Getting emails delivered to the recipient's inbox is one of the biggest challenges most email marketers struggle with. It's disheartening to see your emails land in spam despite all the effort and time you've invested in creating a compelling email.
This guide will equip you with 12 proven strategies to increase your email deliverability and increase the chances of your messages landing in your audience's inbox. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting out, these tips will set you on the path to better results.
How to increase your email deliverability
Here is a list of the 12 most effective ways to help you increase your email deliverability:
1. Authenticate email messages, IP, and domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
A strong email infrastructure begins with proper authentication of your sender domain and messages. Email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC help verify that your emails are sent from authorized sources, ensuring they’re legitimate and trustworthy.
By implementing these protocols, you reduce the risk of emails being flagged as spam or marked as suspicious. This not only improves your chances of landing in your subscribers’ inboxes but also safeguards your domain’s reputation against phishing or spoofing attempts.
How does it increase email deliverability:
Authentication builds trust between your domain and recipient servers. Verified emails are less likely to be marked as spam, resulting in better deliverability rates. Additionally, consistent use of authentication protocols enhances your domain's credibility, making recipient servers more likely to accept your messages in the future.
There are different methods through which you can authenticate your email:
• Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
SPF is an email authentication protocol that allows domain owners to specify which mail servers are authorized to send emails on their behalf. This is done by publishing an SPF record in the domain's DNS settings. When an email is received, the recipient's server checks the SPF record to verify if the email originated from an authorized server. If the sending server isn’t listed in the SPF record, the email may be flagged as spam or rejected.
• DomainKeys Identified Mails (DKIM)
DKIM is an email authentication protocol that uses cryptographic signatures to verify the integrity and authenticity of an email. When sending an email, the mail server adds a unique DKIM signature to the email headers. This signature is generated using a private key and is linked to a public key published in the sender’s domain DNS records.
When the recipient's server receives the email, it retrieves the public key from the DNS and uses it to validate the DKIM signature. If the signature matches, it confirms that the email has not been tampered with during transit and that it originates from the claimed sender.
• Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC)
DMARC is an email authentication protocol that builds on SPF and DKIM to provide an additional layer of security. It enables domain owners to specify how unauthenticated messages should be handled (e.g., reject, quarantine, or allow) by publishing a DMARC record in their DNS settings.
DMARC policies require alignment between the "From" address in the email header and the domains authenticated via SPF and/or DKIM. If alignment fails, the recipient server applies the policy specified in the DMARC record.
DMARC also provides reporting capabilities, allowing domain owners to receive feedback on authentication results and identify potential abuse of their domain (e.g., spoofing attempts).
2. Warmup your IP address
When using a new IP address for email campaigns, it’s critical to perform an IP warm-up process. This process involves gradually increasing the volume of emails sent over time to build a positive sender reputation with Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
Start by sending emails to your most active and engaged users, as their high interaction rates (e.g., opens and clicks) help demonstrate the legitimacy and relevance of your emails. Over the course of several days or weeks, incrementally increase the number of emails you send.
This gradual approach allows ISPs to monitor consistent and trustworthy sending behavior, which reinforces the credibility of your IP address. By following a structured warm-up plan, you can minimize the risk of deliverability issues and ensure that your IP starts with a strong reputation.
Note: While IP warm-up focuses on the sending IP address, domain warm-up is a separate but related process used to build the reputation of a new or inactive domain.
How does it increase email deliverability:
Gradually building the reputation of a new IP address helps establish trust with ISPs, preventing them from flagging bulk emails as suspicious. Sending emails initially to highly engaged users signals positive activity to ISPs, which enhances the IP's reputation and improves deliverability.
"An IP reputation is hard to build, easy to lose, and hard to regain. Therefore, ensuring you are sending the best emails before they are sent will limit the damage caused, and monitoring, post-send, will allow fine-tuning — and it will allow you to know when further action needs to be taken to protect or improve your IP status."
3. Regularly monitor sender reputation and blacklists
A good sender reputation (or sender score) is critical for email deliverability. It reflects how trustworthy your emails appear to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and directly impacts whether your emails reach inboxes or are flagged as spam.
Key factors affecting your sender reputation include:
Spam feedback: The number of users marking your emails as spam, as well as instances where your emails are flagged by ISPs.
Bounce rate: The percentage of emails that fail to deliver due to invalid addresses or other issues.
Domain reputation: The trustworthiness of your sending domain based on past activity.
Email history: Your domain's sending behavior over time, including frequency and consistency.
Tools to check your sender reputation
You can use the following tools to monitor your sender score and gain actionable insights:
SenderScore.org – Provides a score based on your IP reputation.
BarracudaCentral – Checks your IP against Barracuda’s blocklists.
