What All Plays Into Email Deliverability

Email Deliverability is about 10% tech and 90% behavior ( which includes your email sending habits ).

Tech being the tools you use, the way you set them up, the DNS records, etc. The techy stuff. The nerdy side. The stuff we all beat our heads against the wall about and wish it could just magically happen for us.

Then there's the behavior. The stuff we do ( or don't do ) that gets us into trouble with the email over lords. The stuff that most people don't think about much, because we think deliverability is mostly a technical thing, so if it's not working it's probably because the tool we're using is bad, or someone set up our DNS wrong, or something like that.

Behaviors usually fit into one of these three main buckets:

1) Volume / Consistency

• How much?
  • Have you suddenly started sending emails to 1,000 more contacts in less than a month?

• How fast?
  • If you are just starting out ( or warming up a brand new email sending subdomain ) did you warm up your brand new email sending subdomain? Have you been consistently dripping your emails? Ideally, in batches of no more than 20 emails every 1 minute ( and even slower if possible )?

• How often?
  • Are you consistently sending emails to your contacts once a week, or once every two weeks at a minimum.

2) Engagement

• Encourage subscribers to manually move emails via drag-and-drop (desktop) or mobile app options. This trains Gmail’s algorithm to prioritize future emails.

• Prompt replies or interaction: Even brief responses like “Thanks!” signal relevance to Gmail.

• Ask new subscribers to whitelist your email, or add you to their contacts list: Emails from saved contacts are more likely to reach the Primary inbox. On the confirmation page of your funnel (the page that someone goes to after entering their name and email address to receive your lead magnet, or something else from you) you can remind them to whitelist your business email address (the email address you entered in the "From" or "Sender" email field), so they always receive updates from you.

• Plus, you could provide them with this helpful article on how to whitelist emails. You could ask brand new subscribers to double opt-in, and whitelist your emails, so they tell Google / Outlook/ Yahoo/ etc. that they want to receive your emails. This helps the email service providers (ESPs) like Gmail, AOL, Yahoo and Outlook/Hotmail, trust you more, and see that people want to receive your emails.

• The confirmation page of your funnel would be a good place to add a message similar to the following: Sometimes our emails may land in your “Promotions” or “All Mail” folders, especially if you’re using Gmail. Please check those folders if you don’t see our email in your main inbox within a few minutes. To make sure you never miss an update, add us to your contacts or move our email to your primary inbox!

• Provide Proactive Subscriber Guidance

  • Include clear CTAs in your emails:

    • *“To ensure you never miss our updates, please:

      • Drag this email to your Primary tab

      • Add [email@domain.com] to your contacts

      • Reply ‘OK’ to confirm receipt”*

• This also includes how well people are pickin' up what we're puttin' down (Opens, Clicks, Replies - or - Bounces, Complaints, and Unsubscribes).

• Plus, a whole lot more that no email service, or SMTP, can provide stats for ( how many times people delete your emails without even opening them, if they're starring your emails, are they building routes / labels for them, etc. )

Factors that Can Contribute to "Promotions" Folder vs. "Primary" Folder Inbox Placement

3) The "Markety" Stuff

It starts with who we are when we show up at the door ( From name, from email, subject line, and the first couple lines of copy, or what would be considered a preview or a notification ).

Then it moves into the inside of the email - spammy words/phrases, images, Gifs, text to image ratios, text to link ratios, links, link types, link shorteners, link lengths, non-standard fonts / colors, text to html ratios, emphasis techniques, signature tools, attachments ( PDFs, audio files, video files ), etc. This list goes on and on.

1. Don't use excessive amounts of links in your email. Ideally you would send a maximum of 3 links in any email. The link count includes the social media icon links. When you do add a link, add it as a hyperlink, not as the full URL.

2. Watch for words that trigger spam filters. This helpful blog post explains what words tend to alert email service providers. Avoid promotional language: Limit sales-focused terms (e.g., “% off,” “Buy now”).

3. Email your list regularly, and write emails that are full of value and get clicks and more importantly, replies!

4. Do NOT email people who you have not gotten permission to email.

5. One of the best things you can do is to set up an automated welcome sequence or nurture campaign when people opt in. This ensures you're sending out small amounts of emails every day (email service providers such as Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook like this, they don't like big random blasts of emails after not hearing from you for weeks).

6. One of the ways you build your reputation with email is to get opens. To do that, you need amazing subject lines. So work on your copywriting skills as much as possible, because subject lines (and the first sentence of your email) are critical.

7. We do not recommend using link shorteners such as Bitly, since spammers tend to use Bitly to hide malicious links. As a result, email providers are often suspicious of shortened URLs.

8. Personalize emails dynamically: Use the contact first name custom value to mimic 1:1 communication ( i.e. Hi {{contact.first_name}} = Hi John ).

9. We know people love pretty newsletters, but the more the email feels like a note from a friend, the better. Only use images and gifs if you absolutely have to.

10. Avoid using HTML-heavy email template layouts. We do not recommend using the HTML email builder within FG Funnels, unless you are a developer with experience with HTML code. Since, poorly coded or overly complex HTML emails are more likely to trigger spam filters. Spam filters look for certain HTML elements, excessive use of images, or non-standard code, which can cause your email to be flagged as spam and not reach the inbox. Studies show that plain text emails generally have better deliverability rates than HTML emails. Plain text emails are less likely to be flagged as spam and often appear more personal, which can increase open rates.

11. Prioritize text-based content: Emails with >80% text have higher Primary placement rates. The higher the text-to-link, and the text-to-image ratios, the better. Too many links and images trigger spam flags with email service providers (ESPs).

12. Do not include attachments on your email, since spammers tend to use attachments for malicious purposes. As a result, email providers are often suspicious of attachments, and they are more like to filter emails with attachments to the recipient's spam older.

The reason all of these behaviors are so important is because they all affect reputation - good, bad, or ugly.