Open rate and click-through rate are the most common performance indicators for email campaigns. This makes sense, to an extent, as long as you understand the data in context. For email campaigns, this context is deliverability.
Deliverability is made up of a number of factors characteristic to the logic of electronic mailing – from the moment a message leaves the server, to the moment when it arrives at a neat and visible spot in the recipient’s inbox. Deliverability can be considered in two perspectives:
- technical – by comparing the number of messages coming out from the server to the number of messages that successfully arrived to their recipients without “bouncing back”
- practical – adding issues related to dealing with SPAM to the technical perspective
The difference between these perspectives is slight, especially since they influence one another.
All knowledge, however, would count for nothing without proper application. Years of data analysis and experience in carrying out email design and delivery for thousands of companies, from every industry, has let us work out ways and measures to keep the deliverability of our clients’ emails at the highest level. Thankfully, it’s much more than just a big number to brag about during presentations, it is a key factor that drives the satisfaction of all users of SALESmanago Marketing Automation.
One, two, three, can’t hide from Panoptes
Panoptes (from greek Πανόπτης – the all-seeing) is a combination of actions and practices, that we implement and optimize on many levels, and which let us maintain high server reputation and the trust of email service providers. Panoptes focuses on three key areas:
- external, the ongoing cooperation with institutions aimed at providing excellent email server operation
- internal / organization-level, encompassing technical maintenance and development
- internal / employee-level, a veritable army of technical support heroes (and heroines) watching over every email made and sent
Validation
Email is the cheapest way to communicate digitally and for this reason it is a common channel for abuse and scams. Companies and entrepreneurs relying on emails for everyday business operations require tools that can reliably verify accounts used to send emails, ensuring these accounts are not seen as spammers or worse. For this reason, all our customers are included by default in the SPF (Sender Policy Framework, a project that introduces safety measures for SMTP servers, protecting them from receiving emails from unauthorized sources) and use the DKIM (a message signed with this key is treated by the receiving server as coming from a verified source).
The Devil is in the IP
SALESmanago owns various IPs, grouped into reputation classes, which are assigned to clients based on their needs, industry and type of planned mailing.
Before we start sending emails from new IPs, we must be certain they are “up and running”, have a history of steady traffic and their current IP reputation is satisfactory.
Because we use many domains, of various reputation, allowing us to pick a suitable one depending on the needs of the campaign.
Blacklist monitoring, Feedback loop, and respecting what recipients want
Blacklists are the bane of every email service provider. Constant monitoring of blacklists and good contact with their owners allow us to react whenever we end up on a list, as well as identify causes. This is a complete overview that lets us prevent situations like this from occurring again. We monitor blacklists using both internal tools and popular, commercial solutions.
Additionally, we employ the so-called Feedback Loop from companies such as Yahoo, Hotmail, wp.pl, AOL, Zoho, Terra, Comcast, Rackspace, Mail.ru, IBM, Bluetie, Fastmail, and others.
According to the law, every message has to include an opt-out link. In the event that a person would wish to unsubscribe from receiving more emails, we respect that and mark that contact with a special tag, that prevents them from receiving any messages from that specific sender.
The human factor
Aside from using machines in this task, we employ a team of veteran customer support specialists, who verify every sent message and decide if they should leave the server. These people are well-versed in the matters of database hygiene, record clean-up and getting new records in (but that is a story for another article). They eagerly share their knowledge and educate their customers
A dialogue that transcends barriers
SALESmanago has recently joined M3AAWG (The Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group), a multinational organization that unites over 200 companies from all over the world in a joint effort to fight against spam and malware.
Member organizations exchange vital information and work together to prevent online abuse.
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