Good e-mailing practices & monitoring statistics

Deliverability is not an exact science, but the send process can be optimized so that the receiving end will relay the e-mails with the highest probability to the end user.

Use good practices:

1. Make sure your recipients are valid, i.e. real people with real addresses and they have allowed you to send them e-mails.
2. Make sure your recipients are interested by the content you want to send. Target only groups with an interest in what you offer instead of everyone you can reach (that is spamming).
3. Never use bought recipients lists. This is strictly forbidden. 
4. Specify a real sender name (with a first name / last name) and use a signature in the e-mail as well.
5. Create unique, brief and detailed e-mail topics without using words in ALL CAPS
6. Customize your messages with the recipient's personal information (name, surname, company etc ...)
7. The first 50 characters of your message are taken into account by your recipients in their decision to open the e-mail or not.
8. Avoid the words associated with aggressive advertising such as unbeatable prices, promo, free, congratulations, save now, ...
9. Keep it simple (avoid excess images, sizes and anything that may make you think your e-mail is a marketing brochure). Messages that consist only of images are problematic not only because of anti-spam filters, but also:
1. Since the content is only in the form of an image, it cannot be searched for in the recipient's box.
2. Recipients using screen readers are not able to read the content.
3. The images are displayed differently depending on the system used by the recipient.
10. The more your message looks like an exchange between two people, the better it will go through the antispam filters!

Understand the statistics:

After sending your e-mails, you can find the statistics by clicking on the sent e-mail's recipient number. Here are the different statuses that you can encounter and how to interpret them:

Sending in progress

The e-mail is being sent. This status will update to indicate if the e-mail has been sent or has come back as a "bounce".

Sent

The e-mail was accepted by the recipient's infrastructure but was not opened and no links were clicked on yet. It is also possible that the e-mail is classified as promotions, spam or other, depending on the configurations of the recipient and as such is in a different folder than their main inbox. It is not possible to know how the recipient's internal mailbox/server rules will sort the email to their inbox folders. 

Open

The e-mail was opened at least once. This title is indicative because it is also possible that the recipient's system scans the message, changing the status to "open" when actually it has not been opened by the recipient.

Clicked

At least one of the links in the e-mail has been clicked at least once. It is not possible to determine which specific link was clicked, just one of those present in your e-mail. Note that this does not necessarily mean that the attendee has registered.

Rejected ("bounce")

The e-mail could not be delivered either because of a temporary error (e.g. full mailbox) or because of a permanent error (e.g. the domain name or the e-mail address of the recipient no longer exists).

An e-mail is declared "rejected" when it comes back to us directly with an error message, via the recipient's e-mail service: it is not delivered.

Temporary errors may be due to:

• a temporary breakdown on the destination service
• a recipient mailbox that is full
• Etc.

Final errors may be due to:

• a recipient e-mail address that does not exist
• a destination service that no longer exists
• Etc.

The deliverability optimization system of our email service provider handles temporary errors as such: once diagnosed as temporary, new sending attempts are automatically made. It is only after a certain number of unsuccessful attempts that the e-mail will go into "blocked" status.

Blocked

The IP address has been blocked by a firewall or mailbox. The sending server has tried several times to send to the e-mail, but it did not succeed (usually because the e-mail address does not exist or more) and the address should be removed from your mailing list. 

One of the strengths of our mail service provider is to anticipate some deliverability issues. A blocked e-mail is not sent: it does not have a negative impact on your sender reputation by triggering an error on the destination server.

An e-mail is blocked if it has no chance of reaching the recipient. A generated error would have a negative impact on your sender reputation and all quality indicators: spam rate, error rate, etc.

The decision to block a recipient’s address is based on the delivery history and various other parameters. Here are some examples causing blockages:

• a recipient who has declared your mails as spam or has unsubscribed from your lists
• a destination address that has already failed due to a definitive error
• an incorrect e-mail address

Unsubscribed

E-mails that have generated unsubscriptions will automatically be marked as such and Lyyti will automatically take them into account in your future mailings.

Marked as spam

Spam mainly concerns marketing e-mails: anything that is transactional often escapes this problem.

This rate must at all costs be kept as low as possible: it strongly affects your reputation. This status corresponds to the times people click on the "Report as spam" or "Junk e-mail" button.

The repercussions are dramatic for your event and can sometimes harm your customer relationship strategy. Often, a spam flag can result from two cases:

1. The e-mail sent is really undesirable because it has never been asked for. The problem then comes from your base and it's up to you to act. The rate should ideally not exceed 0.1%. If it is much too high, you could find yourself stuck in your mailings, without recourse.
2. An unsubscribe link is present and visible but recipients directly use the "Spam" button to unsubscribe. This is a fairly common usage but it is by no means an excuse. Ask yourself the right questions. Was the opt-in procedure clear? You should also think about how you are working on engaging your targets. Are the sent contents relevant? Should the tone of your messages be changed? Is the sending frequency too high? Etc.

Notes:

• Statuses can take up to an hour to update.
• Your bounce rate (rejected & blocked) will almost never be zero because people change their e-mail addresses, access provider, or simply close their accounts. Beyond 8%, your bounce rate may hurt your sender reputation and thus put you at risk of being classified as spam by the recipient's server.