What is deliverability?
​Why is deliverability so important?
​How do we measure deliverability?
​How to take care of your emails' deliverability?
​Common email providers and hosts
​Check & improve domain's reputation

Deliverability is the number of emails that have reached the recipients' inboxes compared to the number of sent messages overall. The goal is to have as many of your emails land in your prospects' "inboxes" rather than going to "spam", as one instance.

High email deliverability is crucial if you want to reach your prospects and get them interested. If your emails don't reach their inbox, they don't have the chance to familiarize themselves with it and consider your offer.

Measuring deliverability is usually associated with the percentage value available in most applications for email marketing, where it is determined as sent emails minus bounced divided by sent emails again. It is, however, not reliable, because in reality the number of emails that reach their recipients' inboxes might be (much) lower than this value could suggest. A lot of messages end up in folders such as "spam" or get blocked by email servers or client applications.

Start by setting up Custom Domain Authentication: SPF and DKIM. In short, Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a security mechanism that confirms that your email address is safe and that you are a trustworthy sender. What does it mean to you? Your campaigns will reach your prospects' inboxes, bringing you more replies and revenue or contacts.

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is another way to authenticate and protect your domain. By encrypting private and public keys in the email header, your domain gets validated. In short, by setting DKIM on your DNS, you're letting your recipients know that your emails come from authorized servers. Learn more about DKIM by consulting your hosting's help page.

Check your email provider or hosting server's help page to learn more about setting up specific TXT records which you should include in your SPF. You must have it set up correctly.

Watch out: Invalid or incorrect SPF record will harm your domain's reputation, thus deliverability. Make sure you always create only one record. Use "include" statement if you wish to add more values, for example, Sendgrid or Mailgun.

When you feel that you're ready to hit the "Send" button and start sending your emails, we suggest visiting our blog to learn about 14 Deliverability Checks to Carry Out Before Sending Your Cold Email Campaign.

If you see that your campaign's open and reply rates are decreasing, while at the same time the bounced rate is increasing, that may be a sign that your messages don't hit your prospects' inboxes. Instead, they land in a spam or junk folder. When this happens, we suggest pausing your campaigns and performing the recovery process. Here's our article about How to Check & Improve the Reputation of Your Domain and Email Server IP.

Email deliverability – good practices

Learn how to create and schedule cold emails that get delivered straight to your prospect’s inbox – read our free guide.
Check out our webinar Control Cold Email Deliverability - Basic Settings + Q&A, as well as our website dedicated to Email Deliverability, with all the necessary links.