Improving the Health of Your Deliverability Metrics

Deliverability measures the rate at which your emails reach your recipients’ inboxes or promotions folders rather than being delivered to spam. It’s composed of a number of important metrics that indicate how your subscribers interact with your emails. The Yotpo Email analytics allow you to track the health of those metrics and address any concerns before they harm your deliverability.

In this article, you’ll learn how to improve the health of each one of your deliverability metrics.

Before you start

To get a good grasp on the information given here, we recommend reading our Guide to Email Deliverability and getting acquainted with email deliverability analytics.

Increasing your click-through rate

Click-through rate (CTR) refers to the ratio of recipients who clicked on email links to the total emails sent. A high CTR indicates compelling content, while declining rates signal room for improvement.

To increase your click-through rate, follow these strategies:

Strategic link placement

• Position links carefully within your email, and support them by clear and persuasive call-to-action (CTA) phrases.
• Ensure that your email design is both desktop and mobile-friendly for a seamless user experience across devices.
• Always preview your email and tweak the mobile formatting when necessary.

Segmentation for personalization

• Tailor your email content based on distinct audience segments, catering to their preferences, demographics, and behaviors.
• Personalized emails enhance relevance, prompting higher click-through rates.
• Don’t forget to exclude unengaged contacts to ensure a good sender reputation.

Compelling subject lines

Craft subject lines that accurately convey your email's content, eliminating any chance of misrepresentation. Captivating subject lines draw attention and make recipients open your emails and explore further.

Effective timing

• Strategically schedule email dispatch to peak activity times, ensuring maximum visibility and engagement.
• Avoid sending emails during periods of low user activity to maximize open and click rates.

Engaging content copy

• Develop email content that is engaging and relevant to your audience's needs and interests.
• Use questions and address potential concerns to establish a deeper connection.

Increasing your open rates

Open rates show how successfully your emails capture your audience's attention and motivate them to engage with your content.

To increase your open rates, follow these strategies:

Create engaged segments

Build engaged segments based on subscriber behavior and preferences. These segments ensure you target the right audience with relevant content, leading to higher open rates.

To build engaged segments:

1. Start with recently engaged subscribers who opened or clicked on an email, or who made a purchase recently.
2. Continue to gradually refine the criteria to identify your core engaged audience.
3. Personalize content based on demographics and behaviors for maximum impact.

Learn how to exclude unengaged contacts from your audience

Craft targeted subject lines

• Craft concise and compelling subject lines that align with your content.
• Use clear call-to-action (CTA) phrases to entice recipients.
• Personalize subject lines with recipients' names or profile properties.
• Incorporate a sense of urgency when applicable to drive immediate action.

Regularly clean your lists

Regularly clean your subscriber list by removing unengaged, fake, or spam email addresses. This ensures you send emails only to active and genuine recipients. Cleaning your list positively impacts deliverability and sender reputation, ultimately boosting open rates. Learn more about removing subscribers.

If you want to remove a larger list of subscribers, contact Yotpo support to help you with the process.

Choose optimal send times

Send emails at the right time for each recipient's timezone. Consider using Smart sending to send time-based messages to your subscribers. Sending emails at convenient times enhances the likelihood of them being opened and read.

Monitor performance continuously

Regularly monitor email campaign and flow performance, focusing on open rates and other key metrics. If open rates dip, analyze and adjust your email content, targeting, and segmentation strategy. Consistent monitoring helps maintain a positive sender reputation and improves open rates over time.

Minimizing your unsubscribe rates

Unsubscribe rates reveal the percentage of users opting out of your marketing email campaigns. A low unsubscribe rate not only improves email deliverability but also signals positive user perception. High unsubscribe rates, on the other hand, may lead to emails being marked as spam, impacting your sender reputation.

To minimize unsubscribe rates and enhance engagement, follow these strategies:

Opt for targeted audiences

Segment your email list to send tailored content. Specific content resonates better, reducing the likelihood of unsubscribes. Personalization and relevance can help maintain subscriber interest.

Craft personalized emails

Personalize your emails with recipient names and content that aligns with their preferences with the help of Yotpo Email’s personalization tags. This increases engagement and minimizes the perception of spam.

