Email Deliverability Glossary

We’ve previously discussed the importance of email deliverability, as well as what it takes for brands to boost their own rates. Here, we offer a quick, helpful list to define the important elements that can help you in your journey to better deliverability.

Bounce Rate (Hard & Soft): Indicates the percentage of emails not delivered due to an issue with the recipient’s email address server. A hard bounce is a permanent bounce that occurs when an email account is no longer valid, while a soft bounce occurs due to a server issue and is typically temporary.

Call to Action (CTA): A phrase aimed to prompt email viewers to do something, whether it’s to view a web page, activate a deal or start the purchase process. Increased engagement within emails can improve a brand’s sender reputation, and therefore, deliverability.

Click-through Rate: The percentage of subscribers who clicked a link within the email.

HTML: A language used by email coders. Clean, uncluttered HTML can help lower the chances of an email ending up in spam.

Inactive Subscriber: A contact within an email list who has not opened or engaged with an email for an extended period of time.

Internet Service Provider (ISP): A company that provides Internet and email services to individuals and businesses.

Landing Page: Where a person ends up after clicking on a link in an email. If a landing page is irrelevant or does not reflect what a CTA promises, it may frustrate recipients and reduce their engagement in the future.

List: Contact or mailing list of all email subscribers. An important factor in determining deliverability, as poor list health (i.e. inactive subscribers, invalid email addresses, etc.) can impact sender reputation.

Open Rate: The percentage of subscribers who opened an email out of the total number of subscribers that received it.

Opt In: When a person subscribes to an email list or explicitly gives a brand permission to send them emails.

Personalization: Creating different content targeted at different segments of an email contact list. Personalized email communications lead to better engagement.

Responsiveness: The ability for an email to reformat for different screen sizes (mobile phone, tablet, computer, etc.).

Sender Reputation: A brand’s standing in the eyes of ISPs and email monitoring groups, impacted by spam complaints.

Spam: Unsolicited emails. An email might be deemed spam officially, by rules set in the CAN-SPAM Act, or marked as spam from a recipient.

Subject Line: The headline of an email that appears in an inbox before a subscriber opens it.

Unsubscribe: When a subscriber ops out of a brand’s email campaigns. It is illegal for a sender to deliver emails to individuals who have unsubscribed.

Further questions? Get in touch with Maropost－we’ve got a dedicated Deliverability Team that knows what it takes to get your emails in front of as many subscribers as possible.

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