The Twin Challenges of E-Mail Deliverability

Half of all e-mail marketers say deliverability is their biggest problem. Yet many of these marketers confuse deliverability with impact or effectiveness. E-mail has become a two-part game – 1) getting it to the desired recipient by eliminating bounce backs and 2) getting the desired recipient to see and potentially read it or act on the message.

Tactics to reduce bounce backs are evolving. Tactics to insure true delivberability and impact, especially for for outbound acquisition are still elusive.

Bigfoot Interactive reports that overall deliverability in Q2 2005 was 94.4%, an astoundingly high number considering the increased use of spam filters, a legion of suppression tactics employed by ISPs, blacklisting and a general paranoia about viruses and spam. But remember, even if true, this means that 94.4 percent didn’t bounce.

It does NOT mean that 9 out of 10 addressees opened, read or acted upon the promotional or editorial e-mail sent to them. A huge percentage of the e-mails that didn’t bounce back ended up in “junk” or “bulk” e-mail boxes and were deleted without being seen. Many more made it to an "in" box where they were not recognized and deleted manually without being seen.

But remember, even if true, this means that 94.4 percent didn’t bounce. It does NOT mean that 9 out of 10 addressees opened, read or acted upon the promotional or editorial e-mail sent to them. A huge percentage of the e-mails that didn’t bounce back ended up in “junk” or “bulk” e-mail boxes and were deleted without being seen.

Jupiter Research is saying the average e-mailer uses 2-3 simultaneous tactics to prevent bounce backs. Michelle Eichner of Pivotal Veracity says that tactics should include

Scan your content and address records to eliminate elements that would trigger a bounce back

Be sure your HTML aligns with the WWW Consortium standards

Manual check how your e-mails will come across on Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Lotus Notes, Outlook and Eudora

Check to see that you are not on the black list

Monitor abuse boards to be sure they are not talking about you.

Ask your subscribers to put you on their “safe” list.

The tactics for insuring that you get into an active “in” box are almost non-existent if you are trying to reach people who have not subscribed to your e-mail offering or who have not opted-in to receive e-mail from you.