Most deliverability advice focuses only on email list issues and how to design, send, and manage your email campaigns. However, not all deliverability issues are resolved by removing inactive subscribers and spam complainers, or adjusting your email coding to avoid triggering a spam filter.
Instead, seemingly unrelated business decisions can affect the broader application of your email program and compromise its deliverability. This was the case of one customer who was stuck until we expanded our review beyond email decision-making.
The client, a SaaS company, sought my advice to review their email marketing program. It sent transactional and promotional messages to users on a free trial and to paying customers who had stopped using the service.
They weren’t getting any deliveries to Gmail inboxes, and Gmail made up 70% of their database. As a result, they effectively couldn’t reach most of their customers.
I discovered two major problems:
Transactional emails that generated an unusually high number of spam complaints. Promotional emails sent to unengaged customers.
The emails themselves didn’t have any issues that would trigger spam filters. In both cases, the business decisions behind the message were rather to blame.
While the company had managed to get by in previous years, these high complaint rates caught up with it earlier this year. It was at this point that stricter rules of engagement came into force at Gmail and Yahoo Mail and resulted in no deliveries on Gmail.
Dig Deeper: Email Deliverability: What You Need to Know
The problem with transactional emails
As part of my deliverability review, I discovered an unusually high number of spam complaints coming from the company’s transactional emails. This was unusual because these complaints typically generate few, if any, complaints. Customers like them because they show their behavior. They make sure they purchased the right items. They also confirmed that they used the correct payment method and sent their purchases to the correct address.
The problem wasn’t the emails. This is how the company handled messaging for its free trial service and for people who canceled their paid service.
They offered every new customer a free trial and even used double opt-in to confirm the free trial to prevent misuse from scammers or hackers.
However, the email confirming the start of the free trials – a transactional email, unlike usual promotional messages – was sent to all users. Before they have confirmed their registration for the trial service. We suspected that the company’s affiliate partners were signing up people for trial services without their knowledge.
To overcome this issue, we have paused confirmation emails, waiting until customers have signed up before sending them. This helped reduce complaints, but they still far exceeded Gmail’s complaint threshold.
You can check out, but you can never leave
When reviewing the company’s membership structure, we discovered that customers couldn’t close their account, even if they had never converted from a free trial or canceled a paid service.
These customers were no longer interested in the company’s promotions. Either they stopped opening and clicking on promotional messages or they hit the spam complaint button.
However, the company ignored these clear signals of inactivity and continued to send promotional and transactional emails, such as upgrades and nudges regarding inactivity. This was another business decision, which led to a near-total shutdown at its main inbox provider.
You can see how these business decisions created an environment ripe for deliverability disaster. Untimely transactional emails led to numerous spam complaints from users who had never created an account. Users could not cancel their accounts, and the company continued to message emotionally disengaged subscribers.
This situation occurred for several years but was not a major problem. The high rate of complaints hasn’t stopped company emails from hitting Gmail inboxes. But then along came Yahoogle, which imposed a spam complaint threshold of 0.3%, and suddenly complaints and inaction became a drag.
3 Ways to Keep or Regain Access to the Inbox
Gmail and Yahoo Mail’s new deliverability rules surprised many email senders this year. If you’re also experiencing reduced inbox access, these three steps can help you detect and fix problems inside and outside of email.
1. Conduct a comprehensive audit of your marketing program
I performed a deliverability review for this client, covering an aspect of the email program. It revealed issues like volume spikes, lack of engagement, high number of complaints, and Yahoogle violations. However, it did not look at issues beyond email such as a full email audit. If we could have completed the full audit, which reviews the entire customer journey, we could have resolved the issue much sooner.
2. Examine the business decisions that impact your email program
A closer look would have revealed the impact of not being able to cancel an account. This only came to light in this case because I kept digging to find things that the focused deliverability review didn’t reveal.
3. Fix deliverability issues when they arise
This client’s email practices raised several red flags before Yahoogle’s changes, including numerous spam complaints on transactional emails. Even if the company was not penalized for this, this type of email is out of line. This should have warranted an investigation much earlier. If this had happened, the company might not have been blocked by its main inbox provider.
Poor deliverability affects revenue and engagement
This should be an obvious statement. If your business depends on inbox access for promotional and transactional emails, you should do everything possible to maintain this access. Understanding all the conditions and decisions that drive email and working to resolve issues when they arise will help you keep that path clear.
Dig Deeper: Email Deliverability or Email Warming: What Can Skyrocket Your Outreach Efforts?
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