eCommerce Email Deliverability: Best Practices and Pitfalls to Avoid

Virginia Miller

September 22, 2024

In this article

The email has become an essential tool for eCommerce businesses to reach out to their customers and drive sales. However, with the increasing volume of emails being sent daily, ensuring that your emails reach your customers' inboxes can take time and effort. This is where eCommerce email deliverability comes into play.

Email deliverability refers to the success rate of emails reaching their intended recipients' inboxes instead of spam folders or being blocked altogether. A high email deliverability rate for eCommerce businesses is crucial to maintaining customer engagement, building trust, and driving sales. However, as of 2022, the email deliverability rate sat at a meager 84.2% and looked to be decreasing year on year.

This article will discuss the best practices for eCommerce email deliverability, the pitfalls to avoid, and tips for improving your email's chances of reaching your customers' inboxes.

Best Practices for eCommerce Email Deliverability

Build a Targeted Email List

The foundation of great email deliverability is having a targeted list of engaged subscribers. Avoid buying email lists or using fake addresses, as these will hurt your sender reputation. Instead, allow website visitors to opt-in to your list, confirming their details to ensure accuracy. Regularly prune inactive subscribers to keep your list clean.

Create Relevant, Personalized Content

Emails with dynamic, personalized content tailored to subscriber interests see higher open and click rates. Personalize your emails by including the recipient's name, location details, purchase history, and more. Write subject lines and content that is highly relevant to each subscriber for optimal deliverability.

Monitor Metrics and Optimize Campaigns

Closely track email metrics like open rates, click rates, bounce rates, and spam complaints. Use this data to identify issues and continuously fine-tune your campaigns. Test different subject lines, content, designs, and sending times to determine what resonates best with your audience.

Comply with Email Laws and Best Practices

Follow all laws and regulations in your area regarding commercial email, like the CAN-SPAM Act. Also adhere to general email best practices like allowing one-click unsubscribes, including physical mailing addresses, and avoiding spam trigger words. This builds trust and credibility with subscribers and inbox providers.

Common Email Deliverability Pitfalls

Using a Shared or Poor Reputation IP

A shared IP address can easily get blacklisted if any one sender sends spam from it. Invest in a dedicated IP address with your email service provider for reliable inbox delivery. Also, monitor your IP's sender reputation and avoid any risky sending behaviors.

Sending Low Quality, Irrelevant Content

Spam filters quickly flag emails with poor writing, irrelevant content, or overuse of salesy language. Put subscriber needs first and focus on creating emails that provide value. Personalized, engaging content has the best chance of reaching the inbox.

Ignoring Bounce Rate Spam Complaint Metrics

Don't ignore high bounce rates or increasing spam complaints. These are clear signs you need to examine your email program and make improvements. Identify and fix the root causes early before further deliverability damage occurs.

The Importance of Email Deliverability

With sound email marketing practices in place, you can achieve excellent inbox placement rates to build lasting subscriber relationships. Monitor your email program closely and continuously optimize every aspect - from list growth to creative content and sending reputations. With a diligent, subscriber-first approach, your business can benefit tremendously from email's marketing power.

FAQs

What are some best practices for building an email list?

Best practices include allowing website visitors to opt-in to your list, confirming their details to ensure accuracy. Avoid buying lists or using fake addresses. Regularly prune inactive subscribers to keep your list clean and targeted.

How can you create more relevant, engaging email content?

Personalize content with subscriber details like name, location, purchase history. Write subject lines and content tailored specifically to their interests. Send content that provides value rather than hard sells.

Why is monitoring email metrics important?

Metrics like open, click, bounce, and spam complaint rates allow you to continuously optimize campaigns. Identify issues early and test different variables like subject lines, content, timing to improve performance.

How can low quality content impact deliverability?

Poor writing, overly salesy language, irrelevant content often gets flagged by spam filters, hurting deliverability. Focus on creating high quality, valuable content tailored to subscriber needs.

What are some common email deliverability pitfalls?

Using a shared IP address that can get blacklisted, sending irrelevant content, ignoring bounce rates and spam complaints. These can severely damage deliverability if not addressed.

Why is email deliverability important for eCommerce?

Delivering campaigns to the inbox allows you to build lasting subscriber relationships, promote products, send transactional emails, and more. Self-harming deliverability greatly limits email’s marketing potential.

What is the key focus area to improve email deliverability?

The subscriber experience should be central. Build a targeted list, create relevant content, monitor metrics to identify optimization opportunities, and continuously improve to keep subscribers engaged.