DLV 101
- Ian Graham
- Tony Groves (Deactivated)
- David Haskell (Unlicensed)
Summary / TL:DR: This article provides an introduction to deliverability. If you found yourself wondering “what is email deliverability anyway?” …you’re in the right place! Be sure to check the “Where and How” sections for detailed instructions.
Table of contents
What you will need
To monitor your deliverability, you will need the following:
Access to Everest/250ok
Access to QlikView
Access to ThoughtSpot
Bounce messages, if available
Intro to DLV
The golden rule of email is to only send people mail they want to receive.
What that means in practice: sending to engaged recipients tells mail filters that your mail is legitimate, wanted mail, while sending too much to unengaged (or invalid) users will lead Mailbox Providers to assume you’re not following best practices for list management – at worst a spammer.
Deliverability is the art of balancing best practices with business needs to ensure your mail makes it to the intended recipient’s inbox.
What to Watch
Clickthrough Rate and Delivered rate are always the first things to check for delivery issues. If you have steady delivery and click rates, it’s generally safe to presume there are no issues with inbox placement or significant mail blocks.
Your Delivered rate, generally speaking, should be 98% or higher. Some list segments may have a higher average bounce rate, due to multiple factors (eg, age of account or acquisition source). Most deliverability issues live among the “downlist” people: broadly, users who haven’t engaged in the past 30 days, but especially users who haven’t engaged in 90+ days. If your mailstream is focused on your 30-day engaged users, you’ll avoid the majority of potential deliverability issues.
If you notice a significant drop in engagement or Delivered rate you can presume you have a deliverability problem.
If the drop is in engagement without a corresponding decrease in Delivered, your mail may be going to the spam folder. Check your complaint and unsub rates, as well as at any inbox placement tests you’re running in Everest/250ok. Your content may be triggering spam filters, or your content may be getting a high number of complaints. Best practice for any deliverability is to tighten engagement criteria until the complaint rate reduces (i.e., send mail to only 30-day clickers and NTF for 3-4 weeks).
Determine if the deliverability issue is isolated to a particular recipient domain or filter/inbox provider – in most cases, the block won’t affect all of your list. Bounce messages can tell you exactly what’s wrong and how to fix it.
Until access to bounce messages is available to clients, submit a JSD ticket to the DLV Ops team to assist in investigating.
Where and How (All Sending Domains)
Thoughtspot Pinboard
DLV Ops: All Sending Domains - https://thoughtspot.14west.us/#/pinboard/a4136d6f-132c-442e-ae08-1d5b2032a152
How frequently to monitor?
Weekly
How to monitor?
Look for dips in Delivered, Clicks or spikes in Spam, Unsub
If dip in Delivered %… Submit ticket to DLV Ops via JSD to investigate further. Include the following information:
Sending domain
IP
Date range
Explanation of what you are seeing including any screenshots or links to answers/pinboards in Thoughtspot
If spike in Spam %…
Drill down to determine if this is tied to one particular mailing.
Look in 250ok to see if there is any correlating data or users to be removed.
If complaint rate is high and not related to one specific mailing, try narrowing your engagement criteria to reduce spam complaints.
If spike in Unsub %…
Drill down to determine if this is tied to one particular mailing.
Look at content that may not connect with the users.
Bounce Messages
DLV Ops can help retrieve and decode the bounce messages our servers receive after sending out your mail.
Most bounce messages are straightforward: they tell why mail is being rejected, and sometimes include a URL with instructions to fix the problem. To learn more about different SMTP bounce messages, consult the SMTP Field Manual. https://smtpfieldmanual.com/
Common problems:
Spam policy
These bounces generally mean your mail has generated too many spam complaints, your sending address/domain has been manually blocked by one or more users, or potentially an authentication issue.Spam content
This can be any number of things related to the content of your mail. Spam filters look for code errors, syntax/spelling, fingerprinted template information, subject/content relationships (ie, they read for “scammy” language), accessibility (eg, is the email readable with images turned off, is there a text-only version), and more.Overquota
This mean’s the user’s inbox is full. Generally speaking, this should be treated as an inactive or invalid account, to be unsubscribed. For most providers, sending mail to these users for too long will negatively affect your reputation and inbox rate (the assumption being that you’re not following list management
best practices and are spamming).
