The Dummy’s Guide To Improved Email Deliverability (and more $$$)

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Deliverability… what the hell does that even mean? There are many definitions, and when people use the word deliverability they usually mean something different – inboxing.

But hey, who cares about definitions and the boring stuff anyway right, so let’s get right into it.

Do emails you send actually reach your subscribers or not?

Mostly, they don’t.

That’s why you have 10% open rates. Emails land in the promo and spam tabs and then rot there. Nobody cares.

Deliverability basically depends on 2 things. Your domain sender reputation score, and your ESP (email service provider – Klaviyo, Mailchimp etc) reputation score.

Kinda like in the ghetto right. Your gang’s rep, and your rep.

ESPs (Klaviyo, Mailchimp) usually have a good rep, because their life depends on it. Moreover, it’s usually a shared IP pool, so you’re pretty much safe. There are exceptions but screw them for now. Gotta be reader-friendly, right.

So your deliverability, or let’s say inboxing (do my emails reach my audience?) is actually determined mostly by your domain reputation score. Your rep.

The rep of www.my-epic-store.com

…so wait a minute… why is all this technical BS important? Simple, more $$$ for you if you know this. How?

By increasing your rep, your emails will stop landing in spam. Bingo!

Furthermore, engagement-based inboxes like our silverback gorilla Gmail will start to like you.

Meaning they might start to put you in the main inbox instead of promo tab. I mean, who checks promo tab anyway, right?

All of a sudden you could have 30% and 40% open rates instead of 10% So instead of making $2k with that promo, you’d make $6 or $8k.

You’re glad you started reading this post now, aren’t you?

Here are a few different services that can help you determine where you really are with your rep:

  • Senderscore.org
  • Glockapps.com
  • Unlocktheinbox.com
  • Mail-tester.com

Even without using them for your domain & emails, I’d say there’s a 90% chance your rep is shit. I just made the 90% up obviously, but you see where I’m going.

This post is becoming tl;dr, so here are some final thoughts to think about when trying to raise your rep (and with it your $$$):

  • Segmentation 101: sending to engaged segments only (ie people who care)
  • not sending 1,000,000 emails all at once (ie throttling)
  • sending separately to separate inboxes, if your rep sucks (separate to Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc)

Any questions hit me up. Might need some time to answer though. You know, all the 4th of July promos coming up 🙂

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