Posts Tagged email deliverability
Compliance 101 – Moving to the inbox
The SimplyCast Compliance department “delivers” once again with very important tips on improving your deliverability and overall happiness. Yes, they are that good.
Have you encountered a situation where despite sending to opt-in lists and practicing good list hygiene (removing unsubscribes and hard bounces), your deliverability rates are still low? This is caused by low subscriber engagement.
Low engagement occurs when:
- A client consistently receives low open rates.
- A client receives low click-through rates (not clicking links).
- When subscribers delete emails without opening the message.
- When the client fails to whitelist the senders “from address” by clicking “This is not – spam” if sent to the bulk folder.
- Not forwarding to a friend or replying to sender.
To increase engagement and deliverability rates, both the sender and subscriber can help the process. Below are some tips to help improve engagement which will lead to increased deliverability.
Sender
- Use the same “from address”.
- Add a Forward-to-a-Friend link.
- Remove addresses that do not open emails.
- Have links to click within the campaign, ie: survey or company website.
- Send a re-opt-in email to dis-engaged subscribers and have them reply to you if they wish to continue receiving your mail.
Subscriber
- Whitelist the sender’s email address in your address book.
- Forward-to-a-Friend.
- Check “This is not Spam” if sent to bulk folder.
- Enable images
Have further questions on engagement? Feel free to email us at deliverability@simplycast.com anytime.
SimplyCast’s Interactive Marketing Suite includes:
Email Marketing | Survey Marketing | Event Marketing |
Fax Marketing | SMS Marketing | AutoResponder Marketing
List Management | Online Signup Forms | IP Monitoring Tool
Add comment August 2, 2010
Compliance 101 – Improve deliverability by engaging with subscribers
The SimplyCast Compliance department “delivers” once again with very important tips on improving your deliverability and overall happiness. Yes, they are that good.
In previous posts we have mentioned what to avoid to increase deliverability, such as sending to old or purchased lists or misleading your recipients with deceptive subject lines. Now we will turn the focus on user engagement and what your recipients can do to help increase deliverability.
First, there are two things you should ask yourself: Do I have good open rates and is my mail going to the junk folder? The average open rate is between 20% and 25%. If you are not achieving these rates there are a number of things you can do to have your recipients become more engaged in your email marketing.
- Use the same “From Address” and request to have your recipients add your email to their address book as a safe sender.
- Use descriptive subject lines that encourage your recipients to open the email.
- Have recipients occasionally reply-to your emails. Ask for user feedback or specific questions you know they will answer. (Did you know that “reply-to” will whitelist your email address with particular ISPs?)
- Include links to click within the email.
- Include an option to “Rate this Email”.
- Mark email as “Not Spam”.
If you start to find that more email is ending up in the junk folder and open rates are dropping, this can indicate that your recipients are disengaged. This would be a good time to send a re-opt-in email to these disengaged subscribers, asking them to reply if they wish to continue receiving your mail and ask if there is anything they wish to see that would regain their interest. This will help keep your subscriber lists updated and maintaining great deliverability.
Have a question for us? Feel free to email us at deliverability@simplycast.com anytime.
SimplyCast’s Interactive Marketing Suite includes:
Email Marketing | Survey Marketing | Event Marketing |
Fax Marketing | SMS Marketing | AutoResponder Marketing
1 comment June 3, 2010
Compliance 101 – Clean your email marketing lists
The SimplyCast Compliance department “delivers” once again with very important tips on improving your deliverability and overall happiness. Yes, they are that good.
During the spring months many take the opportunity to “spring clean” their homes. For email marketing this is a good time to “spring clean” or re-opt-in your mailing lists.
Email marketing lists should be cleaned at least a few times per year. This will help increase deliverability rates, open rates, ROI, etc. By keeping a clean list you avoid sending to spam traps which can develop over a period of time when an email address becomes inactive for whatever reason.
ISP’s take this opportunity to turn the address into a “spam trap”, monitoring the inbox and blacklisting those who sends email to it.
Having your list of subscribers re-opt-in not only cleans spam trap addresses and recipients who no longer wish to receive your mail but also gives you the opportunity to update your recipients on how often you send (which may or may not have changed) and what you will continue to be sending.
It is important to understand that even though your recipients may know who you are already and have confirmed that they want to receive your mail at one point in time, they may have changed their mind and no longer wish to receive your mail.
At this point the majority of those people will report the email as spam rather than clicking the unsubscribe link. To stress the obvious, you do not want that.
Therefore giving the option to re-opt-in helps keep your complaint rates low, your deliverability high and your lists squeaky clean.
A sample re-opt-in email is below:
Dear ,
Previously you provided us with your e-mail address when you subscribed to (company/newsletter). We are updating are lists and would like to confirm that you still wish to receive our company newsletter/promotion/etc. We will continue to send our monthly newsletter and from time-to-time, you may receive email updates or special promotions. You may unsubscribe at any time via the link at the bottom of the page or by emailing.
Sincerely,
(company)
(address)
Feel free to email us at deliverability@simplycast.com anytime for further explanation.
