Reach your audience: Subscribers can only open and act on emails if they end up in their inbox. If your emails end up in spam, they’ll probably never be seen. High deliverability ensures your message reaches the right people.
Maximize ROI: Email marketing generates up to $36 for every $1 spent. That ROI depends on emails actually reaching inboxes. Poor deliverability means lost revenue and wasted marketing spend. Ensuring good deliverability maximizes visibility and engagement.
Building Trust and Reputation: Inbox placement builds credibility with subscribers and inbox providers. Recognized emails increase trust and brand engagement. Gmail, Yahoo, and others track sender behavior over time. A strong sender reputation improves future inbox placement.
Protecting your brand: Poor deliverability can result in emails being marked as spam. Spam complaints hurt your campaign performance and brand reputation. Mailbox providers can penalize your domain for frequent spam complaints. Good deliverability safeguards your brand and sender reputation.
Example: Even if you have a 98% deliverability rate (meaning 98% of your emails aren’t bounced by our servers), the remaining 2% of bounced emails can be significant. For a send to 1,000 subscribers, 20 people would never see your message. And if attorney email list some delivered emails quietly end up in spam, your true audience reach is further reduced. This illustrates why it’s so important to focus on deliverability: it directly impacts the number of subscribers who actually set their eyes on your content. In short, better deliverability = more opens, clicks, and conversions.
Read more: From Spam Folder to Inbox Hero: Email Deliverability for Niche Industries
There are several factors that determine whether your emails make it into the inbox. Understanding these factors will help you identify what to improve. Key aspects include sender reputation, authentication, list quality, subscriber engagement, email content, and sending behavior. Let's break them down one by one:
Sender reputation: This is essentially your email sender “score,” or your credibility in the eyes of incoming email providers. ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and incoming email providers assign senders a reputation score (often from 0 to 100) based on how recipients interact with your emails. If a lot of people frequently delete your emails, mark them as spam, or if you have high bounce rates , your score will drop. A low sender score tells providers that people don’t trust or want your emails, leading to more filtering of your messages. On the other hand, a good track record (few complaints, few bounces, solid engagement) improves your reputation, making providers more confident in delivering your email. Of all the deliverability factors, sender reputation is one of the most important, because it’s like your email’s “credit score”—it affects everything else.