Email Deliverability Best Practices Guide
The Challenge
This guide may help you to learn how to improve your email deliverability and what steps you can implement in your strategy to make it to the inbox.
Delivery is Never Guaranteed
This guide
Email is the backbone of the social web. Can you imagine Facebook without email or any other web application functioning without email? It is the primary — and often the only — channel for communicating with members and customers. Everything from order confirmations to friend requests and privacy updates are sent via email.
21% of opt-in emails never make it to the inbox
Email deliverability is a secret crisis facing any business that relies on email communications. Unfortunately, most companies don’t think about deliverability until they have a major issue—like when thousands, or in some cases millions, of emails fail to arrive.
Businesses falsely assume that an email is delivered if they don’t receive a bounce notification. But the reality is very different—according to ReturnPath’s 2015 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, 21% of opt-in emails never make it to the inbox.
%
opt-in emails never make it to the inbox
%
of commercial emails lands in the inbox.
%
European country was able to break the 90% inbox placement mark
%
open rate for UK SME email marketing campaigns
CaKom’s Best Practice Tips
Avoid spam traps—have an industry standard opt-in process.
To avoid including a spam trap email in your mailing list, have an industry standard opt-in process, don’t rent or buy email lists and keep your list clean.
Don’t use noreply@domain.com in your emails.
Using a “no reply” in your “from” address can elicit a negative response from your customer. So, send your emails from an email address that can be regularly monitored for responses.
Ask Permission, Host a Preference Center
Watch out for email fatigue. Sending too much email to your users can drive high unsubscribe and/or complaint rates. Offer a preference center so users can choose what updates they’d like to receive and how often they would like to receive them.

- Mobile Sales 80%
- Website Traffic 50%
- Conversion Rate 75%
- Email Subscribers 60%