Best Practices
indigitall strongly recommends following these best practices to effectively establish and maintain a high sender reputation with ISPs (Internet Service Providers).
Top Recommendations for Deliverability Success
| Category | Recommendation | Best Practice Details |
|---|---|---|
| Messaging & Content | 1. Brief & Personalized: Write your message concisely and clearly, using language appropriate for your audience. Use personalization variables to communicate directly (e.g., "Hello {{username}}"). 2. Visual: Use attractive design and multimedia elements to capture attention. 3. Single Message Focus: Concentrate the communication on one main idea. Do not confuse the recipient with scattered content. | 1. Avoid Spam Triggers: Minimize the use of suspicious words (e.g., "Free," "Urgent") and excessive special characters (e.g., "!!!"). 2. Content Ratio: Maintain a balanced text-to-image ratio (approx. 70% text and 30% image) to avoid appearing spammy. 3. Encoding: Use "quoted-printable" encoding to help prevent your messages from being flagged. |
| Sending Behavior | 4. Consistent Schedule: Ideally, send emails every day to establish a reliable pattern. Sending less frequently (e.g., three times a week) may require more time for ISPs to evaluate your reputation. | 4. Don't Abuse Sending: Your customers are fed up with spam. Provide value and relevant information in all your communications. |
| Engagement | 5. Prioritize Interaction: Engagement is a key reputation indicator. Focus on sending to your most engaged users (especially during IP warming) to maintain low complaint rates and demonstrate positive commitment to ISPs. | 5. Call to Action (CTA): Messages must move the user to action by clicking a button. It should be an interactive message for the user to decide. |
| List Hygiene | 6. Regular Cleaning: List hygiene is fundamental for maintain good deliverability. Eliminate bounces and unsubscribes after every campaign. 7. Crucial Domain Check: Verify the domain you've chosen for your email address. | 6. Manage Inactive Contacts: Consider removing recipients who haven't interacted with your last five campaigns. Avoid sending to invalid or typo-ridden addresses. 7. Avoid Invalid Contacts: Correct any typographical errors in email addresses (e.g., gmai.coml, hormail.con). |
| Design & Compliance | 8. Mobile Vision: Pay close attention to the design for both desktop monitors and mobile screens, as more and more people read emails from their smartphones. | 8. GDPR Compliance: Comply with the GDPR standard for emails addressed to users residing in the EU. Remember that consent must be obtained freely and explicitly (without pre-marked fields). |
| Monitoring | 9. Regularly Monitor Reputation: Control your IP's reputation and campaign performance. | 9. Metrics: Monitor open, click, and complaint rates to adjust your strategy. |
Gmail and Yahoo have recently implemented new measures to combat spam and enhance email security, particularly affecting corporate email senders.
Yahoo's Anti-Spam Measures
- Alignment with Gmail's Policies: Yahoo is aligning its email authentication requirements with Gmail's standards, emphasizing the necessity for SPF and DKIM authentication for all senders.
- Recommendations for Corporate Email Senders:
- Implement SPF and DKIM Authentication: Ensure your emails are authenticated with both SPF and DKIM to comply with Gmail and Yahoo's requirements.
- Maintain Low Spam Rates: Monitor your email campaigns to keep spam complaint rates below 0.10%.
- Provide Clear Unsubscribe Options: Include a straightforward unsubscribe link in your emails to allow recipients to opt out easily.
- Use Consistent 'From' Addresses: Utilize consistent sender addresses for different categories of emails to build trust and improve deliverability.
- Monitor Email Deliverability: Regularly check your email deliverability metrics and adjust your strategies to maintain compliance with evolving email provider policies.
Gmail's New Anti-Spam Measures
- AI-Powered Spam Detection: Gmail has integrated advanced AI models to better identify and block spam, especially during high-volume periods like the holiday season. This enhancement has led to a 35% reduction in scam reports.
- Bulk Sender Requirements (Effective February 2024):
- Email Authentication: Bulk senders (those sending over 5,000 emails per day) must authenticate their emails using both SPF and DKIM protocols.
- Unsubscribe Option: Emails must include an easy-to-use unsubscribe link, allowing recipients to opt out effortlessly.
- Spam Rate Threshold: Senders must maintain low spam rates, staying below a 0.10% threshold to avoid penalties.
The Gmail email platform has some specific nuances. Please consider these two factors to ensure your emails directed to Gmail domains are received perfectly:
- Size Limit: Gmail trims emails exceeding 102 KB.
- Optimization: Reduce code and content size to avoid trimming.
How to avoid Gmail's Promotions Tab
Gmail's Promotions Tab is not the same as a spam folder
We must be crystal-clear, Gmail's Promotions Tab can be a good place to show your emails and generate more open rate and engagement with your brand, taking advantage of this tab's visual options to attract users attention.
Anyway, if you prefer your email campaigns arrive at the main tab, there are several tips to follow below. Remember that to try to cheat Gmail's algorithms can adversely affect the delivery of your emails into a spam folder. Please note, Gmail's algorithms are specific for each recipient so if your email arrives at the Primary inbox for one recipient, it doesn't mean the same result for the next recipients.
- Personalize your email by greeting your recipients by name: "Hello {{username}}..." -> "Hello Michael..."
- Do not use a generic reply-to address (sales@, support@) and never use @no-reply. You can use instead a personal reply-to address (yourname@)
- Keep images to a minimum
- Use one or two links within your email (the unsubscribe link is not counted as a link)
- Authenticate your sending domain with SPF & DKIM records (More info)
How to optimize email delivery (Gmail's Promotions Tab)
Gmail's Promotions Tab is the space to receive the marketing emails. The users who previously have accepted your email marketing, are expecting to receive your emails inside this tab. So it is not wrong your emails arrive into his tab and even you can take advantage of its visual interface.
Email annotations let you include images, deals, expiration dates and other offers to get a great impact. You can include the email code in your campaigns to add these elements. For this you will use our html option and copy the code you need.
- Create a deal annotacion. Deal annotations display text-based details for a promotion (promotion code or expiration date).
- Create a product carousel. Product carousels display up to 10 image previews.
Updated about 4 hours ago