Email Deliverability Best Practices 

Timely, Targeted Content 

• Engagement, Engagement: Target users who have shown past engagement with emails (don’t just rely on list source for engagement score). 

• Encourage engagement with action in the email (even if it just meant to be informative). 

Data Integrity/ List Source 

• Analyze the source of your records to whom you are sending. 

  • Action Item: 

    • • Take a deep dive into your inquiry pool and the defined sources for each. Are they truly an inquiry? 

      • Are your lists up-to-date (Grad, Advancement, Alumni, etc)? 

  • Regularly scrub lists (NeverBounce) and develop inactive strategies for cold contacts (either try to re-engage them via a defined campaign or stop sending to them). 

  • Honor opt-out and bounce requests in a timely manner. 

Closely Monitor Reputation Metrics/ Deliverability 

• Beyond just the engagement of the email, monitor inbox placement and delivery of your messages. 

• If you find reputation is suffering, send to only engaged contacts and send smaller, batched emails. 

Deployment and Sending Consistency 

• Be wary of volume spikes as it relates to your messaging. 

• Action Item: During peak times, meter sends out over a longer period of time. 

Authentication 

• Ensure deliverability configurations are in place across all platforms and all domain/subdomains (SPF, CNAME, DKIM, etc.) 

• Continue to manage a DMARC policy. 

Resources for ongoing deliverability analysis and maintenance: 

Email Analytics and Deliverability Monitoring Tools

• https://www.validity.com/everest/ 

Email Verification and Email Cleaning Services 

• https://neverbounce.com/

• https://kickbox.com/ 

• Claybox - A custom built email cleaning query/update in your Slate instance (Ask your Account Manager for details)

Google Postmaster 

•  Free tool to monitor IP, Domain, Spam insights

• https://postmaster.google.com/ 

General Rules of Thumb

• Targeted audiences 

• Prioritize sending to most engaged audience first 

• Pull off unengaged after certain amount of time 

• One clear Call to Action 

• Hyperlinks in text 

• Link Images 

• Tactful image placement with alt text 

• Plain text usually outperforms HTML 

• Give users the chance to unsubscribe/update preferences