• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 12, 2021

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.