To consider an Email deliverable means it has the potential to be delivered to your recipient’s inbox. Although this might seem straightforward, there are a lot of factors that determine whether an email will be delivered or not. For email marketers, ensuring that an email is delivered to the right person and at the right time is a matter of necessity and that is why we would like to share with you some of the surefire ways to enhance email deliverability and reach your subscribers with no hassle.

1.  Dedicate One IP Address to One Type of Email

If you rely heavily on email marketing, then you should consider having separate IP addresses for your different email needs.

Having a separate email for conducting your marketing campaigns and another for transactions will ensure that the deliverability of one does not affect that of the other.

2.  Ensure You Have Permission

While it might be easy to assume that your intending recipient will find the content of your email useful, that is not always the case. Even though some of these contacts might voluntarily offer their email addresses, it does not necessarily mean that they are interested in receiving your monthly newsletters or giveaway programs.

To avoid being labeled as 'junk' or 'spam,' ensure that you have the consent of your contacts. There is nothing better than having a strong list of contacts who gladly anticipate your Emails.

3.  Authenticate Your Email

To enhance the deliverability of your emails, your domain has to undergo certain protocols to ascertain its authenticity.

If your sending domain is not recognized as a legitimate sender, this could affect the number of people that would actually receive those emails. SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mails), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) are the three fundamental processes your domain must go through to verify its status.

4.  Do Not Share IP Addresses

Except you are new to email marketing and only have a few subscribers, you should consider getting a dedicated IP address for sending emails.

By sharing one sending IP address with other users, you become subject to the consequences of their behavior. They could influence your IP's reputation either negatively or positively and you can never be too sure which side you would be getting.

5.  Beef Up Your Server's Security

You can ensure your emails get to the recipients in one piece without being accessed by a third party. This is made possible with Transport Layer Security (TLS), an encryption that helps protect your emails until it gets to its destination.

Certain email servers prefer emails that are encrypted with TLS and this would only improve your deliverability status.

6.  Ensure Your Domain is Able to Receive Emails

To improve the deliverability of your emails, you must ensure that your sending domain can receive emails.

Not only will this build a level of trust between you and your contacts, it will also stop certain ISPs from automatically blocking your emails.

7.  Do Not Buy Emails

In a desperate attempt to get more contacts on their email lists, certain people resort to buying emails. But that is a bad move.

Contacts on purchased email lists are more likely to flag your domain as spam, thereby hurting your reputation. Also, since they literally did not ask to receive messages from you, engagement is poor and produces little or absolutely no results.

Not worth it.

8.  Make It Easy for Users to Unsubscribe

You must first be at peace with the fact that not everyone would want to remain subscribed to your mailing list. When this happens, ensure that the process you have put in place is as straightforward as possible (the best option is to include an unsubscribe button). In a situation where it is not easy for users to unsubscribe, they could resort to other options, like tagging your content as spam or junk, and that would hurt your sender reputation.

9.  Work on Lowering Your Bounce Rates

Email bounce rates occur when an email does not reach the intended recipient. There are two kinds of email bounces - the hard bounce and the soft bounce. When you receive a hard bounce from a contact, it is advisable to remove them from your mailing list completely. With a soft bounce, you can always try again later. But when it continues to happen, you can label it as a hard bounce and remove it.

The lower your bounce rates, the better for your email’s deliverability.

10. Look Out for Spam Traps

A spam trap is a tool used by ISPs to manage fraud. What they do is create an invalid email address (which cannot be gotten legitimately) and catch the senders. Sending domains caught in the spam trap are usually blacklisted, making it near impossible to reach their audience. This is yet another reason why you must not buy emails because they are filled with spam traps.

11. Verify Your Email List

This is a surefire way to remove all the dead weight from your mailing list. This deadweight refers to spam traps, inactive and invalid email addresses, and even hard bounces. At the end of this process, you are only left with verified addresses that your message would get to. This would lower bounce rates and also strengthen your domain’s reputation. Mailtester is a free email list cleaner that you would find very helpful.

12. Monitor Engagement Closely

Do you know if your audience finds your content useful? If they do not, this could affect your reputation because major ISPs focus on how much engagement your email campaigns get.

To overcome low engagement, you could try personalizing some of your messages after taking the time to study your audience and their needs.

Remember, low open rates will only give you a bad reputation.

13. Do Not Be Blacklisted

This goes without saying. One of the things that could get you blacklisted is falling into a spam trap. How long the blacklist lasts depends on the ISP, but regardless, it still hurts your reputation and that would negatively affect how your emails are received. Avoid it at all costs.

14. Implement a Double Opt In

Remember when we talked about seeking consent? This process reinforces it. By implementing a double opt-in, you give your contacts the chance to follow a link and confirm their subscriptions. It is basically a second confirmation but then, it sends the contact a really good image of how much trust exists in your work.

15. Subscribe to Feedback Loops (FPL)

When a contact labels your address as spam, it becomes imperative for such contact to be removed from your mailing list. Software like Feedback Loops, supported by certain ISPs, will alert you about contacts that have labeled your content as spam, and then you can do the necessary to protect your reputation.

16. Properly Format Your Emails

Deciding whether to write plain text emails or HTML emails can be quite a hassle. The both of them have their merits and demerits. Whichever you choose, just ensure that it is properly formatted with the appropriate text and images. This would not only ensure that your messages are not labeled as spam, but it will also improve engagement.

17. Personalise Your Emails

When dealing with real people, you must be careful not to come off as distant, unapproachable, and robotic. This is why adding a little personalization to your segmented content will go a long way in improving open rates and also email deliverability.

18. Avoid Using Deceptive Subject Lines

While it is absolutely normal to make claims that will serve as lead magnets, it is unethical to not make good on those promises. No matter how strong and juicy your offers are, if you do not deliver those offers, your sender reputation will be negatively affected. So, avoid using deceptive subject lines to enhance your email deliverability.

19. Always Link to Trusted Sites

If you do not want your address to be labeled as spam and have your reputation destroyed, you must be mindful of the links you include in your emails. Ensure that they are in just the right amount and they lead to actual, reputable websites and you are good to go.

20. Practice Consistency

All these tips will produce zero results if you do not work with a plan. Focus on growing your email list steadily by creating a schedule and a plan of how you plan to structure your content, sending days, etc. A sudden spike in activity on your email list will be suspicious and might cost you your reputation. To avoid that, practice consistency.

By practicing a few of these surefire ways that are guaranteed to enhance your email deliverability and help you reach your subscribers, your email campaigns will become a walk in the park.