This is never fun, and we sympathize with you. Using email for business is a challenge.
It’s hard because there are SO many spammers out there – nearly 55% of all email is spam! – and the inbox providers (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc) too often throw out your “good” mail with the bad. Frustrating!
So, what can you do?
This document is meant to be a short-form answer to that question. We will skip all the technical explanations and drive right to the point.
Table of contents
How do inbox providers decide what to trash and what to keep?
What is my email Reputation Chain?
Frequently Asked Questions
• Even my transactional emails are going to spam!
• What if none of this works?
• Really, it’s Hotmail/MSN/live.com addresses that are the problem.
Additional email delivery services and strategy
• Strategy for managing low open rates
• Email Delivery Handbook
I have another question that wasn’t answered here
How do inbox providers decide what to trash and what to keep?
This is the question, right?
If you knew how they made that decision, you could make sure your email looks more like “good” mail and less like “bad” mail.
Well, fortunately, we DO know the answer!
There are 5 things that inbox providers use to determine where an email goes. We’ll call this your reputation chain.
- Email Content and Promoted Domains
- Historic Engagement Metrics
- “Send from” Address
- Return Path and Authentication
- IP Address
Together, these are the factors that inbox providers look at to determine whether your email should be inboxed or spamboxed.
At Ontraport we give every user, at every account level, access to professional-level tools to take responsibility for and manage your ENTIRE reputation chain.
What is my email reputation chain?
As noted above, there are 5 factors that make up your personal reputation chain. Here they are described in more detail.
1. Content and Promoted Domains
This includes the words and links you put in the body of your email.
It’s pretty easy for inbox providers to decide that emails talking about losing weight and making money (for example) are likely spam. That makes it hard for legitimate folks in those industries (and others) to get good delivery, but that’s just the reality. Figure out ways to talk about your subject without suspicious language in your emails… and keep that stuff on your website instead.
Notably, the URLs that are promoted (linked to) in your email carry their own reputation. That means that if you send email that includes links which have, in the past, also been found in spammy emails, then the inbox providers will likely consider your email to be spammy also.
That’s why, for example, affiliate marketers can really have challenges because, if someone sends a lot of spam to promote your URL, other senders can also end up in the spam folder for promoting the same URL.
Tips: Here are some thoughts about the content of your emails that are worth looking at.
Also, don’t promote Ontraport domains (members-only.online, etc.) or any other shared domains (bit.ly, etc.) in your emails. Instead, use your own custom domain so all the links in your emails are to URLs that you alone control. This is an important part of owning your own reputation chain.
2. Historic Engagement Metrics
Your recipients’ histories of opening, reading and clicking your emails has a major impact on future delivery. To improve this, only send emails that people want to read to people who want to read it. Stop sending email to people who don’t engage, or at least mail those people much less frequently than the rest.
Tips: Use good list management practices. That means only using permission-based lead generation (never buy, rent or borrow a list!) and only sending high-quality, interesting content to people who actually want to get it. Stop sending emails to people who never engage. There are template autoamtion maps in the Ontraport marketplace that make it easy to stop sending to unengaged contacts automatically.
3. “Send from” Address
Don’t send from a freemail email address (gmail, yahoo, hotmail) or from a shared domain (ontramail). Instead, build your own good reputation by sending from a custom domain.
Tip: Just set it up here.
4. ReturnPath and Authentication
Better yet, set up your own custom Envelope Sending Domain (aka ReturnPath). This requires some more setup (SPF records, DKIM and, ideally, Dmarc) but pays off in the long run by, again, building your own mailing reputation and separating your delivery results from every other business that sends email on Ontraport.
Tip: Set up a custom domain and get at least SPF and DKIM setup. Dmarc is also an increasingly good idea, but you can take care of that later as it’s more technically complex.
Remember to warm your reputation if you send a significant volume of email (tens of thousands per month). Contact postmaster@ontraport.com for more information about warming your reputation.
5. IP Address
You can use our shared IP addresses, which we monitor carefully, but getting your own IP address and building your own reputation is a great idea if you send on a regular, consistent basis and send at least 30k emails per month.
Tip: If you qualify, contact support to get the ball rolling on this. There is a one-time $500 setup fee for a private IP. Remember to warm your reputation if you send a significant volume. Note that if you don’t send a significant volume of mail, don’t worry about this. Shared IP addresses are fine for most users and are really one of the less important aspects of your personal reputation chain. Take this on only after you’ve done all the above and haven’t seen results you like. Click here for more details on how this works.
