Many of the world’s largest brands encounter deliverability issues and roughly a quarter of all emails fail to reach consumers. Email deliverability has become increasingly complicated and intimidating for even the savviest marketers.
In this white paper, Yesmail busts various myths, including:
-Deliverability is all about subject lines and trigger words
-Bulking doesn’t matter if you keep acquiring new subscribers
-Best practices around deliverability are different for B2B email marketers
Computer 10: Lesson 10 - Online Crimes and Hazards
End the Nightmares! 10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
2. Introduction
Most of the largest brands in the world encounter deliverability issues
on a regular basis. These issues frequently lead to losses that can range
from $50,000 to several million dollars depending on the industry
and the average revenue of the marketer’s email program. Roughly
25% of all emails fail to reach the inbox1
, and this is not surprising
given how complicated email deliverability has become in the last few
years. Reaching a consumer’s inbox is increasingly difficult – Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) now have sophisticated reputation-tracking
and blacklists have more power than ever before. In addition, most
users have migrated to the 4 biggest ISPs (Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, and
Yahoo), which means if you have a deliverability issue at just one of
these ISPs, you could immediately see a huge decrease in revenue
from your campaigns.
Deliverability issues are the stuff of marketing nightmares. Even
the terminology is like something out of a horror film… (ahem...
blacklisting, we’re looking at you). Like the scenes from our favorite
horror movies, it is the unknown risks and causes of deliverability
issues that often terrify marketers. For many, bulking and inboxing
issues are as frightening as that mysterious shadow on the other
side of the shower curtain. And just as some ghost stories reach epic
proportions as they are passed around from campfire to campfire, the
misconceptions surrounding the subject of email deliverability have
become real whoppers.
As a leading Email Service Provider with a crack team of deliverability
experts, we speak to tons of email marketers, and we’re sometimes
surprised by the urban myths out there. Here are some of the recent
deliverability rumors we’ve heard (grouped by subject matter), why
we think they’re baloney, and why they may actually be harming your
email program. Let’s shine the light, scatter those monsters, and de-
bunk some myths, shall we?
1. Email Deliverability Review from the DMA’s Email Marketing Council
DELIVERABILITY
3. An email message reaching its intended recipients’ inboxes
An email message being trapped by spam filters and thus
being prevented from reaching the inbox
An email address used by blacklists and ISPs to identify
spammers. The two types of spam trap addresses include
Inactive Recipients and Honey Pots
An email address that has not opened, clicked or purchased
in 12 months or greater. This categorization is not as serious
as Honey Pot
In email marketing, a list of companies who send unwanted
or SPAM email. ISPs will typically block emails coming from
companies who are blacklisted
An email address that has never been released to the outside
world, nor subscribed to a marketer’s message. Blacklists use
this spamtrap to catch marketers who fabricate addresses
or have bought a list from a third party that utilizes unclean
data
Inboxing
Bulking
Blacklisting
Spam Trap
Inactive Recipients
Honey Pot
Before we start, here are some terms you’re going to need to know, especially if you’re new to deliverability:
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 3Glossary
4. MYTH #1Even with best practices,
it’s impossible to get
good inboxing rates on a
consistent basis.
While reaching the inbox can sometimes seem more daunting than outrunning that guy
from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, there ARE specific steps you can take to improve your
deliverability. If your inboxing rate is inconsistent, chances are you’re missing something –
and that something is most likely mail stream separation. A lack of separation can result in
mail stream contamination, which causes roughly 80% of marketers’ inboxing problems.
So what is Mail Stream Contamination?
Much like a car travels down a road to reach its destination, email campaigns travel on an
Internet Protocol address (IP address) to reach recipients. Just as there are different types of
cars that travel on any roads, there are different types of email campaigns that travel on an IP
address (also known as a mail stream).
Running all of your email programs on one IP address can cause deliverability issues because
when one mail stream runs into trouble with an ISP, it prevents ALL of your email campaigns
from reaching the inbox. A failure in one campaign can cause gridlock for the rest of your
programs.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 4General Myths
5. EXAMPLE:
Let’s say you are running four types of email programs over one IP
address:
1) Retention
2) Marketing
3) 3rd Party (Co-reg, Rental, etc.)
4) Transactional (Order confirmations, etc)
Your retention and transactional programs are zooming along and
racing straight into the inbox without any deliverability issues.
