2:41 pm admin

We get asked lots of questions about deliverability day in and day out. And while there are lots of things you can do to improve deliverability, it all starts with the quality of data.

In other words, how do you get your email addresses?

This impacts EVERYTHING including engagement, complaints, spam traps, and more.

Obviously, you should not be buying or trading lists. Aside from the potential legal issues with the Can Spam act, you also wind up with very low quality data, high complaints, and - most likely - spam traps.

But, even with legitimate list building strategies, there are differences in quality.

Certainly, a confirmed optin is going to be higher quality than a single optin, but it doesn't stop there. Even with double optin, you're still going to have to fight through all the inbox clutter.

For example, warm affiliate traffic is generally going to be better quality (in MOST cases, but not all) than cold traffic from search. However, since the traffic is coming from your market, and often during a launch, it's easy to get lost very quickly. Attention spans are short and if you've not captured their attention straight away and indoctrinated them into your brand from the start, there's a chance they're going to disengage as fast as they signed up.

The key is to track the lead source and performance over time and make modifications as necessary.

You may find that you're spending a lot of money on traffic from Google, but that it's not converting, it's generating more complaints, and it's less responsive. It may be as simple as modifying the offer, follow up marketing, or brand recognition. You may need a different follow up sequence for Facebook traffic than Google traffic. Or when you're working with affiliates, you may need a different approach altogether.

The key is to look at how you're acquiring the leads, how you're nurturing them, and how you're communicating with them. Where people come from gives a lot of insight on how you need to communicate with them from types of messages to frequency.

And... it's the first step to improving deliverability!

 

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 improve deliverability visit http://www.emaildelivered.com/category/email-deliverability/. Remember to sign up for the FREE Email Delivered Pulse newsletter for articles, tips, and recommended resources for email marketers.

April 20, 2016