100%

I’ve attended a number of tradeshows, as an attendee and exhibitor, and seen many different approaches – but one of the more interesting is an email service provider exhibiting at eComm Expo in London. This company boasts 100% Deliverability.

Seems a bit odd to me, I can see 100% sent but the law of averages for 100% Deliverability is just too much. Maybe the definition is different across the pond, but by our standards 100% Deliverability would require every recipient to have room in their inbox (otherwise a soft bounce), have not disabled their account (hard bounce) and given you a true email ID – as you can see, the law of averages are just against you.

So what do you need to make sure you’re as close to 100% as possible? Our suggestions focus on three simple things:

1) Monitoring – make sure you focus on your email collection process, are there checks in place to eliminate miss-keying (double opt-in), and include an automatic confirmation so that bounces don’t pollute your core list.

2) Hygiene – Clean your list regularly, honor unsubscribe and SPAM feedback promptly, be sure to check your blacklists, monitor bounce rules and use a dedicated IP address to send your emails as blocking is usually based on the sending IP address.

3) Test – Make sure your content passes SPAM filter assessment; there are tools that verify your content and provide a score based on the message, allowing you to adjust your message as necessary.

Additionally your lists should be seeded, so that the top ISPs are receiving and being directly monitored – specifically because the ISP rules change often.