Contents
- What is deliverability?
- How to calculate deliverability?
- Factors affecting deliverability
- How to improve deliverability?
What is deliverability?
Deliverability is an important metric in email marketing, representing the percentage of emails that successfully reached their recipients out of the total number of sent messages. The deliverability rate directly impacts the effectiveness of your campaign, as it indicates how well your campaign reaches its audience.
An email is considered delivered when it lands in the recipient's inbox, regardless of whether it ended up in the "Inbox" or "Spam" folder. The main condition is the successful acceptance of the message by the SMTP server, which excludes bounces. However, to assess the success of a campaign, it is essential to consider not only deliverability but also other metrics such as open rates and click-through rates.
How to calculate deliverability?
To calculate the deliverability rate, you need to know the total number of sent emails and the number of successfully delivered ones. This data is usually available in the statistics of the service you are using for your mailing. The formula for calculation is as follows:
DR = (number of delivered emails / number of sent emails) × 100%
Alternatively, you can use a formula that accounts for bounces:
DR = ((number of sent emails - number of bounces) / number of sent emails) × 100%
A normal value is considered to be 95% and above. If this indicator is lower, it is worth investigating the reasons and addressing potential issues.
Factors affecting deliverability
A low deliverability rate can result from a high bounce rate. Bounces occur when the mail server rejects the received email. Here are some key factors that can affect deliverability:
- Quality of the email list: the presence of invalid or outdated addresses can negatively affect deliverability.
- Method of subscription confirmation: using the Double Opt-in method helps reduce the likelihood of erroneous addresses entering your list.
- Email content: the presence of spam words or an overly large email size increases the likelihood of rejection.
- Spam complaints: a high number of complaints from subscribers can lead to a decrease in deliverability.
- Sender domain reputation: if your domain receives many spam complaints, it may lead to its blocking.
It is also important to note that different mailing services can have varying delivery rates, which is related to the reputation of their SMTP servers and their approaches to verifying email lists and content.
How to improve deliverability?
To improve the deliverability rate, it is important to consider the different types of bounces:
- Soft bounce: temporary issues, such as a full inbox or temporary server failures.
- Hard bounce: permanent issues, such as when the recipient has blocked their mailbox or it no longer exists.
To enhance deliverability, efforts should be made to reduce the rate of hard bounces. This can be achieved by removing addresses that have resulted in hard bounces and checking the list for non-existent addresses. Using the Double Opt-in method will also help avoid invalid addresses entering your list.
In the case of soft bounces, it is necessary to monitor the content and size of the emails, as well as identify issues with specific email providers. Regular checking and testing of emails will help avoid being blacklisted and maintain a high level of deliverability.