Good practices for email deliverability

Deliverability is how often your emails reach the main inbox instead of spam. It depends on your sender address, how clean your list is, the reputation of the sending servers, your spam and bounce rates, and the words you use. Above all, it depends on your habits. Keep an eye on your email statistics.

Three technical steps matter most:

• Send from your own authenticated domain.
• Clean your list regularly of bounced and unsubscribed contacts.
• Only email people who gave clear permission.

1. A professional, authenticated address

Receiving servers filter incoming email. To avoid spam filters, send from an address on your own domain and authenticate it. Parents trust you more, and servers recognize your domain's reputation. See How to authenticate your domain name for email sending, and contact SleepPRO™ support if you need help.

2. Clean your list

Sending to addresses which do not exist lowers your deliverability and harms your domain's reputation. Two kinds of addresses hurt you:

• Addresses which do not exist, marked Bounced. These are old, deleted or misspelled addresses. Filter your contacts by Bounced to find them in one click. See How to delete bounced contacts.
• Inactive or unsubscribed addresses. Email providers notice when your emails go unopened.

Why do parents stop opening? Your emails may land in spam, their needs may have changed (their toddler sleeps well now), or they receive too many emails. Tag inactive contacts first, then either run a re-engagement campaign or delete them. See How to manually clean your email list.

3. Good email habits

Target your emails. Not every parent on your list needs the same thing. A parent of a newborn and a parent of a 3 year old want different tips. Use tags to segment your list and send each family what fits.

Care for your subject lines. The subject is the first impression of your email and your business.

• Never leave it empty.
• Make it match the content.
• Avoid shock words, controversy and capital letters.
• Go easy on exclamation and question marks.
• Show the value for the parent.

Be careful putting first or last name variables in the subject line. If data is missing or badly formatted, the subject can show empty spaces or odd symbols, which trigger spam filters. Heavy personalization in subjects is also a common sign of mass unwanted emails. Use the name in the body instead.

• Good: "A gentler way to drop the dream feed"
• Avoid: "[First name], a gentler way to drop the dream feed"

Watch out for spam words. Filters look at the context, how often a word appears, where it sits and its spelling. They scan your whole email to decide between inbox, promotions and spam.

Make unsubscribing easy. A parent who no longer wants your emails will unsubscribe, ignore you, or report you as spam. Spam reports damage your deliverability badly and can get you blacklisted. Ignored emails lower your engagement. A visible unsubscribe link is the kindest option for everyone.

There is no magic trick. Be consistent, follow these basics, and your results will follow your habits.