The success of your email campaigns is dependent on whether messages end up in the inbox vs. the spam folder. It's called deliverability: how many of your messages actually get delivered into the inbox? Email account providers have put in place all sorts of filters to block unsolicited email messages (rightfully so!). You need to make sure that your campaigns are not mistaken for unsolicited messages and placed in the junk folder.
Your deliverability depends mostly on your reputation as a sender. That's a value that you can measure, monitor, and improve over time.
Your reputation is at the "account" level (vs. "list" level) and mostly depends on:
Your reputation has a major impact on your deliverability. It affects all messages sent from the same account (i.e. it affects all lists).
Your reputation as a sender is directly linked (and a good indicator of) the level of engagement of your recipients (how much do they open and click?). More and more email account providers (e.g. Yahoo!, Gmail, Outlook.com, AOL, etc.) use "engagement" as a fundamental part of their inboxing algorithms (i.e. the formulas they use to determine whether your message should be "inboxed" or "junked").
Developing a high level of engagement can take some time, and you need to be careful: a false step (e.g. sending a message that seems unsolicited) could back-fire and nullify all of your hard work.
Please note that although your reputation is certainly the main factor affecting your deliverability, the message itself can play a role. For example, the presence of spam words, HTML errors, or spammy URLs (e.g. URLs containing IP addresses instead of a domain: http://64.174.94.10/IMG/LOGO.GIF). Use the "Check up" feature to review your message. |
The Reputation gauge is located in the bottom left corner of your admin control panel, below the left-side navigation menus. si trova in basso a sinistra, alla base del menu. The value is calculated based on proprietary algorithms that take into account a large number of variables, including first and foremost the number of spam complaints received by the major email account providers that return such information (e.g. Yahoo!, Gmail, AOL, etc.).
Reputation is at the account level, not at the list level. This is because there are several parameters that are set at the account level in the system, shared across all lists in the account. These parameters allow the receiving entity (e.g. Yahoo!) to identify all of the messages as coming from the same "place". They include:
Yes, absolutely: your Reputation index is regularly recalculated and can be affected - in a positive or negative way - by every mailing that you send through your account.
Please note that there are cases in which the reputation index is shown as pending if it is being recalculated, or if there isn't enough information yet in the system to calculate it.
Following email marketing best practices, reaching a higher level of engagement, and ensuring the highest list hygiene are all things that will quickly be reflected in a higher reputation index (and higher deliverability).
In order to improve your reputation as a sender, following these best practices:
Use the corresponding feature in your list preferences. You can choose whether to:
Everything happens automatically. Remember that these are inactive recipients: the impact on your opens and clicks will be minimal, but the advantages in terms of reputation could be significant because - by definition - your level of engagement will go up (e.g. ame opens, less recipients = higher open rate).
We recommend using this feature in combination with a re-engagement campaign. A re-engagement campaign consists of series of messages (tipically 2 or 3) sent to inactive recipients over a certain period of time, to try to re-engage them. For example, an ecommerce store could filter customers that have not opened the store's weekly newsletter in 90 days and send them a particularly inviting offer. This can be done using a combination of: