The final part to maintaining a good email reputation
Two of our articles have discussed the first four components needed for a strong email reputation. “How Much Do You Know About Email Reputation?” and “Two More Components in Maintaining a Good Email Reputation” have highlighted and elaborated on these important concepts.
The length of time you’ve been sending email and the technical infrastructure you use are the last two pieces making up your email reputation.
Length of Time
The longer you’ve been sending email, the better your reputation will be. This is so because with a history of email sends, it is possible to predict what your future actions will be.
Do everything in your power to assure that this prediction is in your favor. Since the length in which you’ve been sending is important, make each email enhance the way email recipients view your pieces by supplying valuable content. This way, the length of time you’ve been sending email will not only grow, but it will also be incorporating the highest quality you can produce.
Sending consistently, and using the same domain name and IP address will improve your reputation. Consequently, if you change servers or IP addresses often, you may appear to be a spammer.
Technical Infrastructure
To be effective in your email newsletter or email marketing pursuits, your email program should comply with some basic technologies. These include:
-Automatic removal of bounces. Remember, a bounce rate of 30% or more will damage your reputation. Eliminating any undeliverable addresses will keep your rate low and assure that future emails will not go to an undeliverable address and receive another bounce.
-Subscription to ISP feedback loops. If your emails are being labeled as spam, you should be aware of it. This subscription will alert you when a complaint is made.
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-Clean HTML code. Having clean HTML code can be the difference in getting delivered to the inbox and ending up in a spam folder.
Using email validation programs will clean your HTML code by removing unneeded tags, checking the article’s spelling, and eliminating code errors that would result in page errors.
If you choose to clean the code yourself, edit with the same criteria in mind.
-Proper email headers. Avoid having your header look like a spam message. Also, make sure your article’s content is expressed through the header. Misleading a reader may result in them unsubscribing from your list. For further assistance in creating effective headers, and many more components of creating quality email newsletters, download our free white paper 10 Email Newsletter Design Best Practices.
Many ESPs typically comply with these practices, so if you already use an ESP, you are probably covered. In-house systems often have the aforementioned problems, so be sure to monitor accordingly.
To fully summarize, the six components that make of email reputation are:
-Volume of email sent
-Bounce rate
-Number of spam complaints
-Email sent to spam traps
-Length of time you’ve been sending email
-Technical infrastructure
Focus on these components as they are all ultimately in your control. For more information on these subjects and detailed insight on the other six necessary pieces addressing email delivery, join us for our Solving Email Delivery Problems webinar on December 15th with email expert Jeanne Jennings.
