The ABCs of improving email deliverability 

Imagine for a second you were put into Groundhog day-type-of-loop. Every morning you’d re-live the same day and you’d be able to optimize a single email, a single blog or ad. Imagine the advancement you’d make.

Until that actually happens, it’s best to have a simple trick to keep in mind when optimizing your emails. We call this the A, B, C’s of email deliverability. A is for “A/B split testing”, B is for “Bounce-rate” and C is for “Cleanliness – Email List”. Of course there are many more tricks and tips for optimizing emails but these are good to get started with.

A – A/B split testing

A/B Split testing is one of the fastest ways to improve email deliverability.

A/B split testing is a method that you can use to compare two (or more) different emails to see which one would perform better. The reason A/B split testing is so effective is that you get real data, such as open and click rates, to help you make a decision on which email to send.

Having A/B split testing implemented into your email marketing program is a sure way to increase the engagement rate for your emails. This is good practice to have even for beginner email marketers.

Luckily, with Maropost for Marketing (M4M) you can automatically test as many subject lines as you want and send the most engaging content to the rest of the list. All this functionality is built directly into your platform so you can A/B split test without losing a beat.

Lastly, A/B split testing is a great way to start taking out the guesswork from email marketing and implementing data-driven decision making.

B is for Bounce rate

Bounce rate is one of the 10 essential KPIs to keep in mind when optimizing your email marketing program.

There are two types of bounce rates to watch out for. The first is a soft bounce that usually happens when an inbox is full or the person is out of office or something less critical.

A hard bounce occurs when the email address is invalid or belongs to the wrong person. If the hard bounce rate starts to creep up, time to move on to the next section – list cleanliness. Cleaning up your list is one way to ensure your bounce rate remains low.  However to ensure your list remains clean is to implement proper opt-in permissions.

Depending on the industry, the average hard bounce rate fluctuates around 2%. If your hard bounce rate moves beyond, that you’ll want to take a look at the quality of emails in your list.

C is for Cleanliness

The next step in optimizing email deliverability is keeping your list clean. If you want to continue growing the engagement rates for the emails you send, you’ll want to invest in some list cleaning.

If it’s been a while since your emails have been cleaned, your most likely going to see a high bounce rate. There are many reasons for this, such as not having the correct email address. Cleaning up your list is a simple way to keep your hard bounces low and ensure your emails are being delivered and read.

As the leader in email deliverability, Maropost has built-in functionality to ensure that your email lists remain clean.  We’ve added automated list-cleaning functionality directly into your account so you can set unique rules that will keep your email list clean.

There you have it guys, those are our ABCs for optimizing email deliverability. Of course, there are many ways to improve your email deliverability but this is a good start. If you want to take your emails to the next level, check out our free guide to deliverability.

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