What is Newsletter Deliverability?

Understanding the Basics: Deliverability vs. Delivery

Before we dive deeper, let’s clarify a common point of confusion. People often use “delivery” and “deliverability” interchangeably, but they represent different stages of an email’s journey.

• Email Delivery: This refers to whether an email was successfully sent and accepted by the recipient’s mail server. A “bounce” message, for instance, indicates a delivery failure. The server might reject an email for various reasons, like an invalid email address.
• Email Deliverability: This is what happens after the server accepts the email. Deliverability determines where the email lands: the inbox, the spam/junk folder, or perhaps a promotions tab. High deliverability means your emails consistently reach the inbox.

Think of it like this: delivery is getting the mail to the right house; deliverability is ensuring the homeowner actually receives and sees it, rather than it getting lost under a pile of flyers. As a web professional, your goal is to maximize deliverability for your clients, ensuring their messages get seen.

Why Should Web Creators Care About Deliverability?

As a web creator, especially if you’re building sites with WordPress and potentially WooCommerce, your clients look to you for solutions that work. If you’re incorporating email marketing services, whether through Send by Elementor or another platform, deliverability directly impacts the success of those services.

• Client Success: Poor deliverability means your clients’ messages aren’t being seen. This translates to wasted effort and missed opportunities for engagement and sales.
• Your Reputation: Consistently good deliverability reflects positively on the solutions you provide and your expertise.
• Recurring Revenue: For those offering ongoing marketing services, demonstrating strong deliverability and the resulting ROI helps solidify those valuable long-term client relationships and recurring revenue streams.

Essentially, good deliverability makes the communication tools you integrate truly effective, reinforcing the value you bring to your clients.

Key Factors Influencing Newsletter Deliverability

Achieving high deliverability isn’t about a single trick. It’s about a combination of factors that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and email clients use to evaluate incoming emails. Let’s break down the most important ones.

1. Sender Reputation

Your sender reputation is like a credit score for your email sending practices. ISPs track the reputation of your sending IP address and domain. A good reputation signals that you’re a legitimate sender, not a spammer.

<h4>IP Reputation</h4>

• Dedicated vs. Shared IPs: A dedicated IP address means your sending reputation is solely based on your email practices. With a shared IP, the sending habits of others using that same IP can affect you. Many email service providers (ESPs) manage shared IPs carefully, but a dedicated IP offers more control for high-volume senders.
• IP Warm-up: If you’re starting with a new IP address, you need to “warm it up.” This involves gradually increasing your sending volume over time. Sudden large blasts from a new IP look suspicious to ISPs.

<h4>Domain Reputation</h4>

• Authentication Protocols: These are crucial for proving your emails are legitimate and haven’t been tampered with.
  • SPF (Sender Policy Framework): This DNS record specifies which mail servers are authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain.
  • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): This adds a digital signature to your emails. It verifies that the email originated from your domain and hasn’t been altered in transit.
  • DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance): This builds on SPF and DKIM. It tells receiving servers what to do with emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks (e.g., quarantine or reject them) and provides reports on email activity.
• Sending History: Consistent sending patterns and positive engagement contribute to a good domain reputation.

Actionable Tip: Ensure your domain has SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records correctly configured. This is a foundational step for good deliverability. Many quality email platforms offer tools or guidance for setting these up.

2. List Quality and Subscriber Engagement

The people you’re sending to and how they interact with your emails play a massive role.

<h4>List Hygiene</h4>

• Clean Lists: Regularly remove inactive subscribers, invalid email addresses (hard bounces), and spam traps. Sending to a “dirty” list significantly harms your reputation.
• Opt-In Practices: Always use confirmed opt-in (double opt-in) methods. This means subscribers confirm their email address after initially signing up. This step ensures they genuinely want to receive your communications, reducing spam complaints and improving engagement.

<h4>Engagement Metrics</h4>

ISPs monitor how recipients interact with your emails. Positive engagement signals that your content is valued.

