No matter how much we plan and analyze, there will always be things outside of our control. When it comes to email deliverability, avoiding automatic clicks is sometimes the hardest pitfall to avoid. Nevertheless, there are ways to stand up to security systems and work around the (almost) impossible. In this episode, Alyssa and Melissa explain why automatic clicks are so common and what you can do to take back control. As email marketers, we don't have many metrics to determine our success. So w...
Apr 20, 2021•29 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Deliverability isn’t an exact science. There’s no hard and fast rule for success, and advice may vary from time to time. But of all the grey areas in email marketing, switching ESPs is probably the most confusing. If you’ve wanted to make a change in your service but haven’t pulled the trigger for fear of damaging your deliverability, you’re not alone. That said, there are ways to switch it up without ruining your rep, and we’re breaking them all down. In this episode, we explain what to look fo...
Apr 13, 2021•37 min•Season 2Ep. 6
In an era of streaming services and a pandemic that’s pushed touring to the side, monetizing music has never been harder. While it may sound old-fashioned for a rockstar, emails can unlock your income potential. In this episode, we’re speaking to the musicians looking to monetize and turn casual followers into fans and superfans. Learn to stay strategic with your releases, use Instagram to build an email list, and personalize content to incentivize sign-ups. If you’re listening to this, you prob...
Apr 06, 2021•43 min•Season 2Ep. 5
To emoji or not to emoji? Can sending a test email actually harm deliverability? Is my title too vague? Too specific? Email marketing is an artform and mastering it takes more than a quick How-To. But even if you’re a pro at emails, you may be making minor mistakes that can have a major impact on deliverability. In this episode, we’re walking through 10 common email marketing mistakes to avoid, plus, a few bonus tips and tricks for prime deliverability. We also mention a few big brands that miss...
Mar 30, 2021•41 min•Season 2Ep. 4
As writers, email marketing should come easy, right? You already know how to engage an audience, use your voice, and create a compelling read. But sometimes, your skills as a narrator don’t always transfer. And, like many writers, maybe you write alone for too long, hesitant to share your work with an email address outside your own. In this episode, we’re battling the mother of all monsters: writer’s block. So let’s outline how to create content that helps you build an audience, reach an audienc...
Mar 23, 2021•44 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Realizing that you have a problem is the first step to solving a problem. And when you notice some of your subscribers starting to disengage, jumping on a re-engagement campaign is probably your solution. But like anything else, there’s a right and a wrong way to re-engage. In fact, if you're not careful, your campaign may do more harm than good. So what’s the right way to win back cold subscribers? What content should you push and how much of it? Should you re-engage everyone all at once? And w...
Mar 16, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 2
After spending Season 01 chatting all things technical, we’re kicking off Season 02 with some general advice for making a living and building an audience online. In this episode, we’re going to take a step back to define “creators”, help you push past the starting line, and make the task of asking your audience to subscribe a little less awkward. Even if you’ve nailed deliverability basics, growing an online presence depends on your marketing strategy just as much as it does your technical know-...
Mar 09, 2021•57 min•Season 2Ep. 1
We’ve made it through the inaugural season of Deliverability Defined! Since we’ve covered so many important deliverability topics over the course of this season, we wanted to bring you our top takeaways. If you do nothing else, these strategies will help you significantly improve your deliverability. We’ll be back in January with brand new content. Thanks for making season one what it was and we’ll see you all again soon! Main Takeaways Permission is key. Sending an email to someone who doesn’t ...
Oct 13, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Everyone in the email world wants more subscribers – that’s a given. But how you go about getting those people on your list can have a major impact on your email deliverability, which, in turn, affects all your other email metrics. In this episode, we’re discussing some best practices on how to grow your list effectively so that you don’t get penalized for having subscribers on your list that don’t want to be there. We’ll also give you some tactics to avoid when trying to boost your numbers. If ...
Oct 06, 2020•43 min•Season 1Ep. 19
We want to empower you to take as much control of your email marketing as possible and that includes addressing deliverability issues. A deliverability audit is a great place to start if you want to assess the health of your email marketing efforts. Throughout this episode, we take you through some of the things we check when doing a deliverability audit so that you can start doing them yourself. If you’ve been struggling with your open rates or deliverability, these strategies for conducting a ...
Sep 29, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 18
It’s starting to look like fall in many parts of the country, so you know what that means! Pumpkin spice! Just kidding. Back-to-school! Today, we’re going to do a little vocab lesson and make sure we’re all up-to-date on the lingo being tossed around in the deliverability world. We’re going to define each term, and if need be, point you to more in-depth resources about each one. Get your baggy sweatshirts and binders out, because this is a lecture you’ll want to listen to! Deliverability Terms D...
Sep 22, 2020•43 min•Season 1Ep. 17
If you've ever downloaded or used one of those free tools or applications that sync with your email inbox and automatically unsubscribes you from email that you don't open very often, there's a chance your email data is actually being used by someone else's inbox placement test to determine where their messages land. It’s impossible to know if an email actually hits the primary inbox, but these free tools might be working behind the scenes to acquire that data for someone else. It’s a controvers...
Sep 15, 2020•32 min•Season 1Ep. 16
As you’ve no doubt discovered, email deliverability is a complex topic. There are a number of factors that affect deliverability for senders, and it’s easy to get lost in all of the information when something goes wrong. In this episode, we discuss some of the frequently asked questions we get at ConvertKit, and some practical strategies for improving your deliverability. Frequently Asked Questions Why are emails going to spam? Why do subscribers "bounce" and what do I do with them? What do I ne...