Your marketing programs, on the other hand, receive some spam
complaints that lead to bulking issues. When you run all of your
program types over the same IP address, your marketing mail
stream has just road-blocked all of the other programs – leading to
intermittent inboxing.
If you have separate IP addresses per mail stream, even when your
marketing mail stream is paralyzed by inboxing issues, the rest of your
programs will continue to reach the inbox.
Having a single dedicated IP address for all your email programs is
not good enough anymore. To reach the inbox, you need to have
separate IP addresses for each mail stream based on offer type and
engagement. When you do this, you not only limit contamination
across your programs, but you also make it easier to diagnose and fix
any deliverability issue.
The Bottom Line:
Having separate IP addresses per mail stream protects you from
inboxing issues, keeps inboxing consistent, and improves your ability
to find and fix problems when they do occur.
RetentionThird Party
Marketing
Retention
Marketing
Retention
Single Mail Stream
INTERSTATE
IP #1
OPEN
INTERSTATE
IP #1
RetentionRetention Retention
Third PartyThird Party
MarketingMarketing MarketingMarketing MarketingMarketing
INTERSTATE
IP #1
Marketing
Multiple Mail Streams
Retention
Third Party
OPEN
INTERSTATE
IP #2
OPEN
INTERSTATE
IP #3
OPEN
INTERSTATE
IP #4
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 5General Myths
6. MYTH #2Deliverability is all about
subject lines and trigger
words, right?
Once upon a time, this myth might have been closer to the truth. But today, deliverability is
far more complicated, as ISPs have become increasingly sophisticated. Gone are the days
when you could solve all of your deliverability problems by scanning subject lines and
keywords for the word “Free”. Yes, you still need to be mindful of your content, but there are
far more stumbling blocks now than there were a few years ago. Here are just a few:
Abuse Complaints
(Spam)
Opens Click-Through
Rate
(CTR)
Messages “Passed By”
(If a subscriber interacts with the
messages above and below yours, but
does not engage with your message, the
ISPs view this as a negative metric)
1. Sending Reputation ISPs measure several metrics that affect your sending reputation – which, in turn, affects your inboxing. The following metrics
make-up your sending reputation:
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 6General Myths
7. 2. Problematic
URLs
ISPs will flag certain URLs commonly found in messages that generate excessive abuse
complaints. Often when marketers run into this problem, it is not their own domain that is
causing the issue. If you partner with other companies and run cross-promotional or co-
registration programs to gain opt-in subscribers, you need to be careful that your partners
have squeaky-clean reputations.
Since ISPs track domain reputation, you also need to worry about every company that your
partner is cross-promoting with. If you are all linking to the same domain, the fates of your
email programs are tied together. It is hard to know whether your partner’s partner is smart
about email deliverability, so think carefully before linking to 3rd party companies in your
email messages.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 7General Myths
8. 3. Link Shorteners
As tempting as it may be to chop down that long link in your email
to a nice short URL, link shorteners can impact your deliverability
because even some of the most popular ones, such as bit.ly, may
have been blacklisted at one point or another.
4. HTML-to-Text Ratio
You need to have a good balance between images, text and links.
Spammers like to use images to convey their message with a small
amount of text, since the ISPs’ systems cannot “see” the words in the
image. Too many images or too many links and too little text can
lead to bulking issues.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 8General Myths
9. 5. DKIM and SPF
compliance
Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) - a “digital
signature” which allows an email client to verify that
you are who you say you are - and Sender Policy
Framework (SPF) - which allows an email client to
verify that you are sending from an authorized mail
server – are methods of authentication that can help
deliverability by verifying to ISPs that you are who you
claim to be.
The Bottom Line:
Deliverability has moved beyond trigger words and
subject lines. If you want to improve your results, you’ll
need to modernize your deliverability practices. This
isn’t Rocky Horror Picture Show and we aren’t doing
“The Time Warp”.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 9General Myths
10. MYTH #3Deliverability best practices are different for
B2B email marketing, as we send to different
email clients.
Sorry, B2B marketers, you are not off the hook. Just because your
emails are hitting an Outlook email box instead of Gmail, that doesn’t
mean you can throw deliverability common sense out the window.
Outlook is powered by backend email servers. Blacklist providers are
used on many of these backend email servers and corporate email
systems, so if you are blacklisted, your marketing messages will not
come through. In addition, you still need to worry about corporate
SPAM traps and Outlook’s bulk folder. And many corporate email
servers use anti-spam software, like Barracuda Networks, which use
some of the same tactics as ISPs (sender reputation, html/text ratio,
image analysis, URL block lists, etc.) to protect companies from spam.
The Bottom Line:
The same deliverability best practices apply to B2B email marketing,
so you need to keep your data clean, run permission-based programs,
and continue to test and monitor campaign performance just like your
B2C brethren.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 10General Myths
11. Not so fast there, buddy. Yesmail’s initial testing on Outlook.com
indicates that Outlook.com, Hotmail and MSN.com all utilize the same
backend mailing infrastructure. This means that the same SPAM filters
and scoring methodologies in place for Hotmail also apply to Outlook.
com. So if you are inboxing at Hotmail, a good assumption (under the
current infrastructure) is that you would also inbox at Outlook.com.
The Bottom Line:
While Outlook.com is very new and Microsoft could certainly change
things, for the time being, you can think of Outlook as a new skin of
the Hotmail interface. Outlook.com may have gained 60 million users
in record time (six months), but Hotmail.com still has hundreds of
millions of users… so, YES, you still need to worry about Hotmail.com.
MYTH #4Now that Microsoft is promoting Outlook.com
as their main email service, we don’t need
to worry about Hotmail.com.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 11Email Client Myths
12. Inboxing at Gmail is heavily based on user engagement, and it is one of the hardest ISPs to
work with from a deliverability perspective. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to
hit the inbox, it just means you need to do some extra work to get there. Bummer, we know.
A key strategy to fix bulking issues at Gmail is to bite the bullet and only mail the most
engaged subscribers in your core program. When we say most engaged, we mean only those
who have interacted with your mail programs in the past 90 to 180 days. Using this tactic, it
will usually take about three to five mailings to see inbox placement for your core program.
Once you start inboxing successfully, you’ll see inboxing rates go from 100% bulking to 10-
15% inboxing. It’s important to ride out the same targeting strategy for another two to four
campaigns until you see your inboxing go to 100% and stabilize.
Now, before you freak out, and start doing your best impression of Drew Barrymore in
Scream, this doesn’t mean that you have to stop mailing anyone who hasn’t engaged
recently, it just means that you need to separate these subscribers to another IP address. As
you receive opens and clicks on this lower engagement IP, you can move these subscribers
over to your engaged IP address, which will further improve engagement on your core
program.
The Bottom Line:It’s not impossible to hit the Gmail inbox, but because Gmail is
so heavily weighted by user engagement, you need to focus your core program on engaged
users to avoid bulking issues.
MYTH #5There’s no way to get good
inboxing at Gmail.
We tested our message, which worked
fine, but then we got bulked at Gmail
on our very first send.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 12Email Client Myths
13. MYTH #6Bulking can be easily solved by following best
practices for a couple of sends. Then I can go
back to my usual sending pattern.
Bulking issues can gnaw away at your bottom line faster than a 28
Days Later zombie can outrun a Night of the Living Dead zombie.
And bulking issues take time to correct – in our experience it can take
anywhere from 48 hours to 14 days to fix a bulking issue depending on
the ISP, so not only are you losing revenue from your email campaigns
during the time you are bulking, but also while you are fixing the
problem.
Here is a real world example to demonstrate how quickly a bulking
issue at ONE ISP can add up.
A Fortune 50 marketer typically sends 4 campaigns per week. However,
this marketer has been blocked at Gmail for all of its campaigns sent
within the past week.
Average weekly revenue – 4 campaigns x $250,000 = $1,000,000
Revenue Loss due to a Bulking Issue at Gmail - $1,000,000 x 20%
(GMAIL Audience) = $200,000
This Fortune 50 marketer lost $200,000 in revenue in only one
week as a result of a single Gmail bulking issue. It is easy to see how
deliverability issues can quickly translate into revenue losses.
The Bottom Line:
Can you really afford to knowingly go back to the pattern that caused
your bulking issues? We’re guessing not, unless you enjoy having
uncomfortable conversations with your CEO.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 13Blacklisting Myths
14. MYTH #7So I’m bulking, but that
doesn’t matter if I just
acquire new subscribers.
You know when you are watching a horror movie and the heroine runs up the stairs instead
of out the front door? Yeah... this myth is kind of like that. Bulking does matter and acquiring
new subscribers is not going to help you much. The fact that you are bulking means that,
from a program perspective, you are doing something wrong. Adding new subscribers is like
trying to fix a clogged drain by stuffing more debris in the pipe. If your emails have already
started to bulk, then sending to an ever-increasing number of subscribers is only going to
make matters worse as more of your emails are treated as spam, until 100% are blocked.
