Contents
Introduction
Email deliverability is a key factor in the success of your email marketing campaigns.
As an expert digital marketing agency, we offer you a comprehensive guide to optimizing email deliverability, configuring your SMTP server, understanding the email delivery process, avoiding spam from your customers and collaborators, and choosing the best solutions for your business email needs.
Understanding e-mail deliverability
Email deliverability refers to the ability of your messages to reach recipients’ inboxes without being blocked or marked as spam.
It is influenced by several factors, such as sender reputation, authentication configurations and content practices.
Adequate SMTP configurations
SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the standard protocol for sending emails.
Correct configuration is essential to ensure the deliverability of your e-mails.
Here are the key steps:
- SMTP provider selection: Choose reputable providers such as Sendinblue, Mailgun or Amazon SES.
- Authentication: Implement the following authentication protocols:
- SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Specify which servers are authorized to send e-mail for your domain.
For more information, see the SPF Record documentation. - DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Adds a digital signature to your e-mails to verify their authenticity.
Find out more about DKIM. - DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance): Combines SPF and DKIM to protect your domain against identity theft.
Find out more about DMARC.
- SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Specify which servers are authorized to send e-mail for your domain.
- Security: Use SSL/TLS to encrypt communications between your SMTP server and receiving servers.
See StartTLS for more technical information. - DNS configuration: Configure your DNS records to include SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
How does email delivery work?
1. Broadcast
Your SMTP server sends the email to the recipient's server using the SMTP protocol.
2. Relay
Intermediate servers (MTAs - Mail Transfer Agents) relay the email until it reaches the final receiving server.
3. Reception
The email is received by the recipient's mail server (MDA - Mail Delivery Agent).
4. Filtering
The email is scanned for spam, viruses and other security criteria.
5. Deliverability
If the email passes the filters, it is placed in the recipient's inbox.
How to avoid spam boxes
To ensure that your emails don’t end up in spam, follow these best practices:
- List Quality: Use ethically sourced email lists and check their quality regularly.
If you want to build that quality email list, take a look at MailChimp or MailerLite. - Personalization: Customize your emails to make them relevant and engaging for your recipients.
Tools like Litmus or even MailChimp and MailerLite have built-in e-mail builders that can help you optimize your e-mails and their data for a modern, captivating look. - Content: Avoid keywords often associated with spam, such as “Free, PROMO, Win, Urgent, etc.” and maintain a reasonable text/image balance to avoid weighing down your e-mail and increase its deliverability time. You can also use services like Grammarly or Antidote to check content quality.
- IP Reputation: Use dedicated IP addresses with a good reputation.
To monitor your IP’s reputation, use Sender Score. - Feedback Loops: Sign up for email service providers’ feedback loops to monitor complaints.
More information on Postmaster Tools (You’ll need to add your domain to the authorized domains of your Google account and then check your spam rate).
How to get a Professional Email
First of all, when we talk about professional e-mail, we mean e-mail with an extension based on your domain name. For example, at WebPlify our domain is webplify.ca and our professional e-mail address is info@webplify.ca.
To meet your business email needs, here are a few recommended solutions:
- G Suite: Offers personalized email addresses with high reliability and security.
More details on Google Workspace. - Microsoft 365: Full integration with Microsoft productivity tools.
Find out more about Microsoft 365. - Zoho Mail: A cost-effective solution with many features.
Learn more about Zoho Mail. - Sendinblue: Ideal for marketing campaigns and transactional emails.
Find out more about Sendinblue.
At WebPlify, when you take out a service with us you will automatically have a professional, hosted and secure email if you wish.
Contact us here for more information.
Conclusion
Optimizing the deliverability of your emails is essential to ensure the success of your marketing campaigns and communication with your customers.
By following the advice in this guide, you can correctly configure your SMTP server, improve your deliverability rates, and choose the best solutions for your business email needs.
For further advice and tailor-made services, please contact WebPlify, your digital marketing partner.