Sep 08, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 15
It’s election season, and with that comes controversy, advertising, and extra emails in your inbox. In recent years, there have been claims that email providers, specifically Gmail, have filtered emails based on political beliefs. Congressman Greg Steube from Florida complained to the CEO of Google because he believed that his emails were being filtered to spam because he is a Republican. In a similar incident in 2019, Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic presidential candidate, sued Gmail for $50 millio...
Sep 01, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Gmail has become ubiquitous as the leading mailbox provider. Gmail is also often considered the most advanced in terms of filtering and features among online mailboxes. And with so many users, it’s critical to understand how Gmail thinks about deliverability. Apart from keeping your emails safe, Gmail also includes a ton of other features that are helpful to both senders and receivers. That said, it can be overwhelming if you’re just getting started. In this episode, we discuss how Gmail determi...
Aug 25, 2020•47 min•Season 1Ep. 13
You may think it's too soon to talk about holiday promotions, but for email marketing, the time is now! The holidays often involve the biggest promotions of the year, so it’s important to plan your strategy well ahead of time. For many senders, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest days of the year in terms of promotions and sales. But without proper preparation, senders can run into deliverability issues that can derail even the best marketing emails. In this episode, we talk about comm...
Aug 18, 2020•26 min•Season 1Ep. 12
There are a lot of email service providers (ESPs) out there and many misconceptions about how to choose the one that works for your needs. To understand what an ESP can and can’t do to help you with deliverability, it’s good to start by looking at the function of an ESP and the role it plays in your email marketing. While each ESP has its own specialty, its main purpose is to help email marketers reach their audience. At its most basic function, the ESP handles the entire delivery infrastructure...
Aug 11, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Today we’re talking about list validation. And to help bring some additional insight to our conversation, we’re joined by Lauren Meyer, the VP of Industry Relations and Compliance at Kickbox, a list verification company. With a background in communication and email deliverability, Lauren brings a lot of experience to the table. We discuss spam traps, list validation, and some great ideas for keeping your list healthy (which is essential for deliverability). Lauren also talks about how she ended ...
Aug 04, 2020•42 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Blocklist is a cryptic word that can cause panic for an email sender. No one wants to be “blocked” from sending an email. It can be complex, but it’s important to know how blocklists work to ensure that you remain in good standing as a sender. In this episode, we unravel blocklists and how to not end up on one. Main Takeaways A blocklist is an organization that compiles a list of IPs, (potentially domains as well) that they believe to be risky. Anyone can create a blocklist — what matters is who...
Jul 28, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 9
If you’re following the email marketing world, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Hey.com from creators of Basecamp. A lot of people have a lot of opinions on Hey, and because our podcast is all about email deliverability, we believe it’s a relevant discussion for us to have. There’s not a ton of innovation in the email space, so having something like Hey to give us good conversation is a welcome change. If you need a quick catch-up, check out hey.com to see what it’s all about. Whether you’re pro-Hey ...
Jul 21, 2020•44 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Open rates are an emotional, yet somewhat unreliable metric. When people see a drop in open rate, they tend to think it’s an indication that engagement is down. But email metrics go well beyond open rates. And in many cases, other metrics can tell you much more about the success of your email marketing than open rates alone. In this episode, we talk about the meaningful metrics you should be tracking, hard and soft bounces, list hygiene, and what to do if you’re concerned with your metrics. Main...
Jul 14, 2020•39 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Email authentication is probably something you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about. But it’s important that you understand what it is and why it's crucial for your email deliverability. This episode gets a little technical, but if you’re sending emails to a list, you should become familiar with the jargon so you can leverage all of the options available to you when trying to improve your deliverability. In this episode, we talk about why authentication exists, how to quickly determine authe...
Jul 07, 2020•43 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Note: This podcast episode was pre-recorded and since then, we have changed our terminology at ConvertKit to blocklist instead of blacklist . Spam traps can elicit a negative gut reaction. It’s probably a natural reaction, and we’re going to talk about how you can avoid spam traps without making things worse. Spam traps are an email address that's created or maintained with the purpose of identifying centers with poor list health or collection methods. While it’s good for subscribers, sometimes ...
Jun 30, 2020•34 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Listbombing can be a touchy subject because most people think it’s personal. However, it doesn't really matter which email service provider you use or what your website is about—hackers will generally attack any list in any form on any provider that they can find. That said, there are ways you can protect yourself from their malicious methods. Even though the sender isn’t the target of the attack, the sender will bear the brunt of the negative outcomes for the health of their list if not caught ...
Jun 23, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Over the last few episodes, we’ve brought up the topic of content and have essentially talked around it. This show is about deliverability, but it’s surprising how much the content aspect of your emails and website can impact overall deliverability. Creating personal and engaging content for your emails cannot be overstated. Since your sender reputation has a lot riding on subscriber engagement, it’s critical that the content you provide is enticing and meaningful enough that people engage with ...
Jun 16, 2020•34 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Getting into your audience’s inbox all starts with sender reputation. It’s the most important factor when it comes to deliverability, and the domain you're using to send your emails is what holds the majority of that reputation. Just because you end up in a spam folder doesn’t always mean you’re doing something wrong. And if you are, there are methods and strategies you can use to fix those issues. In this episode, we talk about sender reputation by mailbox provider, ways to test your deliverabi...
Jun 02, 2020•40 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Deliverability Defined is a new show from ConvertKit in which hosts Alyssa Dulin and Melissa Lambert help you navigate the complexities of email deliverability. What exactly is email deliverability? And why is it important? Is email marketing still a good channel for communicating with your audience? If you rely on email for your business (or use it at all), these are important questions. In today’s episode, we talk about how we found our way to email deliverability as a discipline, the complexi...
May 26, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 1
