Email Deliverability Audit: Step-by-Step Guide

Did you know 20% of emails from subscribed lists never reach the inbox? This means one in five of your emails could be missing its target. An email deliverability audit helps fix this by identifying why emails land in spam or get blocked, ensuring your messages reach your audience.

Key Highlights:

• What is Email Deliverability? It’s about ensuring emails land in inboxes, not spam folders.
• Why Audit? Missed emails cost businesses an average of $0.11 each. Regular audits boost inbox rates, engagement, and revenue.
• Audit Focus Areas:
  • Email setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC authentication)
  • Sender reputation
  • List hygiene (removing invalid or inactive emails)
  • Email content quality
• Tools to Use: MxToolbox, Google Postmaster Tools, ZeroBounce, Litmus, and more.
• Steps to Fix Issues: Start with sender reputation, verify authentication, clean your list, and test inbox placement.

By conducting audits every 3-6 months, you can improve deliverability, reduce bounce rates, and increase engagement. Let’s dive into how to run a successful audit.

How to Prepare for the Audit

Gather Essential Tools and Data

Before starting your email deliverability audit, make sure you’ve collected all the tools and data you’ll need. Start by pulling performance metrics like delivery rates, bounce rates, spam complaints, open rates, click rates, and unsubscribes from your analytics dashboard. These numbers will give you a baseline to measure against.

Next, take a close look at your email infrastructure. This includes details like SMTP configuration, encryption type, sending domains, and IP addresses. Make sure to verify your custom domains, subdomains, and IP types, as these directly influence how your emails are perceived by recipients.

Don’t forget the technical essentials: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. These are crucial for authenticating your emails and proving their legitimacy. If you’re not sure where to locate these records, your IT team or email service provider can guide you.

Here are some tools to streamline your audit:

• Authentication checkers: Tools like MxToolbox, Mail Tester, and Mailtrap can verify your technical setup.
• Blacklist checkers: Services like Mailtrap and MailerCheck help identify if your domains or IPs are flagged by spam filters.
• Reputation monitoring tools: Platforms like Google Postmaster Tools and Sender Score provide insights into how mailbox providers view your sending practices.
• List validation tools: Tools such as ZeroBounce and Hunter.io help evaluate the quality of your email list.
• Spam testing tools: Litmus Spam Filter Testing, MailGenius, and Unspam can show how your emails perform across different spam filters and email clients.

This groundwork ensures your audit is thorough and focused on improving deliverability where it matters most.

Pause Non-Essential Campaigns

It might feel counterintuitive, but pausing non-critical email campaigns during your audit is a smart move. Continuing to send emails while auditing can muddy the waters, making it harder to identify specific issues.

When multiple campaigns are running at the same time, their combined performance can skew your results. To get a clear picture, temporarily halt automated emails, transactional messages, and even cold emails sent by your sales team. This pause helps isolate problems and ensures the audit reflects your core email operations accurately.

You don’t have to pause for long - just a few days should be enough to complete your tests and collect the necessary data.

Set Clear Audit Goals

To make your audit effective, define specific goals upfront. Without a clear direction, your efforts can become scattered and less impactful.

Follow the SMART framework when setting goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, instead of vaguely aiming to "improve deliverability", a SMART goal might be: "Increase email click-through rates by 15% within three months by testing personalized subject lines and CTAs."

Use the performance metrics you’ve gathered to identify trends or problem areas. For instance, high bounce rates, rising spam complaints, or declining engagement metrics can highlight where to focus your efforts.

You can also organize your goals into categories such as:

• Deliverability: Improve inbox placement rates.
• Engagement: Boost open and click-through rates.
• List health: Reduce bounce and unsubscribe rates.
• Automation: Optimize workflow performance.
• Compliance: Ensure adherence to regulations like GDPR and CAN-SPAM.

Align these goals with your broader email marketing and business objectives. For example, if customer retention is your priority, focus on engagement and maintaining a healthy list. If your goal is growth, concentrate on deliverability and infrastructure improvements to support higher email volumes.

Finally, prioritize goals based on their potential impact. Fixing a major authentication issue that sends 30% of your emails to spam will likely have a greater effect than tweaking subject lines. By focusing on high-impact areas, you’ll see meaningful results that benefit both your ROI and audience satisfaction.

