Deliverability: 10 tips to adopt the best practices

Deliverability is an issue of the utmost importance for CRM managers. Good email deliverability enables brands toincrease their chances of conversion. And that's no mean feat when you consider that 4 out of 10 Internet users visit an e-commerce site or store to make a purchase following receipt of a marketing email.

First and foremost, it's important to note that the choice of marketing automation platform is crucial. Indeed, while the best practices we'll be listing below are to be applied in each and every one of your marketing campaigns, they're nothing without a marketing automation tool renowned for its excellent sender reputation among Mailbox Providers. A tool's poor reputation will damage your brand's reputation, and vice versa.

How can you ensure that your messages reach their final destination - your customers' and prospects' email inboxes? Here are 10 best practices to apply to your CRM marketing strategy.

1. Consent: the RGPD at the service of deliverability

A customer or prospect who has not given their consent to receive your communications may compromise your reputation with MBPs (Mailbox Providers), notably by unsubscribing from your communications or categorizing you as"spam" in their mailbox.

So the best advice we can give you is this: whatever the channel for collecting customer data (online or in-store), make sure you apply the same RGPD rules around consent. In this way, by ensuring that each recipient of your emailings agrees, you kill two birds with one stone: you enhance your customer experience by respecting the (legal!) choices of your contacts, while preserving your reputation as a sender with MBPs.

2. The quality of your customer database as a guarantee of success for your deliverability

If at first glance you don't see the link between the quality of your customer database and your deliverability, there really is one. MBPs are very vigilant about sending mailings to incorrect and/or non-existent addresses.

Constant and regular cleaning of your contact database is therefore essential:

• Check email address syntax
• Check the domain name to make sure it exists (a gamil instead of gmail can happen very quickly).
• Refuse unusable data by preventing consumers from filling in your acquisition forms with erroneous data (an email ending in .co instead of .com, for example).
• Watch for addresses containing abuse

Fewer emails sent to hard bounces or spamtraps equals a better deliverability rate. In fact, a Customer Data Platform would be a great help in improving the quality of your customer data.

3. Compartmentalize your domain names to preserve your different reputations

To give yourself the best chance of avoiding conflicts that could damage your reputation, the best practice when it comes to domain names is todedicate a sub-domain of your website exclusively to your emails.

On the one hand, you are identified to MBP by the domain name of your e-mails (DNS) and by your IP address. Your website is also identified. The reputation of your website domain name and that of your e-mails are both preserved in the event of a problem.

4. One sender per email type

Not all email types are equal when it comes to open rates, and therefore deliverability. Transactional emails generally have better open rates than promotional emails.

To avoid damaging the reputation of your entire domain, we recommend that our customers have a shipping address for :

• their transactional communications: order confirmation, delivery in progress...
• marketing newsletters: promotions, new collections

5. Humanize your emails with a reply to

The reply to is not a code of good practice imposed by the MBP and is not redhibitory for your deliverability, but it is a serious advantage in terms of customer relations. It's always a good idea to give your customers and prospects the opportunity to contact you following a communication.

If you want to give your recipients the opportunity to reply, we recommend :

• humanize the reply address, in particular with a first name (camille@pophat.fr for example)
• a support team dedicated to providing answers

6. Ramp-up is not optional

Did you think you could skip the ramp-up stage to save time on the launch of your marketing automation  tool? Well, ramp-up is not optional - in fact, it's compulsory if you want to establish a good reputation with MBPs.

At the launch of your marketing automation with an emailing router, the relationship between your brand and the IP used to send your emailings is still unknown to your recipients and MBPs. A ramp-up will enable you to make this relationship (re)known, and ultimately to send larger quantities of mailings without damaging your reputation.

Our tips for a successful ramp-up:

• send sufficient volumes and frequency, starting only with your most active contacts
• load your push list into your emailing platform
• set up your DNS (Domain Name System)
• offer a good-quality email design

7. A reputation is (de)built day by day

Far be it from you to think that once you've built up your reputation with MBPs, you'll be safe forever. Every time you send a message, you have a positive or negative influence on your reputation. Your good reputation can be lost overnight.

A few tips for making a good impression with MBPs:

• Check that your sender address is known to MBP (ramp-up)
• Limit your marketing pressure
• Be consistent in your shipments: no sudden spikes in volume
• Respect W3C standards
• Insert an unsubscribe link
• Avoid spam words

8. Marketing pressure: send less to send better

The marketing pressure is a recurring question for brands: how many emails can I send to each customer without generating marketing fatigue? what are the impacts of strong marketing pressure on my base? how many emailings can I send each week?

While the question of the impact of marketing pressure on the customer is at the heart of brands' customer experience preoccupations, we tend to forget that too much marketing pressure is counter-productive both for the engagement of your targets and for your reputation with MBPs.

Indeed, customers who feel over-solicited by your brand will be quicker to unsubscribe from your communications, or even move you to the spam folder in their mailbox. Both actions are closely watched by MBPs and will have a negative impact on your deliverability.

9. Segmentation: assets first!

With around 30 billion commercial and marketing emails sent every day in 2022, according to Radicaticustomers don't have time to read all the communications they receive every day.

So, by giving priority to those who read you (your active base), you give yourself every chance of being read and heard. This in turn boosts your open rate, your conversion rate and your deliverability.

To go even further, Artificial Intelligence can be a new solution to help you identify the best audience per campaign. This is the case of our Predictive AI engine, with its market-leading scoring engine.

10. Reactivate inactive contacts or let them go

Inactive contacts in your database should be one of the main focuses of your CRM animation strategy. Apart from the fact that they have a negative impact on your open rate, they can give you a reputation as a spammer among MBPs.

The most logical question to ask yourself is: why would this contact open my e-mail this time, since he hasn't opened the last 5 e-mails I've sent him? And if the answer is"nothing ventured, nothing gained", then remove it from your mailings to preserve your deliverability!

Before you finally part with them to comply with the RGPD, try to reactivate them one last time with a dedicated "We miss you!"email campaign.:

• sent to a very small part of your inactive base on a daily basis so as not to damage your reputation even if the opening rates are poor
• containing a small promotional code, as this always makes people happy and increases the chances of conversion.
• making the unsubscribe link more prominent

You're sure to win: either you recover a contact from your asset base, or you exclude from your mailings a contact who is no longer interested in your communications, to the benefit of your deliverability.

These 10 deliverability fundamentals need to be anchored in your day-to-day CRM practices to ensure that your communications are well received. In the meantime, you can read more of our deliverability tips in a forthcoming article, to be applied directly when creating a campaign, and discover our deliverability guide 👇