Q&A

We couldn't attend to all the questions during our webinar. However, we have answered them in detail here.

Q1. How important is domain authentication for an organization?

A1: Domain authentication is the most essential process to legally validate your existence as an email marketer and that you are authorized to send emails to your contacts. Once you opt for an email marketing tool for your business, you are immediately required to authenticate your domain with the ESP. This would just take a few minutes of your time but every email marketing campaign/newsletter you send will have lower chances of facing shortcomings like bounces, spams, etc.  We at Zoho Campaigns help you achieve this and thereby improve your email deliverability. Here are the three methods by which you can authenticate your domain.

• SPF - The Sender Policy Framework
• DKIM - DomainKeys Identified Mail
• DMARC - Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance

Q2. I recently sent an email campaign to one of my mailing lists but I noticed that the email bounced for some of my contacts. Now, would I be able to send a different email campaign to the contacts that bounced?

A2: Initially, you will have to check if it is a soft bounce or a hard bounce. In most of the cases, we find our emails facing soft bounces for the following reasons.

• Your server is overloaded with too many emails at a time
• Receivers server is down
• Your email is too large - Sometimes, if your email exceeds the prescribed size there is a chance that the recipients' email service provider will not open the email. This will result in a soft bounce

However, there are fewer chances that your emails would hard bounce.

• Email address does not exist
• Domain address is invalid
• Email soft bounced thrice (if an email is soft bounced for three times, then the contact email address would be moved to hard bounce)

Learn more about bounces

Q3. What are spam traps? How do I avoid spam traps?

A3: Spam traps are email addresses that have been inactive for a long time and are no more in use. Email service providers convert these email addresses into active spam traps and list them in the market. Now, if you purchase an email list (not recommended at all) chances are that these email addresses might be present in those lists and thus when you send an email to them unknowingly, your emails are bounced. 

To avoid spam traps, clean your mailing lists on a regular basis. This makes sure your list contains only the active and known contacts. Keep in mind that you do not purchase or borrow your email lists. 

Q4. What is a domain blacklist? How do I reduce my chances of being blacklisted?

A4: Blacklists contain the name of those domains and IP addresses which are flagged of harmful by the receivers. Such a case happens when one does not follow the email marketing regulations and end up either sending irrelevant and spammy content to their contacts. Here are few tips that will help you stay out of blacklists.

Q5. Do email templates have to do something with my email deliverability rate?

A5: Email templates are important because they decide certain factors like text-image ratio, color contrasts, CTA buttons, and compatibility in different devices and platforms. When you fail to use the appropriate email templates, you cause your emails to stand a risk of not landing in the recipients' inbox.

We at Zoho Campaigns provide pre-designed email templates that are responsive across all devices are flexible to work with.

Q6. Do I have to take care of any elements in my email campaign so it will improve my email deliverability? If so, can you list them for me? 

A6: Of course, yes. Your content has much impact with email deliverability. Working on a few things while designing your email campaign will get you a better email deliverability rate.

If you focus on the following elements, your email campaign is pretty much good to land in the inbox of your recipients.

• Subject line - Your subject lines should always be complementary to the content you write below it. The subject line always strengthens and summarises the content. Be crisp, to the point and expressive in your subject line while not exceeding 30 characters. 
• Spammy Content - Spammy contents can be attributed to various reasons like, embedding an image beyond the required size, usage of words such as 'free', 'friend' and etc, sending a single image email and etc. Try to stay away from steps that are spam prone.
• Preheader - This is an important aspect as preheader appears on the snippet window of the email servers and only after reading this receivers open the open. The preheader should be catchy, humourous, direct and unambiguous.
• Unsubscribe - Always respect your receiver and allow them to opt out anytime they want to. Strictly following by the rules of CAN-SPAM always provide a clear and correct unsubscribe button at the end of your email campaign. Any discrepancy on this issue is to be steadfastly prohibited. 
• Send to address - Make your email as personal as possible. Always add a human touch in your email by mentioning your name as well as the organization's name. This will allow the recipients email service provider to recognize you and thus you will pass the spam filters.