With the tools, data, and a clear plan in place, you’re ready to move forward with the audit process.

Email Deliverability Audit Crucial 10 Points Step by Step Guide

Step-by-Step Audit Process

With your tools in hand and goals clearly defined, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty of your email audit. This structured process will help uncover and fix the obstacles keeping your emails from reaching inboxes.

Check Your Sender Reputation

Your sender reputation acts like a trust score that determines whether your emails land in inboxes or get flagged as spam. Tools like Sender Score, BarracudaCentral, Google Postmaster Tools, and Microsoft SNDS can help you check where you stand. Make sure your IPs and domains aren’t flagged on any blocklists.

"Email sender reputation is a score (0-100) that ISPs use to determine email deliverability. It's based on: sending history, engagement rates, spam complaints, and bounce rates. Good reputation = inbox delivery; poor reputation = spam folder or blocking."

Different platforms assess reputation in unique ways. For example, Sender Score provides a rating between 0 and 100 based on a rolling 30-day average, while BarracudaCentral categorizes your IP and domain as either "good" or "poor." Checking multiple sources gives you a well-rounded view.

Keep an eye on spam complaint rates, sudden dips in open rates, or spikes in bounce rates - these are often red flags for reputation issues. Here’s something to think about: only about 25% of senders feel confident about their reputation, yet nearly 20% of permission-based emails never make it to inboxes because they’re filtered as spam. Don’t let your campaigns fall into that category.

Verify Authentication Protocols

Authentication protocols are critical for avoiding spam filters and thwarting spoofing attempts. Without proper setup for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, nearly half of your emails might never make it to their destination.

"46% of emails will not reach the inbox of the intended recipient due to email authentication issues"

Use tools like MxToolbox or Mail Tester to ensure your authentication protocols are in order:

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Confirms which IPs are authorized to send emails on your behalf.
• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Adds a digital signature to your emails to verify they haven’t been altered.
• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): Defines how to handle emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks, protecting against spoofing.

Make sure your SPF record includes all authorized sending sources and stays within the 10 DNS lookup limit. Every email should be DKIM-signed, especially forwarded messages that may fail SPF checks without it.

"The end goal is ideally a policy of p=reject. That's what DMARC is for. Ensuring that your domain cannot be spoofed and protecting our mutual customers from abuse."

Once your authentication setup is solid, shift your focus to the quality of your email list.

Review List Quality and Hygiene

A clean email list is non-negotiable. Remove hard bounces immediately and monitor soft bounces closely.

Evaluate where your list comes from - purchased lists, scraped email addresses, or outdated contacts can cause serious problems. Instead, prioritize subscribers who have opted in recently and actively engage with your emails. Segment your list to reflect this and consider running re-engagement campaigns for inactive subscribers before deciding to remove them.

Spam traps are another concern. These are email addresses designed to catch spammers, and sending to them can tank your reputation. Tools like ZeroBounce or Hunter.io can help you identify and remove these risky addresses.

Once your list is in good shape, it’s time to analyze how your audience interacts with your emails.

Analyze Engagement Metrics

Engagement metrics provide insight into how recipients are responding to your emails. Low engagement signals to mailbox providers that your content may not be wanted, which can hurt your deliverability.

Keep a close eye on metrics like open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and spam complaints. A sudden drop in opens or clicks might point to deliverability or content issues. On the other hand, rising unsubscribe rates and spam complaints suggest a mismatch between your content and subscriber expectations, which can damage your sender reputation.

Track these metrics over time to identify trends and adapt your strategy when you notice deviations.

Test Inbox Placement

While proper authentication and a strong reputation are essential, it’s just as important to test where your emails actually end up.

Inbox placement tools let you test seed addresses across major email providers, giving you detailed reports on where your emails land.

"Finding an inbox placement tool is essential for businesses that are looking to capitalize on their email campaigns. The ability to reach your target audience makes all the difference in terms of ROI."

When conducting these tests, use real content instead of placeholders. Elements like subject lines, images, and links impact placement, so accurate testing requires authentic email samples. Once your test email is sent, review the reports for any issues.