SimplyCast’s Interactive Marketing Suite includes:
Email Marketing | Survey Marketing | Event Marketing |
Fax Marketing | SMS Marketing | AutoResponder Marketing
2 comments May 6, 2010
Compliance 101 – DKIM’s effect on deliverability
This post is straight from our friendly Compliance team. If you want better deliverability (and we know you do), this is a must read.
DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) is a method of authentication which verifies the validity of an email.
You may be wondering how DKIM benefits you when sending an email using SimplyCast’s Interactive Marketing Service?
The first question is, have you ever had trouble sending to ISPs such as Gmail and Yahoo? If the answer is yes, you should know that these ISPs, as well as many others, look for authentication methods, such as DKIM (as well as Domain Keys, SPF and Sender ID) to verify the validity of your mail. This is key in the decision process of whether to deliver to the inbox, junk folder or not at all.
Having DKIM authentication improves reputation and increases the amount of mail being delivered to your recipients.
As a legitimate sender, when sending mail on an IP signed by DKIM you will observe benefits, such as:
- Increased deliverability to ISPs such as Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, Cox, Comcast, Earthlink, FastMail, and many more.
- Higher open rates due to more ISPs accepting the mail you are sending.
- Increased sender reputation.
- Increased amount of mail going to the inbox rather than junk folders.
- Increased ROI (return on investment).
– Overall higher deliverability rates.
Want to know more about DKIM and how it effects your deliverability? Feel free to email us at deliverability@simplycast.com.
2 comments April 9, 2010
Compliance 101 – Importance of Sender Reputation
As 2010 moves forward (spring already!) deliverability becomes increasingly relevant.
In the past Internet Service Providers would filter or block emails based on poor content. As email marketing has grown, ISPs are not only concerned about content, but they are concerned about sender reputation.
Each ISP filters email differently with sender reputation being a main factor. Basically, if your sender reputation is poor, it will affect the deliverability of the emails you send.
What is sender reputation based on?
o Recipient complaints.
o Recipient’s hitting “this-is-spam” or “report spam”.
o Sending to bounced addresses.
o Sending to spam traps.
o Interaction – the percentage of opened emails, click through rates, etc.
How to increase your sender reputation?
o Have recipients whitelist your address.
o Do not use purchased or harvested lists.
o Send emails that recipients are expecting.
o Inform your recipients how often you will send messages and stay consistent.
o Segment your lists.
o Provide good subject lines; do not hide what the email is actually about.
o Use a consistent “from address”.
o Have your recipients re-opt-in to your mailing list once or twice a year to keep lists clean, lower unwanted complaint rates, and clean up bad addresses along the way.
By following these guidelines your sender reputation will increase which will provide you with better end results. These can include higher open rates and increased deliverability of mail to the recipient’s inbox.
Got a question relating to sender reputation? Feel free to email us at deliverability@simplycast.com.
About SimplyCast
SimplyCast is the only solution in the world to simplify the creation of multiple types of marketing campaigns using our best of breed interactive marketing platform.
You now have access to Email, Survey, Event, AutoResponders, Fax, SMS and Link Tracking solutions all in one place.
Not only that, SimplyCast now offers unlimited plans for Email, Survey, Event and AutoResponders as well as the first and only FREE 750 contact based package.
3 comments March 22, 2010
Compliance 101 – Deliverability best practices
Here at SimplyCast, deliverability is a main concern.
We have mentioned it before on this blog but we want to remind everyone again. Deliverability is way too important to overlook and our Compliance and Deliverability team wants to help you get as many emails to the inbox as you can.
Below are a few things that we do to help increase the deliverability of each mailing sent through SimplyCast:
- SimplyCast’s Deliverability Team communicates with ISPs to build strong relationships, and resolve issues quickly and efficiently when they arise.
- We abide by a strict Anti-Spam Policy.
- Our team continuously monitors our IPs reputations, contacting clients who fail to comply with our Terms and Conditions.
- SimplyCast’s Marketing Team actively updates this blog and adds FAQ’s to help clients improve sending practices and increasing deliverability rates. For example: Key words which could be interpreted as spam, tips to creating good subject lines and how to maintain good list hygiene.
- SimplyCast’s Deliverability Team also implements a three strike policy. If a client receives “three strikes” we unfortunately have to terminate them, protecting deliverability rates for all our clients.
Here are some things you can do to help:
1. To ensure good deliverability you must have double-opt in email lists.
2. Have your clients re-opt-in to your lists at least twice a year to remove unused addresses, or addresses that may have turned into spam traps.
3. Have good “list hygiene” – Low number of complaints, removing soft bounces.
4. Include an easy-to-find unsubscribe link, so you do not receive unwanted complaints.
5. Create good subject lines, do not use profanity or have content that doesn’t match the subject line.
6. Inform your recipients how often you will be sending and be consistent.
7. When creating HTML campaigns include both text and HTML. Campaigns with large amounts of HTML are likely to be observed as spam, thus not being delivered to the recipient’s inbox.
8. Ensure your “from address” is consistent and does not misrepresent you.
For more tips on deliverability please email our team at deliverability@simplycast.com.
1 comment February 12, 2010