In the case of Gmail accounts, this can be caused by different factors, including a full Google Drive, and may not indicate an inactive user the way it would for other providers.Invalid recipient
This address is a typo or has been deleted. Unsubscribe these users.
Where and How
Where is it being monitored?
Everest (formerly known as 250ok) http://everest.validity.com
How frequently to monitor?
Alerts can be configured in Everest to provide rolling regular updates at a given time as well as for immediate notification. Alerts will be configured for blocklists to provide immediate alerts, as well as a daily update.
How to monitor?
Based on alert configuration, you’ll receive a daily notification on any listings that may have occurred overnight, or that persist after a delisting request. You’ll also receive immediate notification if any of your domains or IPs are blocklisted.
If you are not familiar with the delisting process and require assistance, submit a JSD ticket to the DLV Ops team.
Feedback Loops
Feedback Loops allow us to act on users' spam complaints. In addition to their mailbox provider receiving the complaint, we receive a notification as well. This allows our systems to identify and remove any recipients who indicate they don’t want to receive your email.
Where and How
Where is it being monitored?
Everest (formerly 250ok): http://everest.validity.com
How frequently to monitor?
Weekly
How to monitor?
Use your Everest Custom Dashboard to see an overview of Feedback Loop complaints. Use the suppression list (available to download on the Feedback Loop page) to ensure complainers (especially mass complainers) are removed from your lists.
Alerts can be configured to notify when complaints rise above a certain level.
Note: It is important to keep tabs on complaints in Everest because these are displayed by the date of the actual complaint, which is how the Mailbox Provider views complaints, not by the date of the mailing. For example, if one person sorts their inbox and marks multiple pieces of mail as Spam, ThoughtSpot will attribute each complaint to the corresponding Campaign on the day it was sent; whereas, 250ok will give insight into the date the complaint happened. Spikes like this can correspond to dips in delivery and open rates indicating mail is being blocked or filtered to the Spam Folder.
14 West Deliverability Tools
In addition to our third-party monitoring tools, there are a number of tools available to help monitor your email performance, email deliverability, list health, and more.
Last Engaged at Time of Mailing Pinboard
Where is it being monitored?
How frequently to monitor?
Weekly
How to monitor?
While this is not a DLV specific pinboard, it does include relevant information on overall engagement of your lists. The Mailed Volume over time by last engagement, gives insight into how the Mailbox Providers view your mail – How much mail is going to unengaged names vs engaged names? This pinboard can also help inform Engagement Based Mailing Strategies.
Integrated Signup Dashboard
Where is it being monitored?
How frequently to monitor?
Multiple times a week pending your lead gen activity.
How to monitor?
While this is not a DLV specific Dashboard, it includes relevant information about names acquired and potential problematic sources. The columns that could indicate a source of names could negatively impact your deliverability are:
Unsuccessful spam complainers – could indicate you’re trying to re-acquire names from a source that is not interested in your content and could lead to additional complaints.
Unsuccessful Invalid Addresses and Unsuccessful Global Invalid – could indicate that the source of names is problematic. This could also indicate forms that could use typo helpers on them to ensure the email address being entered has valid syntax and not a common typo.
All unsub categories should be watched for spikes or high percentages. Hard bounces indicate you’ve acquired names from a source that cannot and will not be delivered. Negative engagement in the form of unsubs and Spam Complaints will impact deliverability.
Remove analysis allows you to either see at a high level (no vendor selected) at what point on file the customer is being removed. Or if drilled down to a vendor, you can see similar information.
What & Why of an Email Seed List?
An email seed list is a list of test email addresses created for monitoring where messages will land when sent.
Senders can add seed lists to their upcoming campaigns to measure inbox placement at various providers. A seed list allows you to test where an email will land across different email clients and devices and see how your campaigns are rendered in other browsers and email clients.
This allows you to address any display or engagement issues before sending out your email or email campaign.
When to Seed?
1.) Testing a new campaign or making changes to an existing campaign before deployment
a) Insight into how inbox placement with various ISP(s)/ESP(s)
b) See how email renders
c) Subject line testing
2.) Checking in on existing campaigns
Wrap up
You should now have a better understanding of email deliverability.
Still need help?
We know this can be frustrating. To get further help please open a Support ticket.