Yotpo Email Deliverability Guide

What is email deliverability?

First, let's talk about email delivery vs. email deliverability.

Email delivery is about the technical ability to ensure your emails reach the correct inbox service provider such as Google/Gmail, Microsoft/Hotmail, Yahoo, Apple/iCloud, etc. Meanwhile, email deliverability is the metric that measures the rate by which your emails reach your recipient's inbox or promotions folders, rather than being delivered to spam.

Email delivery is completely in our control, and we’ve got you covered. Your emails will reach the inbox service provider, every time.

Email deliverability, on the other hand, is for the most part in your hands. The behaviors you exhibit as an email marketer will dictate whether your emails will reach the destination inbox, which is the ideal result, get diverted to the spam folder, or even get rejected by the inbox service provider altogether. Those behaviors affect the sender reputation that the inbox service providers assign to you, a sender score that ultimately determines your email deliverability behavior.

With that said, you must understand and adhere to the Email Marketing Deliverability Principles. This will boost your deliverability, which in turn will boost your open rates, click rates, and ultimately your conversion rates.

Check out our guide below to see everything you need to do to ensure your emails reach the inbox every time.   

The essentials of email delivery setup

Domain authentication

Your domain is one of your greatest assets. To best leverage it, you should protect it by going through domain authentication. 

What is domain authentication and when is it necessary?

Whether you have sent emails before, or are brand new to email marketing, you must authenticate your domain with Yotpo so that we can send emails on your behalf through the platform. Even if you are using another email tool in parallel with Yotpo, you must authenticate each email service provider so that they have permission to send for you. 

How do I authenticate my domain?

Yotpo’s support articles will guide you throughout the domain authentication process. Check out this detailed article that walks you through the steps of how to authenticate your domain with Yotpo.

Your sender name

Your sender name is the name from which your emails are sent. 

Once you’ve authenticated your domain, it’s important to use a sender name that matches your domain. You can set up your Sender Name in your settings. For instance, ensuring you are using a sender name that matches your store name/domain: examplestore.com and Sender Name: Example Store in the inbox.

It is also important to be consistent with your sender name. Once you’ve decided on a sender name, at least for a type of email, stick with it. For instance, you can use one sender name for Marketing Emails (like campaigns and promotions) and one sender name for Transactional Emails (like order and shipping updates). 

Whatever you do, do not use a public domain (@gmail.com, @yahoo.com etc.) for a sender email – an address like my-store@yahoo.com is a strict no-no and will result in your emails not being delivered.

Domain Warm-up

After authenticating your domain and setting up your sender name, it’s vital to follow domain warm-up guidelines, to ensure your newly authenticated domain continues to have strong deliverability. 

What is domain warm-up and why is it necessary? 

Domain warm-up is the process of slowly establishing a reputation for your newly authenticated domain by gradually increasing the volume of emails sent rather than sending to your whole audience at once — whether you’ve done email marketing before or not. Domain warming is critical because inbox service providers perceive sudden increases in email volume as very suspicious and indicative of a spammer.

This means starting with Yotpo Email marketing by sending smaller campaigns, starting with your most engaged audience before building up to audience-wide emails. 

Domain Warming will not only protect your brand but will also signal to inbox service providers that you take your emailing practice seriously, and that will positively impact your sender reputation for the rest of your brand’s future!

If you do not complete domain warming after authenticating your domain and begin to send to your whole list at once, it can impact your deliverability negatively — meaning customers might not get your emails. If you have any questions about warming, reach out to our 24/7 support. 

Once you have finished warming your domain, follow our Best Practices of Deliverability below to ensure you are consistently sending emails in a way that protects your sending reputation.

Learn more about the warming process

Your email deliverability is important, and it’s in your hands, but we are here to help you along the way with our deliverability best practices.