In today’s digital landscape, email remains a crucial communication channel for businesses. However, ensuring that your emails reach the intended recipients’ inboxes can be a challenge. Jess Swayze, a team lead on HubSpot’s email deliverability success team, shares valuable insights on maintaining a strong email reputation and implementing best practices for successful email campaigns.
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Understanding Email Reputation
Your brand’s email sending reputation is how inbox providers, such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook, or private mail servers perceive your sends. It is comprised of your past sending behavior across both your brand’s email sending domain and sending IP. The sends you make today will impact your mail acceptance and placement in the future.
Maintaining a good email reputation is essential to ensure that your messages are seen by the people who want to receive them. Here are some best practices to follow:
- Ensure that all contacts have opted in and are expecting to hear from your brand.
- Suppress contacts who haven’t opened your emails in the past year.
- Break up large sends into smaller batches to reduce throttling and prevent soft bounces.
Avoiding the Pitfalls of Emailing Your Entire Database
It may seem tempting to email your entire database, but this approach can have severe consequences for your email reputation. Here’s why:
- A typical marketing database decays at a rate of 20-25% per year, leading to high bounce rates if not regularly cleaned.
- Sending to a mix of marketing and sales contacts without proper consent can result in unsubscribes, spam complaints, and abuse complaints.
- Emailing your entire database increases the chances of your next email being delivered to spam due to negative engagement.
The key takeaway is to never email your entire database and always suppress contacts who haven’t engaged with your emails in the past year or more.
Analyzing Campaign Performance
After sending an email campaign, it’s crucial to analyze the results and look for signs of positive and negative engagement. Aim for the following benchmarks:
- Open rates of 25% or more
- Bounce rates below 1%
- Unsubscribe rates below 0.3%
- Spam complaint rates below 0.1%
If a campaign doesn’t perform as expected, consider the following:
- Did all contacts give permission to be emailed and expect this type of communication?
- Were disengaged contacts suppressed?
- Was the content relevant and valuable to the recipients?
By sending emails to engaged contacts who have opted in, you increase the chances of positive engagement and maintain a strong email reputation.
Conclusion
Mastering email deliverability is essential for businesses aiming to connect effectively with their audiences. Jess Swayze’s insights emphasize the critical role of maintaining a strong email reputation through best practices.
By prioritizing permission-based emailing, regularly cleaning databases, and analyzing campaign performance metrics, businesses can enhance their chances of reaching recipients’ inboxes and fostering positive engagement. These strategies not only uphold email integrity but also ensure that each communication adds genuine value to the recipient’s experience. As email remains a cornerstone of digital marketing, adhering to these principles will help businesses navigate challenges and achieve sustained success in their email campaigns.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the most important factor in maintaining a good email reputation?
The most important factor is ensuring that all contacts have opted in and are expecting to hear from your brand. Sending emails to contacts who have not given permission can severely damage your email reputation.
Q: How often should I clean my email database?
It’s recommended to regularly clean your email database, as a typical marketing database decays at a rate of 20-25% per year. Suppressing inactive or invalid email addresses can help maintain a healthy email list.
Q: What are the ideal benchmarks for email campaign performance?
Aim for open rates of 25% or more, bounce rates below 1%, unsubscribe rates below 0.3%, and spam complaint rates below 0.1%. These benchmarks indicate a well-performing email campaign with high positive engagement and low negative engagement.
Q: What should I do if my email campaign doesn’t perform as expected?
If your campaign underperforms, analyze the contacts included in the send. Ensure that they have given permission to be emailed and that disengaged contacts were suppressed. Also, evaluate the relevance and value of the content to your recipients.
Q: How can I improve my email deliverability with HubSpot?
HubSpot offers an automatic gray mail suppression feature on the recipient screen. By checking the “don’t include unengaged contacts” box, you can ensure that contacts who haven’t engaged with your emails are dropped from the send, increasing your chances of reaching the primary inbox.
