In most of the businesses I see, I find that they are missing some basic setups that cause their emails to be sent right to the Spam folder or Gmail Promotional tab. Most of these are straight-forward changes that I wanted to make a PSA about so that you all can avoid that fate!
Implementing this will increase your open rates because likely you are going to spam by some percentage. Let's do everything we can to lower that so you can engage and profit more!
If you are setting up email for a NEW domain or switching to a NEW email service provider, PLEASE read Point 6 or you will totally and permanently screw up your domain reputation.
Long story short, each email client (gmail, outlook, hotmail) calculates and stores your "reputation". Reputation is measured by how engaged people you send to are. Each email client has its own algorithm so each has its own unique score for you. They track you by looking at your sending domain, from address, IP address, click tracking domain, and CDN URL.
#1: Does your DNS have the correct Setup?
I'll use some scary acronyms here, but actually all you have to do is call your hosting provider and say "Please help me, I need setting up [scary acronym]." For several hosting providers I've called, they've actually been fast and very surprisingly helpful.
Setup DKIM, SPF, and DMARC:
These are all simple ways to authenticate your mail server. It proves to the ISPs and mail clients that you are who you say you are and your email didn't get hacked and altered along the way. They are all text files that you add to your DNS. Setting these up makes a HUGE difference to stop email clients marking you as spam.
How do these work?
I won't get into detail because it doesn't matter that much. Just understand the basics. SPF is like adding a "From" address to your snail mail. DKIM is like sending certified snail mail. DMARC checks that both SPF and DKIM exist and helps to communicate with the email provider about this. It all helps to comfort the email clients to truly know who the mail is from and that its legitimate.
P.S. If you're doing shared hosting (not using your own domain, its send via Klaviyo or MailChimp) then they will have the DNS setup for you. More on this below)
#2: Are you Sending to Engaged People?Segment by Engagement
Segmenting isn't just to create custom emails. Its an absolute requirement for a healthy list and great domain reputation. You will separate your list based on how engaged they are (how often they open and click your emails). Sending to people who never read your emails hurts your reputation A LOT. (This is why its actually a good thing when people unsubscribe - never worry about that, you don't want to email them)
Criteria for Segmentation
Engaged List:
If you send emails daily: They have joined in the last 15 days or they have opened or clicked an email in the last 30 days.
If you send emails weekly/monthly: They have joined in last 30 days or have opened or clicked an email in the last 60-90 days.
Unengaged List:
If you send emails daily: They have been on your list for at least 30 days and have not opened an email in the last 30 days. (Increase to 60 days if you have a steady open rate of 20%+)
If you send emails weekly: They have been on your list for at least 60 days and have not opened an email in the last 60 days. (increase to 90 if you have a steady open rate of 20%+)
If you send emails monthly: They have been on your list for at least 120 days and have not opened an email in the last 120 days.
You should also filter out emails that have soft bounced 4+ times. If you do this excessively, you will be penalized.
Sunset Flows
Sunset Flows are an automatic flow that tag people as unengaged if they haven't been opening your emails. Alternatively, you can suppress their email which allows you to keep all of their data in case they resubscribe, but allows you to not pay for having their email on your list.
Sunset Flows are 100% critical for your list health and therefore your business. By sending these people too many emails, you hurt your reputation with your email clients.
Also, you will typically setup a Winback Flow before the Sunset Flow, but that is for another day.
How to Setup Sunset Flows
Start this flow when someone on your list for at least 90 days but has never opened an email. The goal of this flow is to get them to re-engage by opening the email. If they don't, they get tagged as "unengaged" and are only sent very important emails such as major sales or big announcements.
You will send them an email that asks them if they still want to be part of your list, if they want to update their preferences and/or offer them a special discount if they come back
Let me know if you want the detailed, step-by-step segmentation rules. I have them, its just a pain to type out!
Subject Examples:
- We Miss You!
- Do you still want to hear from us?
- Here's a discount if you come back!
- Should we stay or go?
Segment by Email Clients
Advanced trick that's really useful. Since each email client has their own unique reputation score for you, if one email client is performing poorly (low open rates) then you can segment out that email client from your list and only send your super high engagers to that email client until you gradually increase your reputation score. Check out Point 6 on how to do this correctly.
#3: Make Sure You're Not Going to SPAMTools to Check Your Spamminess
Go to the website above then it will tell you an email address for you to send your email to that you want to check. It will then give you a score out of 10 and give you suggestions on how you can improve the spam score of your email. Make the changes it suggests and you will be SO far ahead of everyone else.
You can test your emails with Litmus to see how each email client and device handles your emails. It previews what it will look like across devices along with testing for broken links, bad html, broken images and other issues. Having these issues increases your spamminess.
What to do if you're going to Spam
It's not good to end up in spam. It will take some time to fix your reputation. Follow the steps below fix this.
Is it a specific list?