Adjust sending frequency

Sending too many emails can lead to unsubscribes. Consider using Smart sending to ensure subscribers receive messages at the right intervals.

Set clear expectations

Transparently communicate message types, frequency, and benefits during the subscription process. This aligns subscriber expectations, reducing unsubscribes due to mismatched content. With Yotpo Email, all the important information is given in our subscriber collection tools. All of them are built-in for compliance with all legal regulations and include the required verbiage.

Gather feedback

Send surveys to gather insights into subscriber preferences. Use feedback to adapt your email strategy, ensuring content remains appealing and relevant.

Focus on responsive design

Craft emails that display correctly on various devices. A seamless user experience enhances engagement and discourages unsubscribes.

Minimizing your bounce rates

Bounces are messages that couldn't reach their intended recipients.

There are two primary types of bounces:

• Hard bounces occur when an email cannot be delivered due to a permanent issue. This could be because the recipient's email address is invalid, non-existent, or the domain doesn't exist. These bounces are typically irreversible and indicate a more severe problem.
• Soft bounces, on the other hand, happen due to temporary issues. This might include a full inbox, an email server that's temporarily down, or a message that's too large to be delivered. Soft bounces suggest that the issue might be resolved in the future.

Dealing with bounces effectively is vital for maintaining a clean and engaged email list.

To decrease bounce rates, follow these strategies:

Maintain a real and consent-based list

Focus on emailing subscribers who have willingly opted in, and genuinely want to receive your content. Avoid purchasing lists or contacting individuals without explicit consent, as this can lead to high bounce rates and harm your sender reputation.

Regularly clean your lists

Regularly clean your subscriber list by removing unengaged, fake, or spam email addresses. This ensures you send emails only to active and genuine recipients. Regular cleaning maintains list health, decreases bounce rates, and positively impacts deliverability by weeding out unengaged recipients. Learn more about removing subscribers.

If you want to remove a larger list of subscribers, contact Yotpo support to help you with the process.

Remove hard bounces

Promptly remove hard-bounced email addresses from your list before sending. These addresses are invalid or permanently unreachable, and keeping them can harm deliverability and reputation.


Please note: 
Yotpo Email already removes hard-bounced emails for you, and when a recipient's domain has been determined as non-existent. We still recommend cleaning the list before sending. 

Consistently engage subscribers

Regularly send emails to maintain subscriber interest and keep your emails recognized. Consistent engagement minimizes the chances of subscribers forgetting they opted in, reducing potential bounces.

Exclude soft bounces from your campaign audience

Make the best of the feature to exclude segments from your campaign audience. By default, we exclude the soft bounces from the last three months, but you can create your own segments and exclude them when sending a campaign.

Repeat the strategies from the previous paragraphs

Strategies such as segmenting for personalization and creating engaging subject lines and copy benefit not just one deliverability metric, but all of them.

Minimizing your spam report rates

Spam report rates provide crucial insights into how often recipients mark your emails as spam. Reducing spam complaint rates is essential for maintaining a positive sender reputation and ensuring your emails land in recipients' inboxes.

To minimize your spam report rates, follow these strategies:

Provide a clear unsubscribe option

Always provide a prominent and easy-to-find unsubscribe link in your emails. Making it straightforward for recipients to opt out helps prevent them from marking your emails as spam out of frustration. All of the Yotpo Email templates include the Unsubscribe personalization tag at the end of each email.

Avoid spammy content

Craft email content and subject lines that steer clear of spam-triggering words or phrases. These include terms like "free", excessive exclamation marks, and all-capital letters, which can trigger spam filters.

Craft mobile-friendly emails 

Ensure your emails look well on both desktop and mobile devices. Improperly displayed emails can frustrate recipients and lead to spam complaints. Also, consider the size of your emails to avoid clipping by email clients.

Avoid purchased lists 

Avoid buying, renting, or borrowing email lists. Sending emails to uninterested recipients is likely to result in spam complaints and harm your sender reputation.

By implementing these strategies, you can maintain a good sender reputation and enhance the chances of your emails landing in recipients' inboxes. Make sure to keep track of your metrics, stay informed about the latest best practices and industry guidelines to continuously refine your email campaigns and achieve long-term success in reaching your audience.