The success of an email marketing campaign is dependent on whether you have a good email acceptance rate. If you regularly send out emails but it doesn’t reach your recipient’s inbox, you’ll have a difficult time generating new business with your email marketing campaigns.
What Is Acceptance Rate?
Acceptance rate is the percentage of emails a business sends out that is accepted by the mail server’s ISP (Internet Service Protocol). The acceptance rate, also referred to as the delivery rate, measures the volume of emails that were not returned to the sender.
Think of your email as a package you sent to a family member. You write their complete address on the box but missed one crucial house number. The courier couldn’t locate the correct address, and, as a result, the box is returned to its sender.
This is similar to what happens to your email when the ISP rejects it. This is known as a bounced email, and the corresponding bounce rate is another metric that email marketers need to be aware of when conducting an email marketing campaign.
However, when an email is accepted by the server and sent to the recipient’s inbox, this is called the inbox placement.
Inbox Placement
Inbox placement measures how frequently an email successfully reaches the recipient’s inbox instead of the spam or junk folder. It’s considered a better metric for gauging the performance of an email marketing campaign compared to the acceptance rate.
Both the acceptance rate and the inbox placement are the two essential components in determining email deliverability.
Factors That Affect Email Deliverability
Several factors affect the email acceptance rate. While not all ISPs share the same criteria for accepting emails, there are critical factors that businesses and email marketers need to consider. Among these are the following:
- Vague or generic subject lines
- Non-relevant content
- Inconsistent emailing schedule
- Non-mobile-friendly email layout
- Spam traps
- Poor mailing list quality
- Poor sending reputation
- Problematic email infrastructure
- Unsegmented emails
How to Improve Email Acceptance Rate
To improve your email acceptance rate and avoid issues, it’s best to follow a few ideal practices to ensure the emails will be delivered.
1. Clean your email list
Businesses spend a considerable amount of money to acquire emails. However, a large email database can be dangerous if a majority of those on the list will tag your emails as spam or junk. Pruning your email list—by removing addresses of unengaged users, those with typos, or incomplete ones—will save you from the lasting damage of a low IP reputation. It’s also wise to offer a way to opt out of your subscription list for those who no longer wish to receive your emails.
2. Have a proper IP designation or email infrastructure
Your email deliverability is affected by the type of IP address you use to send out the emails. A dedicated IP gives businesses more control over their sender reputation. It’s ideal for businesses that send out high-volume emails at a high frequency.
On the other hand, a shared IP is an IP address shared with other domains. Hence, a business only gets partial control of its reputation. This setup is suitable for small businesses that send out low-volume but consistent emails.
3. Create a personalized and appropriate subject line
A well-crafted subject line will make users want to click on the email and open it. If the subject line is too vague, users might ignore the email altogether. Even worse, they could tag it as spam or delete it without opening it.
4. Maintain a regular emailing schedule
Finding a regular schedule increases your email deliverability. Timing and frequency are crucial in email marketing campaigns. As a business, you don’t want to send too many emails in such a short period of time. This can send a red flag to the ISP, and they’ll consider it as spam. On the other hand, you don’t want your customers to forget you either by sending too few emails over long gaps. Having a consistent emailing schedule, like once a week or twice a month, will improve your email acceptance rate.
5. Create email segments for subscribers
While all of your subscribers may have an interest in your company or brand, their level of engagement will still vary depending on the email content. Some customers might prefer to only receive product updates, while others may want email newsletters. Improving your engagement rate means providing your subscribers relevant content, and segmenting your list can help with this.
