherwise your reputation will be damaged and your emails will end up directly in your contacts' junk mail.
8. Be careful with links in your emails
In the presence of a suspicious link, your communication may be perceived as dubious and automatically redirected to your recipients' spam folders by MBPs. This will cause a deterioration of your reputation and significantly reduce the chances of your email being opened.
Before each sending, remember to check that your links:
Are not broken
Redirect to the correct page
Are not blacklisted
Are hosted on a site with a good reputation
9. Hidden content: transparency for more trust
You don't do it on your website, so don't do it in your emails. Hiding tone-on-tone content is strictly forbidden by MBP filters, otherwise your communications will not reach their destination. Not only would your communications not be read, but your reputation would suffer!
On the other hand, certain elements must be clearly visible in your email: the brand name, the postal address, a telephone number and a contact email address.
10. Unsubscribe from marketing emails: the reader is king
Unsubscribe rate is the percentage of users who voluntarily left your email list following a campaign. It indicates the number of subscribers who chose to unengage from your marketing emails . Know that if a consumer is not satisfied with the offers they receive by email, they will unsubscribe on their own in 60% of cases.
A high unsubscribe rate has negative implications, reducing the deliverability of your emails and the overall reputation of your company. This can lead to being identified as spam by major email service providers such as Gmail or Yahoo. It is therefore essential for you to identify these contacts to systematically exclude them from your contact lists and communications (reject list). By avoiding annoying consumers who are not interested in your communications, you are acting positively on your reputation and you are meeting the requirements of the GDPR.
On the Splio platform:
Email addresses present in our customers' reject lists are automatically excluded from their mailings.
Contacts generating 3 consecutive soft bounce messages are automatically added to the bounce list.
5 checks to make to avoid sending your marketing emails to spam
According to 74% of consumers, spam is an email they did not ask to receive. In the majority of cases, they will report your email as spam or unsubscribe from your communications. If many of your contacts take one of the two actions mentioned above, your reputation with MBPs would suffer greatly.