Industry-approved tactics to get your emails delivered

Action is expensive, but inaction costs a fortune.

— Shane Parrish (Entrepreneur and author)

This week, we’re going deep on deliverability.

Please stop yawning… I can hear it.

Bear with me — this is such a critical topic, and these are principles that apply mostly to those with larger lists, but they don’t hurt to apply from day one even for a list of one.

What’s different this week is, instead of offering up our own advice, we’re leaning on an industry titan. Most people have never heard of Spamhaus, but they recently released their latest unbiased, expert guidance on how to build trust and a solid reputation with your audience.

Who the heck are Spamhaus? And why should you care?

Spamhaus runs some of the most widely used blocklists in email. In their own words, they are…

The authority on IP and domain reputation.

So when they offer guidance on improving your reputation, it doesn’t hurt to pay attention!

A huge number of mail servers (inbox providers) check them before deciding whether to accept a message. If Spamhaus lists your sending domain or IP, lots of inboxes you've never heard of (there are many that are not Gmail!) will act on it.

They've now set out, in one place, what they expect from anyone sending email: their Sender Guidelines.

It's long, and a lot of it is written for people who run mail servers and do far more complex stuff, but there is a lot of valuable advice for everyone in there. So we’ve read it for you.

The good news: if you send through a platform like EcoSend, most of it is your platform's job.

Here are six areas that are your responsibility, especially if your audience runs into the tens of thousands and beyond.

1. Confirm opt-in for everyone

This is Spamhaus's first minimum requirement: every subscriber should confirm their email address (by clicking a link) before you email them. They’re quite explicit:

If no confirmation is received, do not send email to that address.

And as we have said many times, do not buy, “rent”, or harvest lists. Ever! Spamhaus says those are the most common sources of spam trap hits.

It’s important to note that permission is not transferable. For example, if you acquire a list from a partner organisation, an ancient campaign spreadsheet, or the event sign-ups someone else collected, if none of these people said yes to you then you are in trouble.

2. Put your sleepers to bed

Spamhaus recommends an email sunset policy, and notes that mailboxes left inactive for more than 12 months can be turned into spam traps.

So someone who signed up to your list in 2019 and hasn't opened anything since is a risk. The address might not belong to anyone any more. It might be a trap.

Re-engage them once, then stop. We went through how to do this in a recent edition of the newsletter: Don't delete anyone yet.

While you might want to try "cleaning out" traps with a list-checking tool, it’s not the full story. Spamhaus is clear that validation isn't a substitute for having permission to email someone. The most important thing is to fix the root problem: where the bad addresses came from in the first place.

3. Keep bounces under 5%

Your overall bounce rate should be below 5%. Hard bounces should get removed straight away. Soft bounces should get removed after a few in a row (Spamhaus says "typically 3–5 consecutive bounces").

If your last big send bounced more than that, it's a sign your list is older and less engaged and could do with some pruning.

4. Act on unsubscribes within 2 days

Every marketing email needs a visible unsubscribe link. Your contacts should not have to log in to use it (we’ve all experienced this — it’s infuriating!) and requests should be actioned within 2 days.

Why it ever would take more than two whole days to remove someone from a list is beyond us, but there we go.

The issue to watch out for here is when you send email from more than one tool. For example, you might have an event ticketing system, a donations platform, a storefront, and a newsletter. Someone who unsubscribes in one place shouldn't hear from you in another a week later.

Your contacts don’t care if you have multiple systems — this is your responsibility to get working reliably.

5. Warm up after a quiet spell

If a domain hasn't sent email in 90 days, Spamhaus effectively treats it as brand new. So start sending again slowly. Send to your most engaged contacts first, and avoid sudden spikes in sending volume.

This is also why it’s a good idea to have a regular sending schedule. A list that's been quiet since the summer, then hit with three appeals in December can look a lot like a spammer from the outside. Send good emails on at least a somewhat regular schedule, and aim to not leave significant gaps in between.

One relating topic on this — Spamhaus highlight that using “warm-up services" to fake opens, clicks, or replies is not a good idea. So steer clear of those somewhat sketchy services.

6. Prove you are who you say you are

Acronym alert…

SPF, DKIM and DMARC, are all crucial to have set up. If you’re reading this and wondering what on earth these are, don’t worry — the chances are that they were set up by whoever manages your website. Whoever is most technical on your team is the person to ask about this stuff.

Your DKIM signature has to match the domain in your "From" address. On most platforms, that means verifying your own domain rather than sending on a platform's own shared domain.

Two more actionable things from the small print: Don't keep your DMARC policy as p=none forever. It's a starting point but not the destination. More info in our post on deliverability.

And hold off on emailing from a brand-new domain. Spamhaus suggests waiting at least 30 days after registering one before you should start sending from it.

What's not your job

Phew… that might feel like a lot of work. Thankfully a lot of these are good healthy practices you only need to set up once and then check occasionally.

A big chunk of the guidelines covers reverse DNS, HELO hostnames, IPv6 allocations and SPF lookup limits. From November, Spamhaus starts rolling out a requirement that every sending IP has a valid HELO and matching reverse DNS.

If you send through an email platform, this is their homework, not yours. But it's a fair question to ask any provider: "Are you ready for Spamhaus's HELO and reverse DNS requirements?” If they can't answer, that might be an alarm bell.

For what it's worth, we're on it and obsess over deliverability. And EcoSend Forms give you double opt-in built in, which covers rule 1 for anyone who signs up through them.

Take action now

Pull up your list and answer three questions:

1. How many people haven't opened or clicked in 12 months?
2. What was the bounce rate on your last big send?
3. What does your DMARC record say? (Search "DMARC checker", type in your domain, and look for p=.)

If your answer to any of these makes you grimace, then there’s a job for November.

There we have it. I know this has been a pretty intense edition today but we made it through. Let me know if it’s helpful and if there’s anything more we can provide you to help with any of this, I am always keen to hear about your challenges.

Until next time,

James

This week’s rather gruesome illustration is from Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (1705), via the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Merian drew it from what she saw in Suriname, including a spider eating a hummingbird. Critics in Europe dismissed that as fantasy for over a century, until naturalists saw the same thing for themselves. A trap for every size of prey: webs for the flies, a hairy ambush for the hummingbird. Happy Halloween for next week!