Understanding the 7 Key Factors that Impact Email Deliverability

Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates
Understanding
Email Deliverability
Key Factors & Key Performance Indicators
for Getting to the Inbox

Deliverability can feel out of
your control, like your emails
are hot air balloons blown
whichever way the inbox
provider winds blow.
Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates @ChadSWhite

However, inbox placement is
actually governed by
7 factors, all of which are
directly or indirectly under
your control.

Today, we’re going to discuss:
The factors affecting deliverability
How to properly benchmark your
inbox placement
Current deliverability concerns
@ChadSWhite

Chad S. White
Head of Research
Oracle CX Marketing Consulting
• Author of Email Marketing Rules and more than
3,000 blog posts on email marketing trends and
best practices
• Email Experience Council’s 2018 Email Marketer
Thought Leader of theYear
A LittleAbout Me
@ChadSWhite

Daniel Deneweth
Head of Email Deliverability Services
• Email deliverability veteran and frequent
speaker on all things deliverability
• Leads a team of email deliverability consultants
at Oracle
A LittleAbout Me
@Danielrpco

We’re a global, full-service digital marketing
agency, uniquely positioned within Oracle to
deliver the expertise you need to achieve more
with the leading marketing cloud, including:
Copyright © 2020 Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Strategy&Analytics
Automation
Deliverability
QA & Deployment
Implementation
and more
Training
Creative & Coding
DesignThinking
CXMconsulting_WW@Oracle.com

The industry’s
top deliverability
experts work at
Oracle, with
experience at the
following
companies:
8
average
deliverability
experience working
with some of the
world’s top brands:
13years
Deep
deliverability
expertise &
leadership

The Factors
that Affect Email
Deliverability

Infrastructure
Volume
Content
Bounces
SpamTraps
Complaints
Infrastructure
Volume
Content
Bounces & SpamTraps
Complaints
Reputation
Engagement

Infrastructure
● Email service provider setup
● Authentication
○ SPF and DKIM
○ DMARC.
@ChadSWhite

Volume
● Overall email volume
● Send rate (throttling)
● Email volume profile (consistency).

Content
● Word choices & punctuation
● Image-text balance (HTML & alt text)
● Coding
● Link URL reputations
● URL shorteners
● Spam fingerprinting.

Bounces & Spam Traps
● Hard bounces
● Spam trap hits & blacklistings
○ Pristine spam traps
○ Typo spam traps
○ Recycled spam traps
● Email address verification
● Email address validation.
@ChadSWhite

Complaints
● Spam complaint rates
● “Not spam” declarations
● Consumer expectations
○ Expectation setting by brands
○ Consumers’experienceswithotherbrands
○ CAN-SPAM,CASL,GDPR,CCPA,etc.
● Opt-outprocessfrustrations
○ List-unsubscribe& nativeunsublinks.

Engagement
● Open rates
● Also replies, forwards, starring, foldering,
and other behaviors (proxy: clicks)
● Inactivity management
○ Suppression of chronic inactives
○ Reengagement campaigns
○ Re-permission campaigns.

EngagementComplaints
Bounces &
SpamTraps
● Subscriber acquisition sources
○ Purchased lists & “rented lists”
● Permission practices
○ Confirmed opt-in.
@ChadSWhite

EngagementComplaints
● Relevant content
○ Email design
○ Preferences
○ Segmentation
○ Personalization
○ Automation
(+AI)
(+AI)
(+AI).
@ChadSWhite

Reputation
● IP address reputation
● Domain reputation.
@ChadSWhite

So those are all the factors, but
they’re not all weighted equally
and weightings have changed
over time.

Spam Complaints
Content
IP Reputation
Engagement
Domain Reputation
Deliverability Factor Weighting Changes
2002-2020

3 Key
Takeaways

Because of domain
reputations, brands can
no longer run away from a
poor sender reputations.
Takeaway #1
@ChadSWhite

Because of engagement-
based filtering, brands can
no longer thrive by simply not
angering recipients.
Takeaway #2
@ChadSWhite

The need for engagement
has made deliverability into
a strategic pursuit, as well
as a tactical one.
Takeaway #3
@ChadSWhite

Email
Deliverability Trends
& KPIs

Email marketing revenue
depends on deliverability
success, because emails that
don’t reach subscribers don’t
generate revenue.
Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates @Danielrpco

Missing Spam Delivered to Inbox
84%6%10%
Average Inbox Placement Rates
in North America (2018)

Missing Spam Delivered to Inbox
84%6%10%
Emails that go missing or land in the
spam folder represent up to $1.6M in lost
revenue for a $10M/year program.

