Emails are only effective when they land in subscribers’ inboxes, making email deliverability a key metric for email marketing success. Here, learn everything you need to do so your emails pass through junk filters unscathed and land in recipients’ inboxes—not their spam folders.
What is email deliverability?
Email deliverability measures how often the marketing emails you send arrive in subscribers’ inboxes versus their spam folders. High email deliverability means more eyes on your messages. It also generates larger sample sizes, improving the accuracy of key email marketing metrics like conversions and engagement.
Email delivery vs. email deliverability
Email delivery refers to a successful email arrival—meaning the message didn’t bounce (but still may have landed in spam). A good email delivery rate for an ecommerce store is 95%. If you use Shopify Email, you can check your email delivery rate in your email performance report.
Email deliverability goes a step further, including only emails that reach inboxes (and not junk folders). Although you can’t definitively track email deliverability, you can monitor the factors that contribute to it.
What factors influence email deliverability?
- Email list quality
- Email volume
- Open rate
- Bounce rate
- ISP infrastructure
- Spam complaint rate
- Spam traps
The main factors influencing deliverability are:
Email list quality
If your list includes invalid email addresses or unknown users, it signals to internet service providers (ISPs) that your emails do not properly arrive.
Practice good email list hygiene by removing unknown users with strange email addresses. Only keep engaged users on your email list to improve your email deliverability and help ensure your emails reach inboxes. And whatever you do, do not purchase or rent email lists.
Email volume
Most marketers grow their email lists over time. To ISPs, a sudden increase in email volume signals that scammers may have hacked your email account.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons for a spike in volume: establishing the first emails for a new brand, changing your email address, or reviving an account you haven’t used in a while. If you find yourself in any of these situations, consider ramping up with “warm-up” emails to show ISPs you aren’t a spammer.
Start by emailing a small segment of your most engaged subscribers, then gradually increase your email volume.
Open rate
Email service providers monitor how often your emails get opened. Maintaining good email list hygiene, crafting quality content, and writing compelling email subject lines are all tactics for increasing your open rate. Remember: When an open rate decreases, so can email deliverability.
Bounce rate
Bounce rate measures how often your emails cannot reach recipients. There are two types of bounces: hard bounces and soft bounces.
Hard bounces are permanent errors that occur when messages go to invalid email addresses. Soft bounces indicate temporary problems, like a technical difficulty or a recipient’s full inbox.
A high bounce rate of more than 2% can decrease email deliverability. Remove any email addresses from your list that trigger a hard bounce and investigate soft bounces to ensure your IP address or ISP infrastructure is functioning correctly.
If you use Shopify Email, you can remove bounced emails from your list in bulk by creating a customer segment:
1. From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Email.
2. Click the sent campaign that you want to create a customer segment for.
3. On the Bounce rate metric card, click the View segment icon.
4. Select the checkbox next to Customer name to select all customers.
5. Click Bulk edit.
6. Uncheck the Accepts email marketing column for each customer.
7. Click Save.
ISP infrastructure
The internet service provider you use influences your email deliverability. Send your marketing emails through a reputable ISP infrastructure to increase email deliverability and prevent technical issues with your campaigns. Tools like Shopify Email enable you to send well-designed emails with a strong ISP infrastructure.
Spam complaint rate
Spam rate, or spam complaint rate, refers to the proportion of your emails that recipients flagged as spam.
Since early 2024, Gmail and Yahoo have required spam rates below 0.3%, but you should aim for 0.1% to be safe. If you use Shopify Email, you can view your spam rate for emails sent to most service providers in your performance report. Since Gmail doesn’t share spam rates with Shopify, you must register for Google Postmaster Tools to check your performance with Gmail users.
Spam traps
Spam traps are fake email addresses that internet service providers (ISPs) and other organizations create to find scammers. They are common in email lists that you can purchase or rent online. (This is a great reason to build your email list organically rather than paying for subscribers.)
Spam traps attempt to identify scammers by luring them into emailing fake addresses. If you accidentally send your marketing emails to a spam trap email address, it can negatively impact your deliverability.
How to improve email deliverability
- Authenticate your sender email address
- Implement a double opt-in process
- Segment your email list
- Write high-quality email content
- Maintain good email list hygiene
- Send emails on a consistent schedule
- Craft compelling subject lines
- Make unsubscribing easy
- Include plain text versions of your emails
It takes strategy to ensure email deliverability, but if you nail it, you’ll get your campaign in front of your customers. Here are a few ways to avoid the dreaded spam folder:
Authenticate your sender email address
One of the easiest ways to build your sender reputation is by authenticating your sender email address, which tells providers that messages you send through a third party (like Shopify Email or another email marketing service) are legitimate.
Authentication methods compare emails against a list of specific IP addresses (SPF), use encryption keys and digital signatures to validate email content (DKIM), and align domain information (DMARC, CNAME).