If emails consistently land in spam for one provider, it could indicate a reputation issue with that platform. If placement is poor across multiple providers, the problem might lie in your content or authentication setup.

"Not conducting inbox placement testing is a major missed opportunity"

Regular inbox placement testing should be a routine part of your email strategy. It helps you catch problems early, so they don’t derail your entire campaign.

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Document Findings and Create Action Plans

After completing a thorough audit, the next step is to organize your findings and outline a clear plan for corrective actions. This involves consolidating data and creating a structured roadmap to address the issues uncovered.

Record and Summarize Key Findings

Start by compiling all audit results into a single, well-organized document. Break it into sections based on key areas like sender reputation, authentication, list quality, engagement metrics, and inbox placement. This structure ensures nothing important gets overlooked.

For every issue identified, document the problem, its impact, and how urgently it needs to be addressed. For instance, if your DMARC policy is set to "none" instead of "reject", highlight that this leaves your domain open to spoofing attacks and recommend resolving it within 30 days.

Be specific with your data. Instead of vague statements like "low engagement rates", provide measurable details such as "open rates have decreased from 24% to 18% over the past three months." Similarly, replace "emails going to spam" with "Gmail inbox placement is currently 67%, down from 85% last quarter." Clear numbers not only help track progress but also justify the resources needed to fix these issues.

Look for patterns by grouping related problems. For example, high bounce rates, poor inbox placement, and low engagement could all stem from the same root issue, like a poorly maintained email list. Identifying connections like these can make troubleshooting more efficient.

While AI tools can assist with documentation, rely on the actual audit data for analysis. With everything clearly laid out, you can move on to crafting a prioritized action plan.

Build a Fix-It Plan

Turn your audit findings into a set of actionable steps, starting with the most critical fixes. Prioritize issues like authentication errors and blacklisting, as these directly impact email deliverability.

Begin with authentication fixes, such as setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols correctly. Address list hygiene by removing hard bounces and spam traps, and resolve any IP or domain reputation problems. These foundational issues must be tackled first, as they affect all email providers.

Next, focus on medium-priority tasks aimed at improving engagement. This might include segmenting your audience more effectively, streamlining the unsubscribe process, or adopting double opt-in for new subscribers. While these changes take longer to show results, they can significantly improve deliverability over time.

Low-priority tasks often involve optimization rather than urgent fixes. These could include A/B testing subject lines to boost open rates, enhancing email design for mobile users, or setting up advanced automation workflows.

For each task, assign a team member, set a realistic deadline, and define what success looks like. For example, if you're implementing a DMARC policy, the goal could be to achieve a "reject" status within 90 days while maintaining current email volumes.

Keep technical resources in mind when setting timelines. Tasks like authentication fixes may require coordination with your IT team or DNS provider, while list cleaning can often be handled by your marketing team using existing tools.

Use Comparison Tables for Decision-Making

To evaluate your options objectively, create comparison tables. This approach ensures decisions are based on data rather than incomplete information or vendor marketing.

Here’s an example comparing email deliverability tools for ongoing monitoring and testing:

When comparing strategies, consider both short-term costs and long-term benefits:

• Infrastructure changes require upfront investment but deliver lasting improvements. Examples include setting up dedicated IP addresses, restructuring subdomains, or upgrading your email platform.
• Process improvements often cost less but demand ongoing effort. Practices like maintaining list hygiene, refining segmentation, and running regular engagement campaigns can yield significant results over time.
• Vendor solutions provide a middle ground by automating monitoring and optimization tasks for a recurring fee. These are especially useful if you lack in-house expertise.

Using templates or spreadsheets can simplify this process. Create columns for factors like implementation difficulty, timeline, resource needs, and expected impact to make informed decisions.

Your action plan should balance quick fixes with strategies for long-term improvement. For instance, resolving authentication issues might take just a week and yield immediate results, while a re-engagement campaign could take a month to develop but offer sustained benefits for years to come.

Use Enterprise Solutions and Directories

Once you've completed your deliverability audit and laid out an action plan, the next step is selecting the right tools to implement corrective measures. This step is essential to ensure your audit's recommendations translate into real improvements.

