There is often talk about mailbox providers and spam filters in email marketing. However, there is a less popular guy who isn’t talked about enough but can significantly impact your deliverability rates. And that is an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
If you’re serious about improving your email performance, you must educate yourself about ISPs and how they work.
So let’s uncover ISPs, how they are different from ESPs, and their effect on your email campaigns.
What is an ISP?
Internet Service Providers (ISP) are organizations that provide you with internet access. This internet can be used to access any information available on the web, including your email client. Popular US ISP examples include AT&T, and T-Mobile. Popular Indian examples include Jio, and Airtel.
These ISPs can also provide you with a mailbox (similar to Gmail) that you can use to send and receive emails. However, these are not the same as Email Service Providers (ESP). Here’s how they differ.
ESP vs. ISP
Email Service Provider (ESP) is an email marketing software that provides the necessary features to run full-scale email marketing campaigns. An ISP doesn’t do that. Even mailbox providers like Gmail and Outlook won’t have all the features you’ll need as an email marketer.
For example, Mailmodo allows you to create and send interactive AMP emails, triggered email campaigns, transactional emails, etc., which is impossible to achieve with ISPs and mailbox providers. You can book a demo with us to experience Mailmodo’s complete email marketing solution.
Besides that, ISPs still play a pivotal role in email deliverability. They may be the hidden reason for your poor campaign performance. So, let’s uncover the mystery and learn their importance in email marketing.
Why do ISPs matter in email marketing?
Whenever you send emails, they have to pass through ISPs before reaching mailbox providers, from where they finally move into users’ inboxes. So, ISPs have the power to block further transmission of your emails if you seem suspicious to them.
There are many reasons why ISPs may be blocking your emails, and let’s discuss a few important ones.
Why are your ISPs blocking your emails?
So, here are some top reasons why ISPs may block your emails.
1. Sending spam emails
Source: Statista
This is a big one. Nobody wants to receive spam emails they didn’t sign up for. Statista says that in September 2021, nearly 105 billion spam emails were sent. To avoid this massive chaos, ISPs take signals from many areas, and if they find you sending consistent spam emails, they’ll stop most of your future emails.
2. Sending generalized emails
If you’re a hockey fan but don’t know the difference between football and soccer, won’t you hate it when you receive emails about the latest FIFA tournament? Similarly, if you send email blasts without personalization, your users will dislike that and mark you as spam, resulting in ISPs blocking you.
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3. Having a bad IP reputation
IP reputation is a tricky one. While this may be your fault for having a bad IP reputation, but if you own a shared IP address, you will also see a negative effect on your email deliverability due to the wrongdoings of other users. And hence, ISPs will block any emails from that shared IP, including your emails.
4. Having a bad domain reputation
If you’re serious about your email game, you’re probably using a business email address with your domain name. So it’ll have a reputation attached to it which is decided by the type of emails previously sent from the email addresses of this domain. If they were of high-quality and personalized content, the domain reputation would be through the roof. But if your domain had sent mostly spam and malicious emails, the domain reputation would be disastrous. And if that’s the case, ISPs will also recognize it and won’t let your emails reach end-users.
Also Read: Domain Reputation - What Is Domain Reputation and How It Affects Email Deliverability
So these were a few major causes for your ISP to block your emails.
“But what should I do now?” Good question.
In the upcoming section, we’ve discussed some practical steps you can take to tackle the above problems and be from the ISPs’ hit lists.
How to unblock your emails from your ISPs
Follow these 4 strategies to regain your reputation from ISPs and unblock your emails.
1. Create an email cadence
If you want to succeed in email marketing, you need a disciplined approach to doing it. Email cadence is the disciplined approach to sending emails on a timely basis. This will help you train your users on when to expect an email from you (although you should inform this within your signup form). So they’re less likely to mark you spam and hence, less spam signal to ISPs.
Also Read: A Guide to Finding the Right Email Cadence for Higher Engagements
2. Send personalized emails
McKinsey & Company says that 71% of consumers expect personalization. So it’s crucial to send emails catered to particular groups of people and not send the same email to everyone (unless it makes sense). Again, if you don’t do that, users will mark you as spam, and ISPs will hate you more and stop you at any cost.
Also Read: An Ultimate Guide to Creating Personalized Emails
3. Improve your IP reputation and domain reputation
Essentially, your IP and domain reputation will automatically improve if you follow the above guidelines. But if you want to improve your IP reputation further, you can switch from a shared IP to a dedicated IP address. This way, you can completely control your sending IP’s reputation and maintain it at healthy levels by following good email etiquette.
Also Read: How Does Your IP Address Affect Your Email Deliverability
4. Follow a great email etiquette
What was acceptable in the past may not be acceptable now. Everything changes from time to time, and emails are not different. Since their inception, they’ve changed a lot, and you must be aware of that and create your emails accordingly to keep your users happy.
Also Read: Evolution of Email Etiquettes and Tips to Write Better Emails
Final takeaway
ISPs can make or break your email campaigns. So you must get educated and take action to have a healthy relationship with them. If you want to know more strategies to improve your deliverability further, check out 12 ways to increase your email deliverability that’ll expose you to more strategies you didn’t know existed.
