Back to junior high and being “in” with the cool crowd.

There are many factors that can affect the success of your email marketing campaign. And it’s not easy to know and follow all of the rules to actually get the emails to your subscribers’ inboxes,  and  opened.

Doesn’t sound like rocket science does it? It’s more like junior high…think of it as a catty group of  girls. “If you’re wearing blue today, you can’t sit with us at lunch.” Well it’s time to sit with the cool kids, and learn a little about deliverability factors.

More than ever, ISPs (internet service providers) such as Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc. are making it harder for you to get your emails to that inbox. Not many people check their spam on a daily basis, so it’s critical that your emails are bypassing the spam filters.

"Mean Girls" (2004)

If the leader of the pack doesn’t like you- the rest won’t like you.
Same with ISPs. Many are sensitive to spam complaints. ISPs such as Hotmail, identify the number of recipients who mark the email as spam. This in turn will affect the deliverability to the rest of your Hotmail subscribers. A few people can really be the judge of your deliverability success!

If your best friend isn’t cool, you’re not likely to be cool either.
Sending reputation is highly dependent on others within your shared IP address. If others within your shared IP are sending spammy emails, ISPs will pre-judge your emails to be spam as well.

Wearing last-year’s style is a no-no.
Certain factors in your email campaign will filter your emails to the spam folder. Factors such as having a dollar sign in your subject line, or having too many images in relation to content can make your email be spam blocked.

So…it’s really up to you to learn how to get in with the cool kids. A common myth is that your email service provider handles inbox placement for you. This is not entirely false; a good ESP will manage a solid sending infrastructure, but you are essentially in control and you must own your sending reputation.

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