This guide is designed to help new Concours Pro users ensure their emails reach the inbox instead of the spam folder. By following these best practices and warm-up techniques, you can start off by building good email deliverability and maintain a healthy sending reputation as you increase sending volume over time.
Contents
- Email Best Practices
- Set Up a Dedicated Email Sending Domain
- Set Up a Dedicated Sending IP Address
- Use Email Validation
- Mark Email Invalid from Hard Bounce
- Add Your DMARC Record
- Use the Proper “From Email”
- Add Unsubscribe Links To Your Emails
- Use Double Opt-In
- Stop Sending to Uninterested Contacts
- Send Regularly… But Not Too Regularly
- Email Warm Up
- Email Tools
- Troubleshooting
- FAQs
Email Best Practices
1. Set Up a Dedicated Email Sending Domain
Using a dedicated domain for sending emails helps improve deliverability by maintaining control over your email reputation, and increasing brand trust.
Read More: Setting Up a Dedicated Email Sending Domain in Concours Pro.
2. Set Up a Dedicated Sending IP Address
A dedicated IP address allows you to control the reputation of your sending IP, which is crucial for maintaining high deliverability rates, especially for high-volume senders.
3. Use Email Validation
Email validation helps ensure that you are sending to valid email addresses, reducing bounce rates and protecting your domain reputation.
4. Mark Email Invalid from Hard Bounce
Marking hard-bounced emails as invalid prevents repeatedly sending to non-existent addresses, which can harm your domain reputation.
5. Add Your DMARC Record
DMARC records provide instructions to receiving servers on how to handle your emails, which helps prevent phishing and ensures email authenticity.
Read More: Email Authentication for Concours Pro: DMARC, DKIM & SPF.
6. Use the Proper “From Email”
Ensure the “From Email” matches your dedicated email sending domain to maintain consistency and improve deliverability.
7. Add Unsubscribe Links To Your Emails
Including unsubscribe links in your emails is not only a best practice but also a legal requirement in Australia. It helps maintain a positive relationship with your recipients.
Read More: Setting Up Unsubscribe Links for Concours Pro Marketing Emails.
8. Use Double Opt-In
Double opt-in ensures that recipients confirm their interest in receiving emails, which improves engagement and reduces spam complaints.
9. Stop Sending to Uninterested Contacts
Avoid sending emails to unengaged recipients, as this can negatively impact your deliverability.
If a contact doesn’t engage with any emails for a period of two months consider removing them from your list or moving them to a re-engagement campaign to get them to opt-in again. This means that if they don’t take any action on any of your emails (read them, click on them, contact you from them) then consider their removal from your list as above.
It’s better to stop sending to an uninterested contact than to have them “unsubscribe” or mark your email as “SPAM.”
Quality over Quantity – Every day of the week!
10. Send Regularly… But Not Too Regularly
Maintain a consistent but not excessive email sending frequency to build a positive sending reputation. No more than one email per week per contact during warm up.
Once your domain is warmed up, you can send to new subscribers daily, in order to convert them, then back it off to weekly after a week or two.
It’s better to send fewer than to oversend.
Email Warm Up
Warming up your email domain is a critical step in priming it for future success. As you are using a NEW Dedicated Sending Domain, it does not have any reputation – good or bad. However, email providers will often mark emails from brand new domains (that have no reputation) as spam. This makes sense because any old spammer can get a brand new domain and start sending.
Send too many emails too soon and you may damage your domains sender reputation, essentially ‘burning’ your domains delivereability. Email Warm Up involves gradually increasing your email sending volume to steadily build a positive reputation and avoid spam filters.
When starting to warm up your domain, you should only send to contacts that have opted-in to receive your communciations and as such are expecting your emails, as they are less likely to mark as spam or unsubscribe.
Furthermore, you need to follow the Email Sending Recommendations below to ensure you won’t be sending too many emails too often.
For the first batch of emails you send, you should send no more than 100 per hour and 1,000 in that first day. When you next go to send marketing emails, no matter how many days later, move into stage two. In stage two, send 300 per hour and 2,500 emails per day. Remember the stage isn’t how long you have had the domain (in days), it is the number of ‘batches’ of emails you have sent.
Best Practices for Email Warm Ups
- Follow all the Email Best Practices above.
- Follow the Email Sending Recommendations above.
- When starting, send fewer emails per day or hour if you can to begin with.
- Only send to contacts who have asked to receive your marketing material.
- Cold emailing (sending to people who haven’t opted-in) needs to go through a list-cleaning process and is not recommended during the early processes of warm-up.
- Keep the content of your emails short and to the point.
- Add an appropriate image if you can.
- Do not use a Public Link Shortener like bit.ly or tiny.url.
- It can take up to 4 weeks for an email sending domain to be considered ‘warmed up’, so until then, stay focused on the Email Best Practices & Email Sending Recommendations noted above.
Email Tools
Utilise these tools to monitor and improve your email sending practices, including testing for spamminess and reviewing email health reports.
Recommendations are Google Postmaster Tools, MXtoolbox.com and Mail-tester.com.
Troubleshooting
If you encounter issues with email deliverability, review these troubleshooting steps to identify and resolve common problems.
- Check how long you have been sending emails?
- If it is under 4 weeks, review the above steps and ensuire theyre all implemented.
- Check Your MX Records
- Confirm your MX records are installed correctly.
- See the Review Your “Email Health Report” by visiting MXToolbox.com, linked here.
- Ensure Your DMARC is Set Up
- Confirm your DMARC records are installed.
FAQs
- What about Cold Email Outreach?
Cold emailing is riskier and can harm your domain reputation if not managed properly. - What if I already have a Dedicated Email Sending Domain and my Emails are going to SPAM?
Review best practices and consider setting up a new domain if issues persist. - Should I Share the Same Dedicated Sending Domain Across Multiple Accounts?
No, separate domains are recommended to maintain control and prevent cross-account issues.
