Ultimate Email Deliverability Guide for Black Friday 2024

Black Friday presents an unparalleled opportunity for businesses to drive sales and engage with customers. However, even the best marketing efforts can fall short if your emails don’t make it to the inbox. Ensuring strong email deliverability is essential for a successful campaign, especially during this high-stakes shopping event. In this ultimate guide, we’ll walk you through the critical practices needed to maximize your email deliverability, from setting up authentication protocols like DKIM, SPF, and DMARC to verifying your email lists and avoiding spam triggers. With these proven strategies, you can confidently execute your Black Friday campaigns and boost conversions.

Set Up Email Authentication: DKIM, SPF, and DMARC

Authentication is the foundation of email deliverability. If authentication isn’t set up properly, email service providers (ESPs) like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook might not trust your emails, which increases the chances of your messages being marked as spam. To avoid this, ensure that your authentication protocols are correctly configured:

• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): DKIM provides a digital signature for your emails, verifying that they have not been tampered with during transit. This ensures that your email is legitimate and builds trust with ESPs.
• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): SPF verifies that your emails are sent from an authorized server. It helps prevent spammers from using your domain to send malicious emails, thereby protecting your sender reputation.
• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): DMARC aligns both DKIM and SPF, providing another layer of protection. It ensures that your domain is not being misused and offers reports on any authentication issues.

Implementing these protocols establishes credibility with ESPs and helps ensure your emails land in your subscribers’ primary inbox.

Segment Your Email List

One-size-fits-all email campaigns can harm your sender reputation and decrease engagement. To improve your chances of reaching the inbox, segment your email list based on factors like:

• Purchase History: Target customers who have previously purchased from you.
• Engagement Level: Separate engaged subscribers from inactive ones and tailor your messaging accordingly.
• Geographical Location: Adjust your campaigns based on time zones and regional preferences to send emails at the optimal time for each segment.

By sending relevant content to specific groups, you increase the likelihood of engagement, which positively impacts your deliverability. Segmenting your list also minimizes the risk of complaints, unsubscribes, and spam reports.

Verify Your Emails

An essential step in maintaining a high sender reputation and ensuring deliverability is verifying your email list. Sending emails to invalid or inactive addresses can lead to high bounce rates, which negatively impact your sender score. Using a trusted email verification service ensures that your list is clean, reducing the risk of deliverability issues.

Avoid Trigger Words like “Free”

Black Friday is synonymous with promotions, discounts, and special deals. However, using trigger words like “Free,” “Buy Now,” or “Exclusive Offer” excessively can cause ESPs to flag your emails as spam. While these words are common in marketing, using them sparingly and strategically is crucial.

Instead, focus on personalized subject lines that resonate with your audience. Crafting a sense of urgency while avoiding overly aggressive language will help you stand out without raising red flags. A/B testing different subject lines is also a great way to find what works best for your audience while minimizing the risk of deliverability issues.

Implement BIMI and Verified Mark Certificates

Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is an emerging standard that displays your brand’s logo next to your email in the inbox. When combined with Verified Mark Certificates (VMCs), it provides an extra layer of trust for both ESPs and your recipients. BIMI shows that your brand is legitimate, increasing the chances of your emails reaching the inbox.

Here’s how to implement BIMI:

1. Ensure DMARC Compliance: BIMI requires you to have a valid DMARC policy in place.
2. Obtain a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC): A VMC confirms that your logo is officially associated with your domain.
3. Publish the BIMI Record: Add a DNS record for BIMI that links to your VMC and logo file.

Using BIMI and VMCs not only improves email deliverability but also enhances brand visibility and recognition, creating a more professional and trustworthy impression for your subscribers.

Conduct Pre-Send Testing

Before launching your Black Friday email campaigns, it’s crucial to conduct thorough pre-send testing to ensure your emails perform optimally across various email service providers. Tools like Inbox Reports provide valuable insights into your email’s deliverability, allowing you to make any necessary adjustments before your campaign goes live.

When using Inbox Reports for pre-send testing, focus on the following:

• Spam Filter Analysis: Assess whether any elements or content in your email trigger spam filters. By identifying and adjusting problematic language or formatting, you can improve your chances of avoiding the spam folder.
• Link and Image Validation: Confirm that all links are functional and images load correctly. Broken links or missing images can damage your credibility and reduce engagement rates.
• Inbox Placement Testing: Track where your emails are landing—whether it’s the primary inbox, promotions tab, or spam folder—across different ESPs, and adjust your strategy to maximize inbox placement.

Get Removed from Blacklists

Blacklists are databases used by ESPs to identify and block suspicious senders. If your domain or IP ends up on a blacklist, your deliverability will suffer significantly, and your emails may be blocked entirely. To avoid this, monitor your sender reputation regularly using Blacklist Monitoring and follow these steps if you get blacklisted:

• Identify the Cause: Determine what led to the blacklisting, such as high spam complaints or sending to invalid addresses.
• Contact the Blacklist Provider: Reach out to the blacklist provider and request removal, showing evidence that you have resolved the issue.
• Clean Your Email List: Make sure your email list is verified and segmented to avoid future blacklisting.
• Adjust Your Sending Practices: Ensure compliance with email marketing best practices, such as maintaining proper sending frequency and monitoring engagement rates.

Being proactive in monitoring your sender reputation and resolving issues quickly can help you avoid significant disruptions to your Black Friday campaigns.

Conclusion

Email deliverability is crucial for the success of your Black Friday campaigns. By following the strategies outlined in this guide, you’ll ensure your emails reach the inbox. With proper planning and execution, you’ll be well-prepared to make the most of this high-traffic shopping event. Remember, Black Friday happens once a year, so getting your email strategy right is essential for maximizing your sales and building long-lasting customer relationships.

This guide is updated annually to provide you with the latest insights and best practices. Make sure to bookmark and check back next year for new tips and techniques to keep your email campaigns successful.