If you’ve ever felt like your emails are just whispers in the wind—ignored or landing straight into the spam folder—you’re not alone. We used to struggle with some dismal open rates. After implementing several key adjustments across multiple clients, we were able to boost our open rates by up to 65%. Here’s exactly how you can replicate this success:
Email Authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) – No Excuses
Proper email authentication isn’t optional—it’s crucial. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC verify your identity to email providers, dramatically reducing your chances of landing in spam. Make sure they’re set up correctly, or your emails may never see the light of day.
You can test your SPF, DMARC and DKIM records here – https://mxtoolbox.com/c/products/deliverycenter
Contact us for help with your email DNS.
Monitor Your Reputation
Your sending reputation with Google, Microsoft and other email providers dictates whether your messages reach inboxes or get buried in spam/other folders. Regularly check tools like Google Postmaster Tools and your email marketing platform’s reputation metrics. If you notice your IP or domain reputation slipping, take immediate action.
Activate Built-in Deliverability Protections
Our recommended CRM and most modern email marketing platforms have built-in tools designed to protect your sender reputation. These typically include features that:
– Mark emails invalid due to hard bounces.
– Verify email addresses upon initial sending.
Activating these takes just moments but offers significant returns by ensuring your emails only target valid, reachable contacts. These simple actions weed out invalid addresses caused by typos (e.g., “@hotnail.com”) or accounts that no longer exist, preserving your sender reputation and ensuring you’re only paying to reach real, engaged recipients.
Email providers punish senders who frequently target invalid addresses or inactive contacts. By proactively cleaning your email lists and using built-in validation tools, you’ll drastically improve your email delivery and open rates.
Ask us about our recommended CRM and Marketing Software.
Prioritize Engagement
Engagement is king. Regularly review your contacts and focus your email marketing efforts on those actively opening and interacting with your messages. If certain contacts haven’t engaged in a long while, launch a targeted re-engagement campaign or consider removing them entirely. Sending emails to cold contacts damages your sender reputation.
Our preferred CRM has the ability to automatically create lists of contacts every day that are actively engaging or not, then target them with emails or SMS campaigns automatically! Learn more about our CRM here.
Implement a Warm-Up Strategy
Instead of blasting emails to your entire list at once, start slow. Initially send your campaigns to a smaller segment and gradually ramp up the volume. This steady approach builds trust with email providers and reduces the likelihood of triggering spam filters.
Email warmup softwares are very effective at fixing some of your email deliverability, but can be a big investment. They work by sending emails from your domain, with your typical content, to thousands of inboxes. These inboxes are then automated to save, click and reply to every email you send, sometimes multiple per day, to train the email systems (mainly Google, Microsoft and Yahoo) that the emails you send are safe and wanted by the receiver. We’ve seen this approach work amazingly for emails that are reaching promotions or other tabs (not spam) and moving them into the inbox.
If you cancel the service too early, then you’ll end up right back in the other folders, so we recommend at least 6 months of warm up software, maybe even a year. It’s also essential to provide real email content for these warmup emails, otherwise the warmup is pointless.
Subject lines and trigger words
This is possibly the most important of all email deliverability steps, your content.
Avoid Spam Trigger Words
Certain keywords can immediately raise spam alarms. Examples include:
- Financial: “free,” “cash,” “win,” “guarantee,” “risk-free,” “credit”
- Urgency: “act now,” “limited time,” “urgent”
- Promotions: “sale,” “discount,” “% off,” “buy now”
- Excessive punctuation: “!!!”, “???”, “FREE!!!”
Keep it Short and Genuine
Short subject lines (around 40-50 characters) typically perform better. Be direct and authentic to encourage trust, which boosts open rates and avoids spam triggers.
Personalization
Personalizing your subject line (like including the recipient’s name) enhances credibility and drastically improves open rates. Personalization signals to email providers that recipients engage positively with your messages.
Avoid Excessive Capitalization
All-caps subjects are spam red flags. Stick to proper sentence or title case for professionalism and credibility.
Balance Emojis Carefully
While emojis can increase opens, overusing them can trigger spam filters. Limit yourself to one emoji per subject line (if any), and only when appropriate for your audience.
Be Honest About Content
Misleading subject lines might get initial opens but quickly damage your sender reputation, leading to future emails landing in spam. Clearly reflect your email content in your subject line.
Test and Optimize Regularly
Consistently test subject lines and monitor results. High open rates reinforce a positive sender reputation, helping emails land in inboxes rather than spam.
Increasing Your Email Open Rates
Implementing these email delivery strategies will likely immediately improve your email marketing open rates and increase engagement with your content.
If you are struggling with any of these steps, or need another set of eyes on your email marketing, contact us for a consultation or audit and we’ll be happy to jump on a video call with you to discuss.
