You already know that email deliverability is all about ensuring messages arrive in subscribers’ inboxes. What you don’t know is all that goes into the deliverability process. There are multiple aspects of ensuring deliverability and it can be confusing to keep them straight with all the jargon.
Here are some of the most common deliverability terms:
- CAN-SPAM: Email marketers need to ensure they comply with all legislation regarding promotional messages. The U.S. CAN-SPAM Act provides strict guidelines for email marketing efforts, including giving users the ability to opt out of messages and then have that request honored. However, a recent report from the Online Trust Alliance revealed that 10 percent of companies are not in compliance with CAN-SPAM, even though it has been in effect for a decade.
- Double opt-in: This refers to a two-step confirmation process. When individuals subscribe for future emails, they are sent a confirmation. This reduces the instances of people accidentally subscribing and it can also cut down on hard bounces by eliminating bad data.
- Sender reputation: Sender reputation is the ranking you get from Internet service providers. Reputation can be determined by considering complaints, email volume, number of unknown users, hard bounces and external company reputation.
- Subscriber-level filtering: ISPs have a number of ways of sifting out spam. Most email marketers are familiar with the obstacles ISP filtering can cause, but they may not be aware that ISPs have shifted the power to email users. In the past, ISPs would filter messages out based on complaints and the number of emails sent to spam traps. However, subscribers have more control over the messages that arrive in their inboxes, making deliverability more challenging for marketers. It’s important for companies to monitor their complaints.
- List growth rate: This is how many new subscribers you gain compared to how many leave the list. Good list hygiene is essential at all times and you should remove all addresses unsubscribe and those that are attributed to hard bounces. You need to keep growing your list to make up for unsubscribes and hard bounces.
Deliverability can pose many challenges to email marketers, but understanding the language is the first step to making sure your marketing emails make it to the inbox. Now that you’ve got the lingo down, put it into practice with our free Deliverability Solution Guide. Download it today!