Spencer Kollas, Director of Deliverability Services, Accucast You Asked What factors affect the deliverability rates of e-mail campaigns?

With constantly changing ISP regulations and new filtering products entering the market every day, ensuring inbox delivery can be a daunting task. But, it’s not rocket science. Here are a few factors that may be affecting your delivery rates, and some tips to improve your campaign results.

Old customer data. Successful e-mail marketing relies on good, clean data. While you do need some critical mass to be successful with e-mail marketing, think quality, not quantity. Verify your customer preference data every 6-12 months and trim recipients who have become inactive or disinterested. Your list size may shrink, but the quality of your database will increase dramatically and so will your delivery rates.

E-mail authentication. ISPs use authentication to identify a sender to more effectively protect their customers from Spam. There are two forms of authentication; IP based (SPF/Sender ID) and Cryptographic based (Domain Keys and DKIM). Either method will help improve deliverability of your e-mails, and combined they will work even better. If using an ESP, make sure they are using authentication when sending your messages. If hosting e-mail in-house, check with your system administrators to determine if your company is publishing authentication records.

ISP rules. ISP rules, contacts, departments and processes change almost daily. As a result, it takes active industry involvement every day to make sure your e-mail is complying with the current best practices. If your company does not have a dedicated ISP liaison, find a partner or ESP that does.

Subject line blunders. Ask yourself, "Does my subject line contain Spam triggers?” This will help in getting the message delivered. Avoid special characters ($,%,!!!, @, &) in your subject lines. These characters can cause messages to be viewed as Spam. Additionally, steer clear of Spam-catching words including: Free, You Win, For a Limited Time, Guaranteed, Important Message, etc. Rewrite the subject line a few different ways to come up with the best approach and test the subject line through a Spam-filter checking application prior to mailing.

Deliverability can be a laborious task if not properly addressed. By following ISP guidelines and best practices, your e-mail delivery rates can improve today.

Accucast