About the Email Service Business Directory

The Email Service Business Directory is a valuable resource for businesses looking for email marketing platforms and service providers that prioritize high deliverability. It streamlines the decision-making process, especially during the remediation phase of your audit.

What sets this directory apart is its focus on deliverability. It features providers that have been pre-screened for their ability to achieve strong inbox placement, maintain sender reputation, and handle authentication requirements. This saves you from wasting time sorting through generic reviews and helps you zero in on the right solutions faster.

The directory includes a wide range of options, from basic email marketing platforms to enterprise-grade solutions capable of sending millions of emails each month. Whether you need help with IP warming, DMARC configuration, or ongoing reputation monitoring, the directory connects you with providers equipped to handle these challenges.

Rather than sifting through countless platforms, use your audit findings to focus on providers that address your specific issues. This targeted approach ensures you're choosing tools designed to resolve your unique deliverability problems.

Why Curated Directories Matter

Curated directories offer clear advantages when dealing with deliverability challenges. By eliminating guesswork, they help you avoid wasting time on ineffective solutions. When you're facing issues like authentication failures or reputation damage, choosing the wrong provider can set you back significantly.

Each provider in the directory is pre-vetted for deliverability expertise. This means they offer robust analytics, compliance features, and scalable infrastructure - key elements for successful email campaigns. The screening process ensures you avoid vendors who overpromise but lack the technical foundation to deliver results.

The directory also highlights advanced analytics and compliance tools, which simplify reporting and regulatory adherence. Providers are evaluated for their ability to offer detailed reports on inbox placement, engagement metrics, and authentication status. These features are crucial for tracking your progress and demonstrating ROI to stakeholders.

With regulations like CAN-SPAM and GDPR shaping email marketing practices, the directory prioritizes providers that offer automated list management and consent tracking. This focus not only helps you avoid legal risks but also improves your deliverability.

Infrastructure support is another major benefit. The directory emphasizes providers offering dedicated IP addresses, DNS configuration assistance, and scalable sending infrastructure. As John Egan, Former Head of Growth Engineering at Pinterest, puts it:

"The most critical factor is making sure your emails actually get delivered to users' inboxes and don't get blocked or end up in spam."

Finding the Right Solution for Your Needs

Once you're familiar with the benefits, the next step is aligning provider capabilities with your audit findings. Start by identifying your primary deliverability challenge.

• For authentication issues, focus on providers that offer comprehensive SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup assistance. Look for solutions that not only implement these protocols but also provide ongoing monitoring to ensure they're correctly configured.
• For reputation management, prioritize providers with services like IP warming, engagement tracking, and proactive monitoring. The directory includes detailed feature comparisons to help you identify providers that excel in these areas.
• For scalability, ensure the provider offers clear information about pricing models, volume limits, and infrastructure capabilities. This helps you avoid platforms that might meet your needs now but fall short as your email volume grows.
• For integration, evaluate how well the provider integrates with your existing CRM or analytics tools. Seamless integration reduces complexity and ensures consistent data across your marketing stack.

Take advantage of free trials and demos when available. Many providers in the directory offer trial periods or demo access, which allows you to test their features before committing. This hands-on evaluation is especially useful for addressing complex deliverability issues that require tailored solutions.

Lastly, consider the total cost of ownership, not just the subscription fees. Some providers include onboarding, training, and ongoing support, which can significantly reduce the strain on your internal resources. The directory's detailed cost breakdowns help you make informed decisions based on your budget and team capabilities.

Conclusion

Key Takeaways

Performing an email deliverability audit is a critical step in keeping your email marketing efforts on track. These audits pinpoint and address problems that could prevent your messages from landing in your recipients' inboxes.

During an audit, you’ll verify authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, clean up your email list, and evaluate your sender reputation - each of these factors is crucial for ensuring better inbox placement. Authentication builds trust with email providers, while maintaining a clean list ensures you're targeting engaged and valid recipients. Consistent sending patterns and a strong sender reputation further reinforce your credibility.

