What is Deliverability?

Email deliverability is the extent to which your emails actually land in the recipient’s inbox, instead of in the spam folder or not arriving at all. Deliverability is the technical foundation of every successful email marketing strategy: without inbox placement, everything else is wasted.

Factors that affect deliverability

DNS configuration (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), the spam score of your email copy, bounce rate, complaint rate (the percentage of recipients who click “report spam”), sending volume and the reputation of your IP address and domain with the major email providers.

Improving deliverability

Warm up new domains gradually with email warm-up. Set up your SPF, DKIM and DMARC records correctly in your DNS. Keep your lists clean and remove hard bounces straight away. Personalise with spintax to avoid spam filters.

Monitoring deliverability

Use Google Postmaster Tools for domain reputation, MXToolbox for DNS checks and mail-tester.com for a deliverability score. Check regularly that you are not on any blocklists.

What is the difference between delivery rate and deliverability?

Delivery rate is the percentage of emails that reach the mail server. Deliverability is about whether that email also reaches the inbox (instead of spam).

How do I know if my emails end up in spam?

Test with GlockApps or mail-tester.com. More at developers.google.com/search.