1. Ensure Your Email Is Being Delivered Gwynne Dixon, Engaging Networks
19/20 June 2019
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2. Hi, I’m Gwynne!
I joined Engaging Networks in 2017 and work there today as a Dev Ops Engineer
I specialise in delivery and help to monitor all traffic for our clients
Previously I’ve worked as an engagement specialist in the charity sector
I’ve worked with a diverse range of audiences globally
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3. What I do…
Engaging Networks operates as an service provider (or ESP)
I monitor and manage delivery across our servers for all of our service clients
We provide tools for you to deliver effective campaigns
5.1 billion s were sent by our clients in 2018
On Giving Tuesday alone, 45 million s were sent through Engaging Networks servers (up from 35.7 million in 2017)
A further 47 million s were sent to supporters by our clients at year-end 2018 (up from 36.6 million in 2017)
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4. What is deliverability?
deliverability is the demonstrable rate at which your s land in inboxes
It can be effected by anything from the content in your to the address you’ve sent from, or the people to which you’re sending
Improving your deliverability is the most effective way to improve engagement with your campaigns
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5. Why is it key for 2019?
2018 saw the enforcement of GDPR, changing the deliverability landscape and effectively setting as law what were already good delivery practices
2019 has picked-up where GDPR left off, as the large webmail providers continue to clamp down on senders that deliver to inactive subscribers (more on that later)
There are strong indications that the US government could pursue its own GDPR, following recent state legislation such as the California Consumer Privacy Act
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6. What we’ll cover Inbox placement Using welcome emails
templates/testing
Segmentation
seed lists
Bounces & suppressions
Types of spam traps
Data hygiene
Further reading
Getting technical
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7. Inbox placement
Using a seed list to monitor inbox placement (more on this later)
Different types of inbox placement (spam folder, inbox, secondary folders etc.)
Gmail and Outlook.com (the ‘Primary’ or ‘Promotional’, and ‘Focused’ or ‘Other’ folders)
Improving your inbox placement: avoiding complaints and getting added to ‘trusted’ lists
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8. Using welcome s
Highest point of engagement, as much as 81% open rates and 56% click-through for some charity sector s (source: Adestra)
Sets the tone for future communications – compels your subscribers to keep opening
A good welcome series can reduce your attrition or ‘churn’ rate over time
The perfect place for an ‘Add to Contacts’ ask due to such high engagement
Source: Experian
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9. Using welcome s
A 2017 study found that only 50% of charities use welcome s, and only 2% send more than one (source: Just Giving blog)
You can use the marketing automation tool in Engaging Networks to drive dynamic welcome series
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10. Responsive templates
Source: Return Path ‘The Client Experience’ (2017)
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11. Engaging Networks Email Builder
Mobile responsive design at your fingertips
Build and edit new template components with ease
Use editable regions to customise your content
The confidence of having a rigorously tested product shaping your templates
Ensure that your templates are up to spec with current industry standards and requirements
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12. Testing your s
Use the Preview tool to check your on a range of different devices and platforms
Check how the layout renders in iPhones, Samsung Galaxy phones, tablets, and desktop computers
Send test s to a range of different webmail, desktop clients, and devices before your supporters receive it
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13. Segmentation
blasts to your full subscriber list can harm more than they help your campaigns
Does your about a local event need to be sent to supporters nationally?
Mailbox providers will notice if you repeatedly send to the same large list of inactive supporters (and penalise you for it)
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14. What’s a seed list?
A set of mailboxes managed by your organisation that’s added to your subscriber list and set to receive all mail from your campaigns.
Each mailbox should represent a different provider, which can be selected according to the distribution of your audience
The most prolific providers should feature on your seed list (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo etc.)
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15. Seeds of the future
Industry leader in deliverability analytics, Return Path has recently developed SmartSeed technology
SmartSeeds use machine learning and artificial intelligence to interact with s like real subscribers would
These AI personas then allow marketeers to drive deeper and more realistic insights into mailbox behaviour
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16. Bounces & suppressions
spam-related=99999 virus-related=99999 content-related=99999 quota-issues=1 routing-errors=4 inactiv box=1 bad-mailbox=1 relaying-issues=4 bad-domain=1 policy-related=99999 protocol-errors=99999 bad-configuration=99999 no-answer-from-host=3 bad-connection=99999 message-expired=99999 other=99999 invalid-sender=99999
The difference between a soft and hard bounce
Different types of hard bounce (spam or policy related, bad mailboxes or domains etc.)
Suppression criteria and the suppression list
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17. The March 2019 Yahoo bounce
554 delivery error: dd Sorry, your message to cannot be delivered. This mailbox is disabled (554.30).
March of 2019 saw a vast increase in a specific type of Yahoo hard bounce
We attributed 97% of all Yahoo bounces to this error code over a 10 day period
Bounce rates to Yahoo mailboxes increased twelvefold between February and March
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18. The March 2019 Yahoo bounce
Yahoo was sending this to users of its webmail service
Any account that hadn’t been logged-in to for 12+ months was being closed
If the mailbox had been closed, we received the hard bounce response
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19. Types of spam traps
Pure spam traps (honey pot addresses designed to dupe spammers)
Recycled addresses (old accounts no longer used by customers)
Invalid addresses (typos, fake addresses)
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20. Data hygiene Attrition and re-engagement Using double opt ins
Opt-in management from external CRMs
Acquisition of data (paid for lists, typos from submission)
Third-party data cleaning services
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21. Shrinking list sizes
M+R compared end-of-year giving patterns in 23 US organisations for December 2017 and December 2018
They found that overall revenue was down 9% year-on-year, and revenue from was down 18%
However, they also saw subscriber list sizes dropping by 13% year-on-year (as orgs changed tack by removing inactives)
The group with the largest list size decreases saw a 26% improvement in response rate from 2017, which then translated to a 2% improvement in revenue
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22. Further reading 2018 Deliverability Benchmark, Return Path (Aug 2018)
Reliable stats from an industry standard in deliverability
Rates by country, region, industry etc.
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23. Getting technical SPF, DKIM and DMARC authentication
testing services such as on Acid, Litmus and 250ok
Knowing your sending IPs (dedicated versus shared use)
Consider your sender address and domain reputation
Return Path Senderscore and third-party DNS blacklist checks
Feedback loops and Gmail Postmaster Tools
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24. Thank You. Enjoy the rest of the conference!
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