Spam folders are storage spaces for unwanted emails.
Email bounces are like letters marked "Return to sender" -- and a hard bounce is worse because it is permanent.
This may sound discouraging. But those outcomes can be avoided by putting your emails through a nuanced, pre-send process, according to How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send, a paper by Litmus and Salesforce.
Here are some effective tricks:
IP Warming
This is is the practice of “slowly sending emails from a new IP address or domain name and gradually increasing send volume over time until you’ve “proven” yourself as a legitimate sender.
It sounds a little sneaky at first. But what you are really doing is ingratiating yourself with the ISPs. First, allow a period of four to eight weeks. Send a limited number of emails to start—use your new domain or IP in emails to maybe 1% of your list, doubling the total each week.
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Send messages with the highest open- and click-to-open rates.
List Validation
It also pays to validate your list, making sure that every person on it wants to be there. This requires that you:
One last admonition: Never purchase outside list.
Test Your Emails
It’s easy to end up in the spam folder. Check these elements first:
Getting Around Apple MPP
Then there’s the problem of Apple Mail Privacy Protection. As widely reported, this records every email as an open, so you’ll probably see inflated opens and a lower CTOR. There is a way around it—by driving and monitoring engagement.
First, ask what and where are your calls-to-action? What is the goal of the email?
Then, encourage true interaction with clickable elements like polls, thumbs, up/thumbs down signals and gamification. Finally, measure click-through rates.
And don’t forget: opens aren’t recorded at all in a spam folder. A sudden dip even in inflated opens would signal you’re hitting the spam folder.
Set up Your Infrastructure
Confirm your authentication and infrastructure. That means using these tools to verify the identity of senders:
The full report can be accessed here.