Email Deliverability Tips
1. Get and confirm permission -
Capturing an opt-in and confirming it with a follow-up email is best practice. SpinnakerPro not only captures and saves all opt-ins and opt-outs in its database, it also sends out a confirmation email when a contact subscribes.
2. Send relevant emails.
The age of email blasting is over. Use eMarketing’s preference centre
to ask your subscribers exactly what content they want to receive and when.
3. Don’t send emails too often
A recent study by DoubleClick shows that 65% of men and 56% of women define
spam as ‘email from a company that I have done business with that
comes too often.’
4. Use a recognizable ‘from address’
Your contact must recognize who is sending them the email. The ‘from
address’ is the first thing they will look at and if they don’t
recognize it, they will delete your email.
5. ISP Testing
Set up a test accounts in AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc and build a segment
to broadcast to these email accounts first before sending to your entire
list. If they bounce, land in a bulk folder or are blocked completely, you
can investigate and sort out any issues. Also check out http://postmaster.aol.com/guidelines
for AOL email guidelines.
6. Reverse DNS Look-up
Help ISPs verify your identity. Use a static IP address and enable reverse
DNS look-up.
What is DNS? DNS stands for Domain Name System, and it’s how computers find each other on the Internet. The Importance of a Static IP Address - In order to have a complete DNS record, you need to have a static IP address for your email server. Static IP addresses are generally used by web and email servers. Generally speaking, a static IP address is "assigned" to a particular computer and it stays the same.
Because DNS is such an important way of establishing identity on the Internet, spammers will often forge domain names or IP addresses to hide where their mail is coming from. To detect these forgeries, ISPs often perform what’s called a reverse DNS lookup on incoming messages.
A reverse DNS lookup takes the IP address that’s trying to make the connection, and checks to see if there is a registered domain associated with it.
You can help ISPs verify your identity by making sure that your DNS entry is complete and correct. To make sure your domain has all the correct entries, you can use a web site like www.dnsreport.com. If you have any questions about the entries there, call your IT department and ask them to look into it.
7. Deal with Unsubscribes immediately
eMarketing deals with unsubscribes immediately and automatically, so no
worries here.
8. Ask to be placed in the address book of your contact.
Ask contacts to place you in their address book and safe sender lists. Once
in there, your emails will reach the inbox every time.
9. Content
Some words or phrases that might appear in your email have such a high probability
for spam that they will cause your email to get blocked by many spam filters.
You can find up-to-date lists on the internet. Here is one of the latest.
So avoid these words in your email, and especially in the subject line.
• Free
• enlarge
• click here
• big bucks
• long distance
• dear
• loan
• offer
• money back
• targeted
• incredible
• spam
• drug related words - viagra, etc.
• sex/porn related words
Below is a list of typical filters found in Outlook 2003
From is blank
Subject contains "advertisement"
Body contains "money back "
Body contains "cards accepted"
Body contains "removal instructions"
Body contains "extra income"
Subject contains "!" AND Subject contains "$"
Subject contains "!" AND Subject contains "free"
Body contains ",000" AND Body contains "!!" AND Body
contains "$"
Body contains "for free?"
Body contains "for free!"
Body contains "Guarantee" AND (Body contains
"satisfaction" OR Body contains "absolute")
Body contains "more info " AND Body contains "visit "
AND Body contains "$"
Body contains "SPECIAL PROMOTION"
Body contains "one-time mail"
Subject contains "$$"
Body contains "$$$"
Body contains "order today"
Body contains "order now!"
Body contains "money-back guarantee"
Body contains "100% satisfied"
To contains "friend@"
To contains "public@"
To contains "success@"
>From contains "sales@"
>From contains "success."
>From contains "success@"
>From contains "mail@"
>From contains "@public"
>From contains "@savvy"
>From contains "profits@"
>From contains "hello@"
Body contains " mlm"
Body contains "@mlm"
Body contains "///////////////"
Body contains "check or money order
10. Ask IT for help.
If you are sending emails to a company where you know you have subscribed
contacts and your emails are not getting through. Call their IT department
and explain.
SpinnakerPro
Features
Case Studies
Results
Email Design Tips
Email Deliverability
Technology
Portfolio
Our clients include:
Campden Research
Great Hotels of the World
East of England Association
Epicor
Hartwell UK
iLogix
I.T Xchange
Konica Minolta
O'Callaghan Hotel Group
The Manufacturing Institute
Thomson Carswell
Tower Hotel Group Ireland
Victor Chandler
Start using SpinnakerPro today
Get a free 30 day trial
T: +353 61 234500
E: sales@spinnakerpro.com