Tips to Improve Delivery And Open Rates

There are multiple ways to improve your delivery/open rates. There is not just one thing that you can do but there are a variety of factors that may help.

Messages/Campaigns

The first part of doing a suggest campaign is using an effective subject line. We suggest doing multiple tests in chunks to see which subject line is the most effective. For example, if you had a list of 100,000 you can send 50,000 to the first subject line and 50,000 to the next subject line and see which subject line is the most effective.

What is Retry Queue/Retry Mode?

It is controlled by a setting under System Setting called "Retry Mode" This setting allows you to mark an email address as retry later after a certain number of blocked/timed out hits on that domain. The default is five blocked/timed out attempts before the email is added to the retry queue for that campaign. You can enter a value of zero to disable the retry mode system but that is not recommended.

Delivery and Information to AOL

AOL has set a very high standard for other ISPs in terms of both mail filtering and delivery support. They were the first ISP to provide clear diagnostic information in bounce messages, the first to provide senders with a feedback loop, and one of the first to offer whitelisting services.

Filtering decisions are based on a combination of sender reputation and email content. AOL users also have the ability to block mail from specific senders.

Delivery and Information to Hotmail

Hotmail

Delivering to Hotmail

Filtering decisions are based on a combination of sender reputation and email content.

Hotmail does limit the amount of mail a sender can send based on the reputation of the sender. Senders with a poor reputation may be limited to as few as 20,000 emails a day. Senders with good reputations sometimes see delivery problems, and may sometimes see Hotmail silently discard email they judge to be spam.

Delivery and Information to Yahoo

Yahoo has a complicated filtering setup that uses a variety of techniques to protect their users from unwanted email. They use a combination of rate-limiting and temp failing along with bulk foldering as defenses. Yahoo also uses some lists provided by Spamhaus including the PBL, SBL, and XBL.

Yahoo provides whitelisting and FBL services. For senders and ESPs to qualify for the Yahoo FBL they must sign their mail with Domain Keys or DKIM. ISPs are eligible for an IP based FBL. Whitelisting is available to senders who fill out an application and qualify.

Engagement Scoring

Engagement Scoring is a way to tell which emails are the most effective.

Each email address starts at zero points and goes up and down depending on actions that occur.

Action Scoring List:

5 points for View
10 points for Click

IP Address Color Codes

We have a system for coloring IP addresses based on the sender score. Requires reputation monitoring to be turned on for those IP addresses.

Color Definitions:
Black means there is no reputation monitoring/sender score for that IP.
Green = High sender score which is good 75 or higher
Yellow = Neutral sender score with 40 to 74
Red = Poor anything under 40.

It helps give an idea which IP's are the best to mail from.