Did you run a contest where a lot of people put in a dummy email address that bounced? This can decrease your reputation. Try to identify if it is a specific list causing your trouble and stop using it or delete the emails that bounced.
Is it a specific email client?
Like I said in Point #2, you can segment by email client to isolate the issue.
How to Fix it
In step #2, I described how to segment by engagement. DO THAT. Then ONLY send to your most highly engaged audience. Do this for about 2 weeks. Follow the steps below in Point #6 to learn how to slowly expand your list out again.
A drastic fix
Changing your domain gives you a new reputation score for the most part, but this is not an option for most companies. Instead, you could send your emails through a subdomain like "email.domain.com" so that your main domain is protected.
Rules to Follow to Avoid the Spam Folder
You might be flagged as spam based off of the language that you use or the quality of your emails. Below are some tips to NEVER do.
- Don't use Spam Words
- This list is LONG, so I'll tell you to simply google "email spam words" for the entire list. Simply put, anything that sounds too salesy, desperate, or pushy will lead you to the spam folder. Words such as "Buy Now", "Exclusive Deal", and "FREE"
- Don't have HTML errors
- Broken HTML or even Images without Alt tags is bad.
- Don't have extremely long URLs
- Unfortunately, this is often unavoidable because your ESP will add click tracking that elongates your links. Ask your ESPs if they provide link shortening while still having tracking.
- Never send to a purchased list.
- Never hide or manipulate the unsubscribe link
- Don't make it blend in. Don't add any links nearby the unsubscribe link. Only say "unsubscribe", not even "Click here to unsubscribe".
- Don't make your subject line sound spammy especially
- No all caps, don't overuse exclamation points, don't say "free" or "buy now" or anything else that your gut tells you sounds bad.
#4: Don't Go in the Promotions Tab
Gmail puts emails that it thinks you need to respond to in the main tab, and "view-only" emails in the promotion tab. So your core goal should be to increase engagement. Below are some ideas and other rules:
- Ask questions to increase the reply rate.
- Reduce the number of links
- Reduce the email file size
- Ask your subscribers to drag their email to the main tab.
#5: Consider a Dedicated Domain (read below if you do this)
A dedicated domain is when you use your own domain to send the emails. You still use an ESP like Klaviyo, MailChimp, or SendGrid etc, but when you send an email, it won't say "via Klaviyo" at the end of the header.
Dedicated Domains are beneficial because you have complete control over your reputation score unlike Shared Sending Domains where you and hundreds of other companies all send from the same domain and their actions affect everyone's reputation.
When you have a dedicated domain, you will have to make your own DNS changes like I described in point 1. If you are in a shared domain, you don't have to worry about that yet.
You should only move from a shared domain when you are confident that you can keep your reputation high. So I'd recommend staying on a shared domain until you build your segmented engagement list. Then when you have a list of high engagers, you can be confident that you can keep your reputation high on your own dedicated domain.
If you decide to create a dedicated domain, follow the steps below exactly so that you do not permanently ruin your reputation.
#6: MANDATORY if You Just Changed Domains or ESPs!!
Email clients are always skeptical of new domains and keep a close eye on them. So your initial actions have a huge impact on your long term reputation score. Your main goal is engagement. Therefore, you should only email your most highly engaged audience in the beginning and only slowly expand to larger audiences as long as you keep certain metrics high.
Warm Your List
- Send your emails only to a small group of your highest engaged audience. This group should have opened an email within the last 30 days or subscribed within the last 15 days. Stay here until you achieve at least 30% open rates.
- After multiple sends and over several days, if you maintain your high open rate you can continue to the next step. Broaden your audience to 60 days and monitor your metrics carefully. Make sure that the open rate stays at 20% or higher. If it drops below this number, return to your 30 days segment.
- After maintaining your metrics for the 60 day segment for multiple sends over multiple days, you can expand to 90 days.
- You should be sending to your 90 day segment over the course of at least 3 weeks total since starting before continuing any farther.
- Continue with this process of expanding your day segment, monitoring metrics to make sure open rates remain above 20%, holding for about a week or over multiple emails sends, then continuing to the next largest segment or regressing to the previous. Do this for 30, 60, 90, 120, and 180 days until complete. Remember that the goal is to maintain a high engagement so that your reputation remains high. This has a huge long term value for your business.
Setup High Engagement Flows
While following the instructions above for segmenting, you can either send campaigns or the high engaging flows listed below. Do not send your low engaging flows until you have completed warming up your list to 180 days.
High Engaging Flows:
Welcome Series, Abandoned Cart, Browse Abandonment
Low Engaging Flows:
Winback Series, Re-Engagement Series.
Even after you are done warming your list, still continue to check back on your metrics to make sure your open rates are 20%+, your unsubscribes are less than 0.2%, and your spam complaints are less than 0.08%. If any of these metrics are breached, return to your highly engaged audience and slowly expand again.
Hope this helps!
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/Emailmarketing/comments/hc3ewd/dont_go_to_spam_heres_how_to_setup_your_email/
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