• Open Rates: A higher open rate is generally better. However, it’s becoming a less reliable metric due to privacy changes like Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection.
• Click-Through Rates (CTR): When subscribers click links in your emails, it’s a strong positive signal.
• Spam Complaints: This is a major red flag. Even a low complaint rate (e.g., above 0.1%) can trigger filters. Make unsubscribing easy to avoid frustration that leads to spam reports.
• Unsubscribe Rates: While not ideal, unsubscribes are better than spam complaints. They help keep your list clean with engaged recipients.
• Time Spent Reading: Some systems can infer how long an email is viewed, indicating value.

Actionable Tip: Use segmentation to send targeted content to specific groups within your audience. Relevant content naturally leads to higher engagement. Platforms that allow for audience segmentation based on behavior, demographics, or purchase history are invaluable here.

3. Email Content and Structure

What’s inside your email matters to spam filters.

<h4>Content Red Flags</h4>

• Spam Trigger Words: Overuse of words like “free,” “winner,” “!!!” or excessive capitalization can trigger filters.
• Misleading Subject Lines: Don’t use deceptive subject lines (e.g., “Re:” or “Fwd:” to imply previous conversation).
• Image-to-Text Ratio: Emails that are mostly images with little text can be problematic. Aim for a good balance. Ensure images have alt text for accessibility and for when images are blocked.
• Broken Links or Links to Suspicious Sites: Always test your links.
• Poor HTML Coding: Clean, responsive HTML is important. Tools with drag-and-drop builders and well-coded templates can help ensure your emails render correctly across different email clients.

<h4>Email Formatting</h4>

• Clear Unsubscribe Link: Make it easy for people to opt out. Hiding the unsubscribe link is bad practice and will lead to spam complaints.
• Physical Address: Include a valid physical postal address, as required by laws like CAN-SPAM.
• Responsive Design: Ensure your emails look good on all devices, especially mobile.

Actionable Tip: Before sending a campaign, use an email testing tool. These tools check for spam triggers and preview how your email will look in different email clients.

4. Sending Infrastructure and Volume

The technical setup behind your email sending also plays a part.

• Email Service Provider (ESP) Reputation: Reputable ESPs work hard to maintain high deliverability for their users. They manage IP reputations, handle bounce processing, and provide tools for authentication.
• Consistent Sending Volume: Erratic sending patterns (e.g., sending nothing for months, then a massive blast) can look suspicious. Try to maintain a relatively consistent schedule and volume.
• Throttling: ISPs may throttle (temporarily limit) your email volume if you send too many emails too quickly, especially if your reputation is not well-established.

Summary of Key Deliverability Factors:

Factor	Why It Matters	How to Optimize
Sender Reputation	ISPs use it to gauge if you’re a trustworthy sender.	Set up SPF, DKIM, DMARC. Warm up new IPs. Maintain consistent sending.
List Quality	Clean lists mean engaged recipients, fewer bounces.	Use double opt-in. Regularly clean your list. Remove inactive subscribers.
Subscriber Engagement	Positive interactions signal valued content.	Send relevant, targeted content. Monitor opens, clicks. Make unsubscribing easy.
Email Content	Spammy content gets filtered.	Avoid trigger words. Balance images and text. Use clean HTML. Test links.
Infrastructure	Reliable sending platform and practices are key.	Use a reputable ESP. Maintain consistent volume.

How to Monitor and Improve Newsletter Deliverability

Improving deliverability is an ongoing process, not a one-time fix. Here’s how to stay on top of it:

1. Monitor Key Metrics

Keep a close eye on your email marketing analytics. Platforms that offer real-time analytics within your WordPress dashboard can simplify this process significantly.