SPF, DKIM email authentication, DMARC, and CNAME work together by covering different aspects of the email authentication process. If you use Shopify Email, you can find detailed instructions for authenticating your email address in the Help Center.
Implement a double opt-in process
A double opt-in process requires new registrants for your email list or newsletter to confirm their subscription by clicking a link from their inbox. While it’s tempting to simplify your signup process and skip the double opt-in, sending an additional confirmation increases the likelihood of building an email list with active recipients, which decreases the possibility of being marked as spam..
Here’s how to set up double opt-in on Shopify:
1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Notifications.
2. Click Customer notifications.
In the Marketing double opt-in section, toggle on Customer marketing confirmation.
Segment your email list
“A lot of your email deliverability depends on how people are engaging with your email,” says Desirae Odjick, product marketing lead for Shopify Email. “Are they not opening? Are they bouncing? Are they marking it as spam? Or are they opening, clicking, reading, and engaging with your content?”
Desirae recommends segmenting your list to “focus on the people who are most likely to take action from your email.” Start by creating a segment of your most engaged readers and omit anyone who hasn’t opened an email in the past three months.
If your list is relatively small or your business is new, you might hesitate to ignore certain subscribers. But when you email people who don’t engage with your content, “you’re hurting your stats and your deliverability for someone who’s probably not going to take action,” Desirae says.
Once you’ve set up a segment of engaged subscribers, continue experimenting with new segments. If you use Shopify Email, you can segment based on purchase data, for example, subscribers who have purchased versus subscribers who haven’t yet.
“When you’re speaking to the people who’ve already purchased, that’s when you can focus on product education and reminders of sales,” says Josh Rosenblat, senior editor at Shopify. “When it comes to generating a strategy for the folks who haven’t bought yet, that’s where you focus on building a brand relationship.”
Write high-quality email content
To avoid spam complaints, craft useful emails that serve your target audience’s needs. Focus on relevant content to improve your open rate and email deliverability.
Use optimized images and design elements to increase engagement. Attachments can trigger spam filters, so instead, opt for simple and distinct call-to-action buttons that direct your readers to information and web pages.
“Try not to pack too many things in,” says Josh. “You don’t want to create emails where there’s too many places for people’s eyes to look. You want it to be focused and somewhat simple.”
Maintain good email list hygiene
Cull inactive subscribers often and look out for spam-trap email addresses. You can increase your open rate by deleting inactive addresses from your list and only contacting recipients who engage.
Build your email list organically and never purchase or rent email addresses; doing so can diminish your email sender reputation.
Send emails on a consistent schedule
Mail servers monitor the frequency of the emails you send and adjust your email deliverability based on that. If you send one email a week for several months and then send 1,000 emails in one week, some will likely get caught in spam filters, so it’s best to send consistently. If you must send more frequent emails for a new campaign, ramp up slowly and avoid sending too many simultaneously.
How often should you send? According to one report, most consumers (30%) prefer receiving brand emails once a week, and 58% would unsubscribe if a brand sent them daily emails.
Craft compelling subject lines
Write engaging, attention-grabbing subject lines. “Every company, big or small, is asking for your email address now and is sending you things all the time at all hours of the day,” says Josh. “Being able to write subject lines that stand out and send emails that actually offer something to the recipient will always be extremely important, and oftentimes can be the thing that separates successful email programs from ones that maybe haven’t quite gotten off the ground.”
Use subject lines to showcase the useful content and relevant information inside your emails. Avoid trigger words like “free” or “guaranteed” in subject lines, as they can indicate spam.
Make unsubscribing easy
Include a clear unsubscribe link in all of your emails. An effective email marketing program allows subscribers to opt out without hassle, enabling you to maintain quality email lists and your company’s reputation. Don’t hide unsubscribe links within design elements; use simple, legible copy such as “unsubscribe here.”
Include plain text versions of your emails
When you send an email, include a link for a plain text version that will load faster for users with poor internet service. Optimizing a plain text version of your emails allows more recipients to view your content.
Email deliverability FAQ
What are some common reasons for bad deliverability?
The most common reasons for lousy email deliverability include poor sender reputation or IP reputation, a low open rate, spam traps, and insufficient email list hygiene.
How can you monitor your email deliverability?
You can analyze your overall performance through email marketing software tools like Shopify Email. Monitor bounce rate, open rate, and spam complaint rate to understand email deliverability.
How does email deliverability affect my email campaigns?
Maintaining a good email deliverability rate can determine whether your email campaigns reach their target audience or get blocked by spam filters. Even a well-crafted email campaign requires good email deliverability to reach its intended destination.
Do email deliverability best practices vary for transactional and marketing emails?
The strategies differ slightly. Companies send transactional emails one by one based on a customer’s actions, like viewing or purchasing a product. Transactional emails include specific content relevant to individual customers and typically have higher open rates. Marketing emails, on the other hand, go to wide audiences and require clear unsubscribe links. They often have lower open rates.