Google Postmaster Tools – Offers data on domain reputation and spam metrics for Gmail.
Microsoft SNDS (Smart Network Data Services) – Provides insights into your IP reputation for Microsoft services.
To use these tools, simply input your sending IP or domain. They will generate a score and provide insights to help improve your reputation.
Here's a small video to help set up your domain on Google Postmaster.
If your IP or domain gets blacklisted, it can severely impact your email deliverability. To prevent this, implement a robust monitoring system to check for blacklisting regularly. Automated tools and alerts can notify you immediately if your IP or domain is flagged, allowing you to take swift corrective action.
For instance, Mailmodo provides automated reports and real-time alerts to identify reputation issues. It also guides users through the process of resolving blacklist incidents by contacting blacklisting services and addressing the underlying problems, such as spam complaints or invalid email lists.
How does it increase email deliverability:
Regular monitoring of your sender reputation allows you to detect and address potential issues before they affect your email deliverability. A high sender reputation signals to ISPs that your emails are trustworthy, while a low reputation can result in emails being flagged as spam or your IP/domain being blacklisted.
4. Use double opt-in or confirmed opt-in
After a user signs up, they receive a confirmation email with a verification link. Their subscription is finalized only after they click the link. This step guarantees that the email address is valid and that the subscriber intends to receive your emails, increasing engagement rates and reducing the likelihood of complaints or spam reports.
By maintaining a clean and engaged email list through double opt-in, ISPs perceive your domain as trustworthy, which improves your sender reputation and ensures higher inbox placement.
How does it increase email deliverability:
Double opt-in ensures that only genuinely interested users subscribe to your email list by requiring them to verify their email address after signing up. This process not only validates the authenticity of the email addresses but also filters out incorrect or fake signups, reducing bounce rates and improving overall deliverability.
5. Make it easy to unsubscribe
To comply with best practices and recent industry guidelines, including Google's requirement for an unsubscribe button, it’s essential to include a clearly visible unsubscribe link in every email. The link should be easy to find and use, ensuring a simple, one-click opt-out process for your recipients.
How does it increase email deliverability:
When subscribers can easily unsubscribe, they are less likely to flag your emails as spam. This not only helps to preserve your sender reputation but also signals to ISPs that your email practices are compliant and user-friendly. As a result, you improve your chances of staying in recipients' inboxes rather than being marked as spam.
6. Optimise your content to pass spam filters
Spam filters assess your email's content, structure, and metadata to determine whether your message might be spam. They look for common signs such as overly promotional language, excessive use of special characters, and unusual formatting, which are often associated with unsolicited emails or scams. For example, phrases like "Claim your discount NOW!" or "100% FREE" tend to raise red flags for spam filters.
Practices to avoid:
Spam trigger words:
"Claim your discount NOW!"
"Act immediately"
"Jackpot"
"100% FREE"
"For only XXX amount"
Formatting issues:
Avoid excessive use of special characters like !, $, or >, especially in subject lines.
Refrain from writing in ALL CAPS, as it can appear aggressive and unprofessional.
Avoid using exaggerated symbols or numbers such as "777", "$$$", or "0% risk".
Best practices:
Use clear, concise, and professional language.
Avoid deceptive tactics or overly promotional terms.
Ensure your emails are well-structured, with proper HTML formatting.
How does it increase email deliverability:
Spam filters use advanced algorithms and heuristics to evaluate email content, looking for patterns and keywords typically linked to spam or fraudulent messages. By steering clear of these "spammy" words and practices, your emails are more likely to pass through these filters and reach the recipient’s inbox, improving your deliverability.
7. Never ever use purchased email lists
Buying email lists might seem the easiest way to reach the maximum number of people. But, purchased email lists often consist of unverified, outdated, or uninterested recipients. Sending emails to such lists results in high bounce rates, low engagement, and increased spam complaints. This damages your sender reputation and reduces deliverability. Additionally, using purchased lists violates data protection laws, exposing you to potential legal penalties.
Without consent from recipients, all your emails are technically spam.
Legal and reputational implications:
Using purchased email lists can lead to non-compliance with strict regulations, such as:
General data protection regulation (GDPR): Requires explicit consent from recipients for email communications. Violating this can result in substantial fines and legal action.
CAN-SPAM act (USA): Prohibits sending commercial emails to recipients without prior permission and imposes penalties for non-compliance.
Canadian anti-spam legislation (CASL): Requires consent for sending commercial emails and mandates proper email list management.
How it impacts email deliverability:
High bounce rates signal to ISPs that your list contains invalid email addresses, lowering your sender score.
Spam complaints from uninterested recipients further harm your sender reputation, increasing the chances of being blacklisted.