• Deliverability Rate: (Emails Sent – Bounces) / Emails Sent. Aim for 95% or higher.
• Open Rate: While influenced by privacy settings, it still offers some insight.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): A strong indicator of engagement.
• Bounce Rate:
  • Hard Bounces: Permanent delivery failures (e.g., invalid email address). Remove these immediately.
  • Soft Bounces: Temporary issues (e.g., full inbox, server temporarily down). Monitor these; if an address consistently soft bounces, remove it.
• Spam Complaint Rate: Keep this as close to zero as possible.
• Unsubscribe Rate: Monitor for trends that might indicate content issues.

2. Regularly Clean Your Email Lists

• Schedule List Cleaning: Make it a routine task.
• Re-engagement Campaigns: For subscribers who haven’t opened your emails in a while (e.g., 3-6 months), send a re-engagement campaign. Ask if they still want to hear from you. If they don’t respond, it’s usually best to remove them. Pre-built automation flows for re-engagement can be very helpful here.

3. Test Your Emails

• Spam Testing: Use tools (many ESPs offer them) to check your email content against common spam filters before sending.
• Inbox Placement Testing: Some services show you where your email is likely to land (inbox, spam, promotions) across different ISPs.
• A/B Testing: Test different subject lines, content, and calls to action. See what resonates most with your audience and improves engagement.

4. Follow Best Practices Consistently

• Prioritize Quality Content: The most important thing is to send emails that your subscribers find valuable.
• Be Transparent: Clearly state who the email is from and what it’s about.
• Respect Subscriber Preferences: Allow subscribers to manage their preferences (e.g., frequency of emails, types of content).

Step-by-Step: Basic Deliverability Health Check

Here’s a simple checklist for web creators to perform for their clients (or themselves):

1. Verify Domain Authentication:
   • Are SPF records in place and correct?
   • Is DKIM signing enabled for outgoing emails?
   • Is a DMARC policy published, even if it’s just p=none to start monitoring?
2. Review List Acquisition Methods:
   • Are you using confirmed (double) opt-in for all new subscribers?
   • Are sign-up forms clear about what users are subscribing to?
3. Check List Health:
   • When was the last time the list was cleaned of hard bounces and inactive subscribers?
   • What is the average bounce rate? If it’s high (e.g., >2%), investigate.
4. Analyze Recent Campaign Performance:
   • What are the typical open and click-through rates? Are they stable, improving, or declining?
   • What is the spam complaint rate? Is it below 0.1%?
   • Is the unsubscribe link clearly visible in all emails?
5. Examine Email Content:
   • Are subject lines clear and non-spammy?
   • Is there a good balance of text and images?
   • Are all links working and leading to reputable pages?
   • Does the email include a physical address?

Performing this check regularly can help catch potential issues before they significantly impact deliverability.

The Role of Your Email Service Provider (ESP)

Your choice of ESP plays a significant role in deliverability. Good ESPs, especially those built with a specific ecosystem in mind, like WordPress, often simplify many of the technical aspects.

Look for ESPs that:

• Have strong relationships with ISPs.
• Proactively manage their IP reputations.
• Provide clear guidance and tools for domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).
• Offer robust analytics to track your deliverability and engagement metrics.
• Make it easy to manage lists, segment audiences, and handle bounces and unsubscribes.
• Offer features like pre-built automation flows for welcome series or abandoned cart recovery. These can improve engagement when implemented correctly.

A platform that integrates seamlessly into your existing WordPress workflow can remove a lot of the complexity often associated with managing external marketing platforms and their APIs. This allows you to focus more on strategy and content, rather than wrestling with technical hurdles.

Conclusion: Deliverability is Key to Email Success

Newsletter deliverability is a multifaceted discipline, but it’s not an insurmountable challenge. By understanding the core factors—sender reputation, list quality, subscriber engagement, and email content—you can take proactive steps to ensure your or your clients’ emails consistently reach the inbox.

For web creators, mastering deliverability isn’t just about sending emails. It’s about delivering value, fostering client success, and building stronger, more profitable long-term relationships. By implementing best practices, regularly monitoring performance, and leveraging the right tools, you can significantly improve the chances of your newsletters being seen, read, and acted upon. And that, after all, is the ultimate goal of any email marketing effort.