Commentary

Into The Inbox: The Placement Tricks Used By The Most Skillful Email Marketers

Want to get your emails into inboxes? Here are some best practices that popped up in Email Marketing 2021 Benchmark report, a study by Validity and Demand Metric.

First, honor opt-out requests by flagging or removing email addresses — 93% of firms with 90% or better inbox placement do this, versus 66% that fall below 90%.

Next, add new email addresses to your list organically through inbound marketing. This is done by 71% of the 90%-plus companies, compared to 56% of those below the 90% threshold.

Here's one thing to avoid — don't buy email addresses to add to your list. Only 18% of the firms with 90% placement do this, while in contrast, 25% of those below 90% do.

Another area where those below 90% are more active is removing bounced email addresses — the split is 67%-54%.

Here are a few more best practices:

  • Use some sort of software or technology in an attempt to validate email addresses — this is done by 43% of those that hit 90% placement, and 31% that do not.  
  • Remove lapsed recipients by lack of engagement or spam complaints — done by 43% of the 90% group, and 32% of the other.
And firms that achieve 90% placement are also more likely to know:
  • How long they spend reading their emails — 46%, vs. 27% of companies below 90% placement
  • Where they are opening emails (geolocation)—68%/40% 
  • Which browsers they are using — 64%/54%
  • Which email clients they are using—68%/47%
  • Which mobile devices they are using — 78%/47%
  • Finally, firms with 90% placement rates are more likely to conduct email personalization — 82% do, versus 70% of firms with lower rates. and they are 10% more likely to also to perform list management and 4% more prone to conduct email reactivations campaigns — 35% do. 

In addition, 25% of the brands in the 90% inbox delivery category conduct subject-line optimization, compared to 17% of everyone else. 

Validity and Demand Metric surveyed 450 marketers.

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