How to Improve Email Deliverability – A Guide

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What Is E-Mail Deliverability?

Email deliverability is the ability to ensure that the emails you send actually reach your intended recipients’ inboxes and do not end up in their spam folders or get blocked by email servers. It depends on several technical factors, and one way to check and improve your email deliverability is by using tools like mail-tester.com.

How to Use a Mail Testing Application

  1. Go to mail-tester.com: Start by visiting the website https://mail-tester.com in your web browser.
  2. Get your unique email address: On the mail-tester.com website, you’ll find a unique email address provided for you. Copy this address to your clipboard.
  3. Compose an email: Open your email client or service, and compose the email you want to send to your participants. This could be your informational email.
  4. Send the email: Instead of sending it to your participants directly, send it to the unique email address provided by mail-tester.com. This will be used to analyze your email’s deliverability.
  5. Click the “Check your score” button: Once you’ve sent the email, go back to the mail-tester.com website and click the “Check your score” button.
  6. View your results: After a few seconds, mail-tester.com will provide you with a score out of 10. This score is a reflection of how well your email complies with best practices for email deliverability.

Some Technical Aspects

Now, let’s talk about the technical aspects of email deliverability, including DMARC, DKIM, SPF, and rDNS:

  • DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): DMARC is a policy that helps protect your domain from email spoofing and phishing. It tells email servers how to handle messages that fail authentication checks (like DKIM and SPF). It’s like a security layer for your email, ensuring that only legitimate messages are delivered.
  • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): DKIM is a method of email authentication that allows the sender to digitally sign the email. When an email is received, the recipient’s server can verify this signature, ensuring that the email hasn’t been altered in transit and is genuinely from the claimed sender.
  • SPF (Sender Policy Framework): SPF is a protocol that specifies which mail servers are authorised to send email on behalf of your domain. It’s like a list of approved senders. If an email is sent from a server not on this list, it might be treated as suspicious.
  • rDNS (Reverse DNS): rDNS is a technique that verifies that the IP address of the sending server matches the domain it claims to be sent from. It helps prevent spoofing by ensuring the server is who it says it is.

Some Considerations

Even if you score 10/10 on mail-tester.com, it doesn’t guarantee that all your emails will reach recipients’ inboxes. There are other factors like the content of your email and the recipient’s engagement with your messages that play a role. However, achieving a high score does mean that you’ve addressed the critical technical aspects of email deliverability, which is a positive step in ensuring your emails have a better chance of reaching their intended destination.

Here are some essential things to note when using mail-tester.com:

  • Be patient and wait a few minutes before checking your score, as the test email may take some time to arrive.
  • If you check your score and the test email hasn’t arrived yet, don’t worry. Your email is still in transit.
  • Mail-tester.com will also check if your IP address is blacklisted, which could affect email deliverability.

Conclusion

By following these steps and understanding the technical aspects of email deliverability, you can improve the chances of your emails successfully reaching your recipients’ inboxes. Check with your hosting provider if any errors are picked up.

Google and Yahoo recently announced they’re implementing new e-mail authentication requirements for all email senders, effective February 2024, to improve deliverability and prevent spam. These changes are being made in a continuing effort to protect their users against fraudulent messages, such as scams and phishing attempts, and will prevent any emails sent from unauthenticated email addresses from reaching the recipient’s inbox.

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