Email Deliverability is a term used in the realms of email marketers or companies that send transactional and/or marketing emails and describes the process of successfully allowing an electronic message or email to reach the inbox of the email recipient.
Some measure email deliverability by determining the number of messages that were accepted by the ISPs, regardless of whether the messages were placed in the Inbox or the Bulk folder. In practice, this is the percentage of emails that did not bounce. You may have seen claims of an email deliverability rate of over 90% and these are usually based on this kind of statistic, which is what the Email Experience Council, in standardizing email metrics, defines as the “Accepted Rate”, not the email deliverability rate.
Others, when referring to email deliverability mean the percentage of emails placed into the Inbox, often measured by a seed-list based deliverability monitoring system. The EEC defines the “Inbox Placement Rate” as “The ratio of emails that are delivered specifically to the recipient’s inbox divided by the total emails sent.” This is what is meant when referring to Email Deliverability or the Email Deliverability Rate – the emails that actually reach the inbox.
Delivery into the inbox is the key to getting your email read and acted upon. Simply tracking the Accepted Rate does not effectively measure that. Just because an email was accepted by the ISP and not bounced back, does not mean it was delivered to the inbox. The wise email marketer will also measure the Inbox Placement Rate as a key email metric.
Email Deliverability is determined by an accumulation of multiple factors, determined over time, as to whether an email sent will end up in a recipient’s inbox. And with more recent filtering techniques and methods used by Hotmail and Gmail, as an example, there are even sub-levels of inbox delivery that will place a message in the “Important” area, categorized based on engagement factors or whether an email appears to be a newsletter.
What tools should I look for?
Inbox Monitoring Tools
One way to help measure your email deliverability is via an email deliverability monitoring tool like GreenArrow Inbox Monitor. Monitor gives you a clear picture of what percentage of your campaign was delivered to the Inbox, Junk/Bulk folder or Missing (i.e. blocked). Furthermore, it’s important your email sending software or bulk email software handles important elements required to maximize your email delivery.
Core Deliverability Features
To optimize your performance, look for a suite of software and services. For example, we’ve built the GreenArrow suite to be a complete solution of software and services. We provide monitoring, consulting, and an email platform with Core Deliverability Features™, designed to maximize transactional and marketing success. Our delivery solution is affordable, easy to use, and backed by personalized, expert support from our team. Is GreenArrow right for your business? Request a free consultation or live demo to find out.
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When you’ve got questions, there’s nothing quite like seeing our software in action. Schedule a demo with us and we’ll help you figure out how it can work for you.