8 Best Practices for Email Deliverability

Learn how to improve your email deliverability with best practices, which include using a reputable Email Service Provider like Klaviyo, personalising your emails, and providing a clear unsubscribe option.

Email has become one of the most important and effective communication tools for businesses. It remains one of the most effective ways to reach customers and promote products and services.

However, with the increasing amount of spam and unwanted emails being sent, it has become increasingly difficult for businesses to ensure that their emails will be delivered to the intended recipients.

Email Service Providers have placed restrictions and regulations around email marketing platforms, forcing them to comply with best practices in order to protect everyone’s privacy and security.

It is crucial to learn what could make your newsletter land in the spam folder and avoid it. Even with the best marketing strategies in place, if your message fails to reach your target audience, all your efforts will be in vain. Time, money and even talent can be lost along the way.

Therefore, it is essential to ensure that your emails are delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes. This is where the term deliverability comes in.

In Connect The Dots, our Klaviyo Experts have compiled eight best practices for improving email deliverability in your business. Let’s dive in!

What is Email Deliverability?

Email deliverability refers to the ability of your emails to reach your subscribers’ inboxes without getting blocked or marked as spam by email service providers (ESPs) such as Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail.

To ensure high email deliverability, you need to maintain a good sender reputation, which is determined by factors such as email engagement rates, spam complaints, and email bounces.

Why is Email Deliverability Important?

Email deliverability determines the success of your email marketing campaigns.

If your emails fail to be delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes, you will not be able to generate leads or sales. Simple as that.

It might sound like an obvious outcome, but it is often overlooked, as businesses incur bad practices without preventing the outcomes, e. g. sending emails that might get clipped, only image emails, or not knowing where their subscribers come from. People will unsubscribe from an email they can’t see, or if they receive content they don’t have any interest in.

Low email deliverability will also hurt your sender’s reputation, leading to your emails being marked as spam or blocked altogether(ever wondered why some important messages you were expecting to receive landed in your spam folder? Well, this is it). This can damage your brand image and result in lost revenue.

8 Best Practices for Improving Email Deliverability

1. Use a Reputable Email Service Provider (ESP): Choosing the right ESP is crucial for ensuring high email deliverability. Klaviyo is an excellent choice for businesses looking to improve their email deliverability. Klaviyo offers a robust set of features and tools that can help you maintain a good sender reputation and increase email engagement rates.
2. Build a Quality Email List: Building a quality email list is essential for improving email deliverability. Your email list should only include subscribers who have opted-in to receive your emails. Purchasing email lists or adding email addresses without permission can lead to high bounce rates, spam complaints, and damage your sender reputation.
3. Keep Your Email List Clean: Cleaning your email list regularly is important for maintaining a good sender reputation. Remove inactive subscribers who have not engaged with your emails for a long time. You can also remove email addresses that have bounced or marked your emails as spam. With Klaviyo you can automate list cleaning using a Sunset flow to suppress unengaged customers after they have a certain amount of unopened emails.
4. Personalise Your Emails: Personalising your emails can improve engagement rates and reduce the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam. Klaviyo offers incredible personalisation features that allow you to segment your email list based on subscriber behaviour and preferences.
5. Use a Consistent Sending Schedule: Sending emails on a consistent schedule can help you maintain a good sender reputation. Klaviyo can help you avoid sending too many emails in a short period, as this can lead to high bounce rates and spam complaints. When sending an email campaign there’s the option to skip recently emailed profiles, and you have complete control over your sending strategy. It is also important to remember to schedule communications in the recipient’s local timezone, so your subscribers will never receive an untimely email from you.
6. Monitor Your Email Metrics: Monitoring your email metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and spam complaints can help you identify areas for improvement. Klaviyo offers advanced reporting features that allow you to track your email metrics and optimize your campaigns for better results.
7. Authenticate Your Emails: Authentication is the process of verifying that your emails are legitimate and sent from a verified sender. Klaviyo offers several authentication features such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC that can help improve email deliverability and reduce the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam.
8. Provide a Clear Unsubscribe Option: Providing a clear unsubscribe option can help you maintain a good sender reputation and reduce the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam. Klaviyo offers unsubscribe options and customizable preference pages that allow subscribers to opt out of your emails easily or choose how they want to receive your broadcasts.

Improving email deliverability is crucial for any business looking to establish and maintain a successful email marketing campaign. Klaviyo is a powerful email service provider that offers several best practices for improving deliverability.

Some of these best practices include building a clean email list, creating engaging and personalized content, segmenting your email list, and monitoring your email deliverability metrics regularly.

By following these best practices, you can significantly improve your email deliverability, increase engagement with your subscribers, and ultimately drive more revenue for your business.

However, it’s important to note that email deliverability is not a one-time task. It’s an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring and optimization to ensure continued success.

By staying up-to-date with the latest email marketing trends and best practices and regularly monitoring your email deliverability metrics, you can ensure that your email campaigns are always reaching your subscribers’ inboxes and driving real results for your business.

If you’re interested in taking your email marketing efforts to the next level and need expert guidance, we invite you to Book a FREE Discovery call with our Klaviyo specialist at Connect the Dots and get expert advice on how to maximise your email strategy.