For perspective, a solid deliverability rate for cold email campaigns falls between 90% and 98%, and the average email open rate across industries is 41.31%. However, 69% of recipients are likely to report an email as spam based solely on the subject line. These figures highlight the importance of conducting thorough audits to avoid common pitfalls.

Using tools like the Email Service Business Directory can simplify the process. These resources connect you with pre-vetted providers who bring the technical know-how and infrastructure to implement audit recommendations effectively.

Ultimately, the insights from your audit lay the groundwork for strategies that ensure your email campaigns remain strong and effective.

Next Steps for Maintaining Deliverability

An audit is just the beginning - it sets the stage for ongoing monitoring and fine-tuning. Regularly reviewing your domains, sending IPs, and email lists is essential to keep your deliverability rates high. Plan to check your authentication settings, clean your lists, and analyze engagement metrics on a quarterly basis.

Adopting double opt-in methods for new subscribers and segmenting your audience based on their preferences can also prevent engagement problems. As Tracie Pang, an Email Expert, explains:

"There's this expectation that you always need to send an email. But if you're continuing to send emails without engagement, it's going to affect your sender reputation. Sending to your list multiple days in a row like that could lead to more than one spam complaint because they're tired of hearing from you."

Investing in advanced tools for real-time monitoring and detailed analysis can also make a big difference. With 70% of emails containing at least one spam-related issue that could block them from the inbox, proactive monitoring allows you to catch and resolve problems quickly, ensuring your campaigns stay on track.

The Email Service Business Directory is a great resource for finding professionals who can help with ongoing tasks like IP warming and automated list management. As your email program expands, having access to specialized support becomes increasingly important for maintaining strong deliverability rates.

Even small improvements in inbox placement can lead to noticeable increases in open rates, click-through rates, and ultimately, revenue. Use the findings from your audit as a starting point, make the necessary adjustments, and establish a routine for regular monitoring to ensure your messages consistently reach your audience.

FAQs

How often should I perform an email deliverability audit to maintain strong results?

You should schedule an email deliverability audit every 3 to 6 months to keep your campaigns on track. If your business relies heavily on email or runs high-stakes campaigns, conducting these audits quarterly is a smart move to identify and address potential problems early.

These audits help you keep tabs on crucial elements like your email infrastructure, authentication settings, and sender reputation. By doing so, you can ensure your messages consistently land in your audience's inboxes, not their spam folders.

What are the common mistakes businesses make that harm email deliverability, and how can they fix them?

Email deliverability often takes a hit when businesses make avoidable mistakes. One major culprit is sending emails to outdated or unverified contact lists, which can result in high bounce rates and even spam complaints. Another frequent misstep is skipping email authentication with protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC - a surefire way to increase the chances of emails landing in spam folders. On top of that, using overly promotional language or certain spam trigger words can trip up spam filters, keeping your messages out of inboxes.

To avoid these pitfalls, businesses should focus on a few key practices. Regularly cleaning and updating email lists is essential to maintain accuracy. Proper domain authentication is another must to build trust with email providers. Crafting personalized, engaging content not only improves deliverability but also boosts reader engagement. Lastly, keeping an eye on your sender reputation ensures your emails continue to reach the audience you’re targeting. Together, these strategies can strengthen your email marketing efforts and improve inbox placement.

What steps can I take to improve my sender reputation and avoid having my emails marked as spam?

Improving your sender reputation is crucial if you want your emails to land in inboxes rather than being flagged as spam. A good starting point? Keep your email list clean and up-to-date. Regularly scrub out invalid or inactive addresses to minimize bounce rates and maintain a healthy list.

Next, make sure you’ve got the right email authentication protocols in place. Tools like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC help verify your emails and establish trust with email providers. This step goes a long way in proving you’re a legitimate sender.

Consistency is another big factor. Stick to a regular sending schedule and steer clear of spammy language in your content. And don’t forget to include a clear and easy-to-find unsubscribe option - this builds trust and keeps your list filled with genuinely interested recipients. Whatever you do, avoid buying email lists. Purchased lists often come with disengaged or poor-quality contacts, which can hurt your reputation.

Finally, keep an eye on your sender reputation by using tools that track your sender score. These tools can help you spot and fix potential problems before they become bigger issues.

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