Getting your emails delivered to your recipient's inbox is important! We have compiled a list of resources to help you avoid getting sent to the SPAM folder, promotions tab, or getting bounced out completely.
Email people who have opted-in to receive content from you.
Implement a Sunset Policy. It's important to identify contacts who have not engaged/responded to emails from you in more than 6 months or so. We suggest removing them from your database or starting them on a re-engagement campaign.
BenchmarkONE helps you do this by removing emails that do not exist, contacts who unsubscribe, hard bounces, and SPAM complaints from your email sends automatically.
2. A Segmented List
Send emails to people based on their interests. This will increase open and click-through rates, creating better engagement and a better sender reputation – essential in getting to the inbox!
BenchmarkONE helps you do this by automating tags based on engagement activity from your contacts.
Do not send from a Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo address (see this article).
Send from a person, not a "sales@" or "info@" email address.
BenchmarkONE helps you do this by letting you determine your sending email address in your Account Settings > Profile Information.
This removes the "on behalf of" language from your email sends.
BenchmarkONE helps you with this by offering email authentication for free to all our clients. If you haven't already, reach out to our Support Team at support@benchmarkone.com to start the authentication process.
Monitor your bounce rates and make sure they are below 1% at all times.
Maintain high open and click-through rates.
BenchmarkONE helps you do this by cleaning your list (see above) and providing resources on: Building Better Emails, Getting More Opens and Crafting Better Subject Lines.
6. Good Content
Avoid mismatched URLs by linking part of your text, not including the full URL itself
Avoid large images or too many images (shoot for a 60/40 text to image ratio)
Never send an email that is just one large image
Avoid spam-like words (free, instant, guaranteed, etc)
Avoid misspelling, using excessive exclamation marks, and ALL CAPS
Avoid "loud" colors like bright red or green
Avoid "sloppy" HTML or HTML copied from Microsoft Word
Send content based on the contact's interests
If necessary, check your content with a test service like EmailOnAcid
7. An Awareness of Why Emails Might Bounce
Make sure you are not consistently re-enabling emails that are bouncing due to any of the reasons listed in the article above.
BenchmarkONE helps you do this by providing the specific bounce reason we receive from the server in the Activity feed.
8. Getting added to a Safe Senders List or White-Listed
Some servers may reject your email despite your best efforts. If you have a relationship with a particular individual or company and you are experiencing a consistent SPAM or bounce issue, ask them to have their IT team white-list your domain.
Gmail users can manually set whether or not something is in the "Promotions" tab. Send a note to your Gmail recipients asking them to move your emails to their primary inbox instead of the promotions tab.
9. Sending in Small Batches
Make sure you are sending to 5,000 or less contacts at one time. When ISPs see large groups of the same email, they assume they are SPAM and filter them accordingly.
Remember to segment!
BenchmarkONE can help you do this by using tags to designate smaller "send" groups from your larger list.
It is always good to remember that your deliverability to the inbox when using an email service like BenchmarkONE will differ from sending individual emails through Outlook or Gmail. Also, it is impossible to completely understand and avoid SPAM/Promotion filters. The items above, however, should help your deliverability increase tremendously!
If you have additional questions or are concerned about your bounce rate, please email our Support Team at support@benchmarkone.com for help.