Poor engagement rates (low opens or clicks) signal irrelevance, reducing future email visibility.
So, be good email marketers and create your email list using the right practices. Check out our email list guide to grow your list today!
Focus on building an organic email list using ethical practices, such as:
Offering valuable resources (e.g., guides, ebooks) in exchange for email sign-ups.
Using website forms to capture genuine interest.
Encouraging referrals from existing subscribers.
8. Clean your lists regularly
Over time some subscribers will stop engaging with your emails or change their email address due to a change in job or any other external reason. If you keep sending them emails, you might not get any engagement.
That's why periodically cleaning such addresses from the email list is imperative to maintain a healthy deliverability rate.
Here's are a few best practices to maintain email list hygiene:
- Remove hard-bounced email addresses
- Have a suppression list and include the following users in that list:
- Users who have unsubscribed
- Implement a sunset policy to define the criteria and periods to put the recipient into the suppression list:
Inactive users
The user who stopped engaging with your emails
How does it increase email deliverability:
Regularly cleaning your email lists ensures that you’re sending emails to engaged, active subscribers, reducing bounce rates and the likelihood of spam complaints.
9. Segment your email list
You must engage your subscribers with relevant and valuable content to improve deliverability. No one wants to receive a generic, impersonal email that feels irrelevant. That’s why it’s important to segment your email subscribers based on various criteria. They are as follows:
Demography: Gender, age, ethnicity, occupation
Geography: Country, city, pincode
Behavioural data: Past interactions, engagement level
Stage in buyer's journey: Awareness, consideration, or decision-making
Lifecycle stage: New or existing customers, frequent buyers, loyal customers
How does it increase email deliverability:
A segmented email is more targeted and resonates with the recipient. When you make an effort and go the extra mile, it gets reflected in your email's performance. Besides, when you combine segmentation with personalization, you'll see a tremendous increase in email engagement boosting your deliverability rate and hence, brand name.
10. Maintain a consistent sending frequency and schedule
You need to make a consistent schedule for sending your email with the right frequency and timing so that people don't ignore your email.
There is no use in sending emails when people cannot view them, so choosing the right time and day is essential based on industry, email campaign type, and your receipt's interaction behaviours.
Brevo research suggests the following day and timing across different industries.
| Industry | Best day to send emails for higher clicks | Best time to send emails |
|---|---|---|
| Ecommerce | Wednesday | 10:00 AM |
| Software/SaaS | Wednesday | 2:00 – 3:00 PM |
| Marketing services | Wednesday | 4:00 PM |
| Offline retail/Hospitality | Thursday | 8:00 – 10:00 AM |
| Professional services (B2B) | Tuesday | 8:00 – 10:00 AM |
| NGOs (Nonprofits) | Tuesday or Wednesday | 3:00 – 4:00 PM |
How does it increase email deliverability:
Besides the timing, maintaining a consistent frequency also helps improve deliverability as it eliminates the chances of spikes that might occur if you send many emails at once. Read how Project Pro achieved 3X open rates by improving their email deliverability.
Maximize your email performance with our free ebook
Optimize the right email metrics for higher ROI
11. Send emails that people love to engage with
The emails you send should hook readers and offer value simultaneously. The more engaging your email will be, the more people will wait for your email, and you'll see higher engagement.
One of the best ways to bring more engagement to your email is by sending interactive emails by adding interactive elements such as shopping carts, quizzes, spin the wheel, polls, embedded forms, and so on inside email. Mailmodo helps bring interactivity with these AMP components inside your recipient's inbox.
Who can resist engaging with an email like this? 👇🏼
Check out more such interactive quiz email templates
12. Monitor performance metrics regularly and fix issues
Keep measuring the performance of your email campaigns in the analytics dashboard. Here are a few things you should do:
Check email performance metrics like unsubscribe, click-through rate, bounce rate, or spam complaints.
Check your sender's reputation using tools like Google Postmaster
Recipient's engagement level.
Before sending emails from a new IP address, it’s important to perform an IP warm-up. While reaching out to your Email Service Provider (ESP) for assistance in setting up a warm-up program can be helpful, it's not mandatory. You can also manage the process independently by gradually increasing your email volume to build a positive sender reputation over time.
Final takeaway
To enhance your email deliverability and create a more effective email marketing funnel, implementing these strategies is essential.
If you’re looking to dive deeper into email deliverability, the Mailmodo team is here to help. At Mailmodo, we are committed to helping you achieve the best possible deliverability rates. Our interactive email solutions not only boost engagement but also increase user interactions, such as clicks and form submissions, further enhancing your deliverability and campaign performance. Reach out to us today to learn how we can support your email marketing success.
Boost inbox placement rates with managed deliverability
