These best practices for email delivery will help ensure emails you send from GrowMeOrganic are not wrongfully identified as SPAM by email servers. Since SPAM and bounces (emails rejected upon delivery) go hand-in-hand, these strategies can help improve your emails’ delivery rates. They’ll also help minimize the frequency of your emails being manually marked as SPAM by people you contact, but that is ultimately up to the recipient’s discretion.
Here’s the breakdown of best practices for email delivery:
1. Do not use services like MailChimp
I know, this might have surprised you but we’ve discussed a detailed reason for that in one of our articles on GrowMeOrganic vs MailChimp.
MailChimp and other such platforms send all emails using its own servers and being a big company, and it has many servers optimized for sending gargantuan volumes of emails daily.
To do so, such platforms slices their users into different groups so that each group shares one of its servers. In a nutshell, when you use this email marketing platform, you basically share a server with many other companies and individuals who might already be spamming with the same server and have ruined the IP reputation of that email server.
2. Remove links
SPAM filters look for links, especially in Step 1 emails (the first time you’re emailing a new contact from your email address in a sequence). Even your signature is scanned for links, so that can be a culprit and a smart place to ensure you’ve removed links, in addition to the body of your emails.
3. Remove images
Images or attachments, especially in step 1 emails, can activate SPAM blockers and even bounces. Remove these assets and stick to text. Send your beautiful images and attachments in step 3 or later (once you’ve sent a few other emails). Again, even images in your signature can cause issues.
4. Don’t apply special formatting to your text
Simply put, SPAM blockers scan for formatted text, so avoid using different colours, fonts, bolding, italicization, and underlining.
5. Keep your paragraphs concise
Lengthy content alone can activate SPAM blockers or even bounces, so keep your wording trim and to-the-point
6. Avoid words that trigger SPAM filters
SPAM filters have evolved considerably in the past few years, and as such, there isn’t a shortlist of words to avoid. In general, try to communicate professionally, be personable, and avoid words and phrases that sound shady, urgent, or needy. Take a look at this Hubspot article for a more comprehensive list if you would like specific words or phrases. In general, ask yourself if this is an email you would want to receive.
7. A/B Test your messaging
Always test out your messaging to find what gets the highest engagement! Send multiple versions of a similar message to a dummy recipient email. If you find one version is getting blocked at a higher rate, you can look at the differences in your messaging to try and understand what might be causing that.
8. Avoid using wrong formatted attachments
It is important to follow the rules and guidelines that people use to communicate more effectively whenever using an email attachment format. However, you can attach any file in your emails, but ensure that your recipients view that attachment. Would you please take a look at our article over attachments you should avoid while sending emails?
9. Use Unsubscribe Links on your email
Include unsubscribe links in your email signature. In general, make this decision based on how and why you’re emailing your Prospects and if it makes sense to include an opt-out. Still, our feature allows you to use whatever text/phrase you like and automatically adds the link with your signature on all your GrowMeOrganic emails. Research shows that recipients are far more likely to use an unsubscribe link instead of marking your emails as Spam (which can affect your overall sending reputation and is, therefore, a much worse outcome) when they have the choice.
10. Deactivate click tracking
The functionality of click tracking manipulates links in emails, which SPAM filters can sometimes detect, so disable this feature if you’re having issues (open and reply rates are tracked differently and are generally far less of a concern). This can cause a big change in your deliverability overall.
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