The good news is that you
can take control and
dramatically improve your
deliverability by managing the
factors that affect placement.

Missing & Spam Delivered to Inbox
97%3%
Average Inbox Placement Rates for
Oracle CX Marketing Consulting’s
Email Deliverability Services Clients
@Danielrpco

Missing & Spam Delivered to Inbox
97%3%
Businesses that proactively manage their
inbox placement are able to increase their
deliverability by 15 percentage points.
@Danielrpco

A Question for You:
If you could increase your email
marketing revenue by 15%, how
much of an opportunity does that
represent?

The Current State of
Email Deliverability

The Current State of Deliverability
● It’s a moving target.
● Inbox providers keep making changes to
their spam filters.
● Changes aren’t announced or explained.
● Senders who never had problems before
are having trouble, even though they didn’t
change anything.
@Danielrpco

The Biggest Sources of Deliverability
Problems Are…
@Danielrpco

Gmail’s
Gains
Continue

A Question for You:
What percentage of your
subscriber base is using a
gmail.com or outlook.com
address?

Deliverability’s
Key Performance
Indicators

Key Deliverability Performance Indicator #1
Hard Bounce Rate
● Calculation: hard bounces/sent
● Means: Portion of invalid addresses on list
● Goal: 3% or less
● 5% acceptable for some programs (e.g.,
welcomes). 3% is the target overall and
by ISP.
@Danielrpco

Soft Bounce Rate
● Calculation: soft bounces/sent
● Means: Potential ISP blocking
● Goal: 5% or less
● Higher soft bounce rate expected forYahoo.
Very few soft bounces for Gmail.
@Danielrpco

Spam Complaint Rate
● Calculation: complaints/delivered
● Means: People are hitting the spam button
● Goal: 0.2% or less
● Gmail does not share complaints directly.
@Danielrpco

Unique Open Rate
● Calculation: unique opens/delivered
● Means: Indication of inbox or spam placement
● Goal: 10% or more consistently across ISPs
● Unique open rate of 2%-3% for an ISP indicates
spam folder placement.
@Danielrpco

Unsubscribe Rate
● Calculation: unsubscribes/delivered
● Means: People are clicking unsubscribe link
● Goal: 0.5% or less
● Will not hurt reputation alone. Higher rate
expected for acquisition via partner.
@Danielrpco

Inbox Placement Rate
● Calculation: delivered to inbox/sent
● Means: How much of your email is reaching your
subscribers
● Goal: Mid-90% or higher
● Measured through 3rd-party tools.
@Danielrpco

Avoiding
Spam Traps

1. Subscriber mis-types their email
address, and the address they
enter happens to match a trap
2. Intentionally entered fake or
bad email addresses
3. Botnets automatically entering
email addresses into registration
pages for email capture
heather@alo.com
ehather@aol.com
jeff1@gmail.com
jeff2@gmail.com
jeff3@gmail.com
DoNotSpamMe@gmail.com
Jeff.adams@nowayjose.com
How does a reputable marketer end up
mailing to spam traps?

Spam traps do not open or
click, so your data analysis
should be focused on
identifying non-responders.

How to Avoid Mailing to Spam Traps
● Define inactives and stop mailing to them.
● Quarantine new signups until you clear them
from being traps. Limit the number of times you
send to a new address that doesn’t open or click.
● Implement activity-based targeting on all
campaigns based on open and click behavior.
@Danielrpco

Questions about
Deliverability &
the Pandemic

Deliverability Concerns During Pandemic
● Is it okay to stop sending for a while?
● Is it okay to reduce the volume that I’m
sending for an extended period?
● How much email do I need to send to maintain
my sender reputation?
● How long can I go without sending before I have
tore-warmmysendingIPs anddomains?
@Danielrpco

Deliverability is changing,
so you need to change
with it.
Takeaway #1
@Danielrpco

You can take control.
Measure your deliverability,
and manage to key
performance indicators.
Takeaway #2
@Danielrpco

Defend your email program
against spam traps. Build
in safeguards around non-
responders.
Takeaway #3
@Danielrpco

Thank you! Any questions?
Join us this summer for our next webinar: Understanding the
Inbox Provider Landscape. For a reminder, sign up for our
twice-monthly newsletter at bit.ly/CXMCnewsletter1
Contact Oracle’s Email Deliverability Services team at
Daniel.Deneweth@Oracle.com
Visit Oracle CX Marketing at Oracle.com/MarketingCloud
Copyright © 2020 Oracle and/or its affiliates.

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