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As we uncover new information when troubleshooting for clients, we like to occasionally revisit the topic of Inbox Placement and factors that may be impacting you. While this is not a comprehensive list of items that impact inbox placement, they are some of the most common and a good place to start if you're doing any testing.

1. Message content

First and foremost, message content always plays a role in where your messages wind up. Message content is complex and includes things like copy, URLs, disclaimer text, from addresses, etc. We recommend that you set up a small list of email addresses that you can check with each of the major ISPs and test all of your emails prior to sending. Gmail provides some good insight... For example, you may see a message in spam with the following:

(This indicates that is' message content almost entirely).

2. Sending domain

If you are getting a high number of complaint, or are sending messages that ISPs generally suspect as spam, you may wind up with problems related to your domain. For example, if you look in a Gmail spam folder, you may see something like:

In this case, your sending domain is most likely ruined. You've either had a lot of complaints or you may have sent repeated content that appears spammy, for example.

3. Domain seasoning

This generally only applies to you if you are using a new domain. However, if you start your sending with a brand new domain, and have content/complaint problems early on, this could roll into a long term problem with your domain.

4. Domain Privacy

We have seen evidence as of late that having domain privacy on for your sending domain does cause some problems with deliverability and inbox placement. In other words, services like "privacy guard" should be avoided when it comes to the domain that is being used in your headers/return path.

5. IP address

If you have a poor reputation with your IP score, this can certainly impact inbox placement. This is not necessarily because of the "score" but rather the factors that are causing the low reputation in and of itself. For example, if you're hitting spam traps, have high complaints, or a high number of bad addresses, you are likely to have a poor IP reputation and bad deliverability.

Author: Heather Seitz

Attention Readers, Publishers, Editors, Bloggers, and Marketers: You may republish or syndicate this article without any charge. The only thing I ask is that you keep the newsletter article or blog post exactly as it was written and formatted, with no changes. You must also include full publication attribution and back links as indicated. This information has been provided by http://www.EmailDelivered.com and written by Heather Seitz.

For over a decade Heather Seitz used email marketing to build successful companies and had to solve the biggest barrier to consistent profitability: deliverability.  Today she is the Co-Founder and CEO of Email Delivered. For more information on how to maximize email conversion and keep your subscribers engaged for long term profitability,  click here www.EmailDelivered.com Remember to sign up for the FREE Email Delivered Pulse newsletter for articles, tips, and recommended resources for email marketers.

July 9, 2014