Email marketing is considered one of the most cost-effective approaches for marketers. With the minimal cost of creating marketing emails and the personal nature of the email channel, it’s no wonder that it’s one of the best ways to engage with your audience and maintain a meaningful relationship that provides value to both sides.

However, there are some details to consider that can become barriers for your emails to reach your audience. We can distinguish them into two major key distinctions: delivery vs. deliverability.

Email Delivery

In short, email delivery means “Did my email reach the recipient server successfully?”

When you send an email, the recipient server can deny your message for several reasons:

1. IP Address or Domain Block – In the long run, if you practice bad marketing email communications, your IP address or domain can end up on a blacklist. Once blacklisted, your emails will get blocked by some recipient email servers.
2. Emails Bounce – If the email address does not exist or is faulty, your email message will bounce back with an error code. These errors can be divided into two main categories:

• Soft Bounce – Temporary failure that tells the sender to try again at a later time.
• Hard Bounce – Permanent failure that tells the sender they shouldn’t attempt to try sending again.

To sum it up, when your email is delivered, it means that your server has successfully established a connection with the recipient server. Remember, email delivery does not necessarily mean that the email has landed in the recipient’s inbox.

Email Deliverability

In short, email deliverability means “Did my email reach the inbox?”

Also known as “Inbox Placement,” it describes whether the email message lands in the inbox or the spam folder after being delivered. Reaching your recipient’s inbox is a challenge in itself and can make the difference between a successful campaign and a failure. Several factors affect email deliverability:

• Authentication – Implementing email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC can help establish your sender identity and increase the chances of successful deliverability. In short, these technical settings give confidence that your emails are being sent on your behalf and are not spoofed or dangerous.
• Reputation – Your sender’s reputation is a score that ISPs (Internet Service Providers) use to indicate whether you are a trustworthy sender. Each ISP calculates your sender score separately based on recipient engagement with your email messages. For example, you might have a better reputation on Gmail than on Yahoo. Tracking this metric is important, and tools like Sender Score or HubSpot email marketing software can help you monitor your reputation.
• Content Quality – Spam filters analyze various elements in your emails, including subject lines, body, images, and links. Ensuring your content is well-written, relevant, and doesn’t trigger spam filters is key. For example, using an all-caps subject line or spam-triggering words like “FREE MONEY FOR YOU!!!!” for an email offering a coupon for your products can potentially trigger spam filters. It’s best to avoid false advertisements or weird formatting.

Email Marketing = Relationship

Email marketing is a good channel to communicate your brand and message with your customers. But like any relationship, email marketing requires trust. You should make sure your recipient trusts you first and only then communicate your message. To reach your recipient’s inboxes, there are some best practices you should consider:

• Focus on building trust with your audience.
• Use effective email deliverability strategies.
• Provide value consistently.

Email marketing has the potential to play a vital role in your growth and significantly increase your ROI if done right. Remember, getting your emails to the inbox is just the first step. To succeed in your email marketing campaigns, you should constantly provide value.

If you feel there is room for improvement in your email deliverability efforts, feel free to contact us. Our team has extensive experience and know-how in the Email Marketing realm and can help you with building it to scale.