When you are bulking, you need to take a step back and diagnose the issue. Look at your
subscriber data to gauge engagement, look at your content to identify poor deliverability
practices and look for problematic URLs that contribute to major issues.
The Bottom Line:A big push for acquiring new subscribers is not going to fix
your bulking issues - focus on it after you’ve fixed your deliverability problems.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 14Blacklisting Myths
15. MYTH #8If we get blacklisted, we can just change
our domain name or move IPs, right?
Oh geez, no! This is the King Kong of dangerous, damaging
myths for multiple reasons. Blacklists monitor both IPs and
domain names, so moving IPs is not going to solve your
problem. Even if it did provide a temporary fix, it is still a
bad idea as you haven’t fixed the underlying problem. For
example, if the reason for your blacklisting was emailing
spam-traps, you would soon end up right back on the
blacklist after you moved your IPs or changed your domain
name – a lot of work and time wasted for nothing. In
addition, you would lose any sender reputation that you had
built up on your old domain and IP address, as well as any
brand trust you had with your active email subscribers.
When you find yourself on a blacklist, the proper response
is to spend time understanding and fixing the root cause of
the problem before you even talk to a blacklist about being
removed from its database. Based on our experience, it
usually takes between 24 hours to three or four business days
to remove a blacklisting depending on the list and the issue.
The Bottom Line:
Changing your domain name or moving IPs will only
compound your deliverability problems, not solve them.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 15Blacklisting Myths
16. MYTH #9Companies with small distribution lists
have a lesser chance of reaching email
inboxes.
In this case, the old adage “Size Matters” doesn’t apply. When
it comes to inboxing, ISPs see no difference between sending
100,000 emails or 1,000,000 emails. ISPs will not penalize a small
company based on the size of its distribution list .
There are a few instances when companies with small
distribution lists need to be careful. List size can become a
problem when you send so much email that recipients ignore
your message or mark it as SPAM. Or, on the flip side, if you
send so few emails that you cannot develop a sender reputation
or subscribers forget about you.
The Bottom Line:
Inboxing is a ratio-based game.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 16List Management Myths
17. MYTH #10Data hygiene doesn’t work. I use data hygiene
and still got blacklisted.
Data hygiene is an extremely important step that you MUST take
to avoid ending up on a blacklist, but it is not the ONLY step. Data
hygiene will get rid of misspelled addresses, honey pots, and inactive
addresses, but it, alone, will not reduce the risk of a blacklisting by
100%. To protect yourself, you need to think about other deliverability
factors like email design, engagement, content and permission based
practices.
Need another reason to keep your data shiny and clean? Data hygiene
can also improve your inboxing. Keeping your data clean is vital
to sender reputation. When you email a large number of inactive
subscribers, the ISPs see that your ratio of volume to engagement is
low and may decide to send you to the dreaded spam folder. Not only
that, but by removing inactive subscribers, you also save some money
by sending fewer emails. Every year, over 30% of people change their
email address or become inactive.2
So removing inactive emails can
have a great effect on your deliverability and ROI.
The Bottom Line:
Data hygiene alone will not guarantee that you will avoid blacklisting,
but it does significantly reduce the risk and is a process that should not
be skipped.
2. DMNews, The list churn epidemic: how to diagnose, treat and immunize your database, Sept 2010.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 17List Management Myths
18. Summary
While email deliverability can seem like a hairy
nightmare, you CAN contain the beast by following
some simple best practices. Deliverability can be
complex and it is certainly important, but it shouldn’t be
confusing or induce screaming.
Here are some action items to keep your programs on
track:
1. Ensure your IP addresses are being scanned at
Spamhaus EVERY 24 HOURS (at least).
2. Generate inbox placement reports at ISPs
BEFORE every campaign (at least 72 hours prior).
3. Ensure your mail streams are separated out
onto DEDICATED IP ADDRESSES.
4. Perform hygiene on your data at least once
EVERY 6-12 MONTHS.
5. Have a proactive contingency plan in place.
Know your next steps if a blacklisting or
bulking issue occurs.
It’s human nature to be afraid of the mysterious, but
now that we’ve cleared some things up for you and
given some clear action items we hope you won’t feel so
lost in the dark.
End theNightmares!10 Email Deliverability Myths Debunked
page 18Summary