How to keep your deliverability – and spirits – high!

Are you confused by some of the spam complaints you’re getting – for NO apparent reason?! Are you doing your best to avoid spam words and following best practices, yet still getting flagged from time to time?  Email Marketing Tips Blog is working day and night to make sure your messages go through, but there’s a lot you can do when creating and testing your campaigns to help keep your deliverability – and confidence – high.

 

Ever think maybe it’s NOT YOU!

Well, it is and it isn’t. Perfectly good marketing terms and mundane field entries are increasingly getting flagged by spam filters. But don’t worry! We know the requirements are evolving at warp speed, but we understand why the ISPs are tracking these metrics, and it’s for the good of all honest email marketers. So we all have to be patient. And check into your favorite sites focusing on deliverability issues from time to time.
For now, we wanted to discuss some of the new trends and review some oldies but goodies for maintaining high deliverability because, at Email Marketing Tips Blog, we take deliverability VERY seriously.

SPAM words? Really?

Our arch enemies, the spammers, have become increasingly adept at hiding text in images, mimicking our best marketing lingo and, in general, ripping off our hard work in order to rip off unsuspecting consumers. At the same time, increasingly sophisticated spam filters are grabbing onto perfectly legit marketing words and phrases used in mass mailings. For example, words like “new”, “on sale”, even “whitepaper” are being flagged simply because they appear in so many emails that the spam filters register them as spam trends. Go figure…

So why not just check the spam lists?

Sure, you should always monitor the lists or check SpamAssasin’s own list. But you’re still going to be surprised at some of the great marketing standards that are getting spam-listed. So, rather than warp your message, dilute your brand, and otherwise distort your “voice”, we recommend that you

• Split Test your campaigns and newsletters, then substitute the “offending” words with synonyms or phrases, without losing the “soul” of your message.

• Use Spam Assassin’s best-in-class filtering software in the Email Marketing Tips Blog Spamscore feature to check for spam issues quickly and accurately, then modify before you send.

Text-to-Image Ratio – is there such a thing?

This is another area where spammers are trying to do “end runs” around spam filters by using gigantic images and very little text in order to avoid “saying” the wrong thing. They even embed the text inside the images, hoping it get through without further inspection.  So, of course, the spam filters are checking text-to-image ratios more closely.  Unfortunately, opinions on the best text-to-image ratio are all over the board, so we feel comfortable recommending that you include at least one paragraph of text for every image in your email. Keep your paragraphs short, and your images relevant, and you should be fine. Finally, Split Test to see if you’re hitting the right balance.

Engagement Metrics…huh?

Yahoo recently hinted that it’s focusing more attention on “engagement metrics,” which sounds scary but basically means it wants to see that customers have opened and clicked on your emails. While it’s not filtering out low performers yet, it could be on the horizon. So make sure you’re following best practices by sending relevant, targeted messages to keep your “engagement metrics” up.
Now that we’ve covered some of the trends and issues and possible causes, let’s review some tried and true practices you can use to keep improving your email delivery rates:

1.    Maintain list hygiene. Email Marketing Tips Blog helps keep your list clean, but you should remove or place subscribers who haven’t opened any emails in a year in a re-engagement campaign.
2.    Keep bounces low (below 5 percent) by verifying email addresses before adding them to your contact list. Of course, Email Marketing Tips Blog can do this for you, so why not opt for double-opt in?!
3.    Monitor and test for SPAM words and phrases. They’re changing all the time – stay plugged in.
4.    Maintain balance of text-to-images. Don’t go overboard with images and media; balance with clear, concise text and your gorgeous campaign will reach its intended audience.
5.    Split test. Why not?! It’s the best to identify the offending words, and replace before sending.
6.    Track abuse complaints for every mailing and try to keep the complaint rate (CR) below 0.1 percent.  This is easier if you use double-opt in, but a good metric to shoot for nevertheless.
7.    Monitor frequency preferences. Be upfront as to what customers can expect from your communications in terms of frequency and content. Survey to find out if changes are needed.
8.    Keep subscribers engaged. Hey, we know it’s challenging to engage today’s increasingly mobile, multi-tasking consumers. So if your response rates are slipping, use your email and web analytics tools to help uncover where and why. Survey your subscribers to update content and frequency preferences. Add video or Email-to-Speech to spice up your messages! Experiment!
9.    Did you remember to add an “add to address book” statement at the top of your messages?
We hope we covered some useful ground on this HUGE topic for you. Remember, when it comes to deliverability, Email Marketing Tips Blog is world class, but there’s always things you can do to make it even better.
If you have more tips to share, or would like us to address specific deliverability issues, please let us know. We welcome your feedback!