It’s possible to write valuable & personalized emails, target the right audience, and still end up in the spam folder. If you haven’t followed deliverability best practices, this could happen because your email address has been blocked.

If your email address is on a blocklist, your emails will go straight to your audience’s spam folder, which ruins your chances of getting replies & building relationships with them.

In this article, you’ll find:

→ what email blocklists are

→ how to get removed from email blocklists

→ 7 tips to avoid blocklists and landing in the spam folder
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PS: Don't forget to get the Ultimate Checklist to Avoid Email Blocklists at the end 🔥
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What are Email Blocklists?

Email blocklists are lists of email domains sending spam or unwanted emails. Email providers create these lists to protect email users from receiving such dangerous messages.

There are 2 types of email blocklists:

1. Domain based blocklists

These blocklists look at the overall activity of email domains and every address in it to identify spam-like behavior.

Some examples of domain-based blocklists are:

• The Spamhaus Block List
• The URI Blacklist
• The Spam URI Real-time Block List
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2. IP Address based blocklists:

Email providers use these blocklists to track the IP addresses connected to spammers and block their emails from getting delivered.

Some examples of IP-based blocklists are:

• The Spamhaus Block List
• Invaluement
• Return Path Reputation Network Blacklist

If your email address is on a blocklist, your emails won’t get delivered to your audience's inbox. This means your audience won’t see your emails, and you won’t get any replies. To avoid this, the first thing you should do is check if you’ve been blocked.
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How to check if your email is on a blocklist?

Knowing if you’re on an email blocklist will help you quickly take steps to get removed, so you can stop landing in spam.

Here are 3 ways to find out if your email has been blocked:

1. Monitor your email metrics:

Your email might be blocked if you haven’t been getting replies or open rates are suddenly low. By monitoring your email metrics, you can discover the potential reasons you’re blocked and take steps to get unblocked.

Here are 3 metrics you can use to monitor your email deliverability:

• Deliverability score > 80
• Spam complaints < 0.08%
• Bounce rates < 5%

2. Audit your email deliverability:

You should first check your sender reputation because a poor score might cause your emails to be blocked or sent to the spam folder, where your audience won’t see them. On the other hand, a good sender reputation lowers your chances of landing in spam or getting blocked.

Tools like SenderScore or MXToolbox can tell you about your sender reputation using your IP address or domain name (for example, lempire.co)

You should check if:

✅ your MX records are set up

✅ your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are configured

✅ you're not on any blocklists

3. Contact your email service provider:

Your email provider will notify you whenever your IP or domain is on a blocklist. But you can still contact them to be sure you haven’t missed any of these notifications in the past.
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How to get off a spam email blocklist

There are 5 steps you could follow to get removed and improve your deliverability 👇

1. Find out which blocklist you’re on

The first step is to find out which blocklists you’re on. This will help you know what lists to target since every blocklist has its own process to get removed.

There are 2 ways to find out which blocklists you’re on:

• Use blocklist-checking tools like BlacklistAlert and MXToolbox to know the names of your blocklists.
• Search for your domain name directly on blocklist databases.

For example, here I checked if the lemwarm newsletter domain has been blocked on URIBL 👇

2. Find out why you’re on a blocklist

Once you’ve identified the blocklist(s) you’re on, understand why your email IP or domain was blocked in the first place.

Ask these questions to figure out potential reasons why you might be blocked:

• Did you get too many spam reports?
• Was your bounce rate too high?
• Did you send too many emails at once?

The exact reason why your email was blocked will be mentioned in the blocklist report you get.

3. Fix the issue

Depending on why you were blocked, ensure you’ve taken steps to fix the issue.

For example, if you were blocked for getting too many spam complaints, here’s what you can do:

→ Add a clear unsubscribe button to ensure that only people who want to receive your emails stay on your list.

→ Take feedback from your audience to understand what you could do better. ****Spam complaints could mean your audience isn’t enjoying your content and it doesn’t add value to them.

→ Clean your email list and update it as your offer evolves to ensure you’re reaching out to the right audience who will find it valuable.

4. Request for removal

Every blocklist has a process to get removed. Sometimes, following deliverability best practices for a few weeks automatically removes you.

Either way, you can only request an email blocklist removal when you’ve fixed the issue that got you blocked. Once you have, contact the blocklist and ask for the required steps to get removed.

Usually, this includes filling out a form, sending out an email, or paying a fee.

For example, invaluement has a dedicated process for delisting requests 👇

5. Monitor your deliverability

Once you’re removed from the blocklist, monitor your deliverability before, during, and after sending email campaigns. This will help you take other steps to boost your deliverability and avoid the spam folder.

For example, if you see any soft bounces in your email reports, you should immediately reduce your bounce rate before it triggers email providers and gets you blocked.

You can use lemwarm to monitor your deliverability & get notified in case of any issues. 👇

9 tips to protect your email from getting blocked

It's best to avoid getting blocked in the first place. Here are 9 tips to avoid looking like a spammer and protecting your email address from getting blocked.

1. Avoid using spam-trigger words

Spam-trigger words like "free," "act now," and "limited time offer" are common in spam or phishing emails. Using such words or phrases in your emails could trigger spam filters and get you blocked.

Here’s a list of 20 spam words to avoid in your emails👇

2. Don’t buy your email lists

When you buy your email list, you're sending emails to people who haven't opted-in to receive your emails. This is unethical, and without your audience’s consent, you’ll get low open rates, high bounce rates, and spam complaints. Over time, poor email results like these could get your emails blocked.

Check out the “keep your email list healthy” guide for tips to grow your email list.

3. Use double opt-in to grow your email list

Double opt-in is a two-step process where subscribers confirm their subscription by clicking on a link sent to their email. Taking your audience’s consent to send emails increases your chances of getting replies and prevents spam complaints or blocklisting.

For example, here’s the confirmation email you’ll get for the lemwarm newsletter👇

5. Keep a healthy image-to-text ratio

Emails with too many images and little text look sales-y and are often flagged as spam since that’s what most spam campaigns look like.

6. Complete your technical setup

Completing your technical setup verifies that you are a real sender and helps email providers ensure that your emails are legitimate and not spam.

Your technical setup is made up of 3 key settings:

• SPF, DKIM, DMARC
• MX Records
• Custom Tracking Domain

lemwarm will notify you if something’s missing from your technical setup & give you tips to boost your deliverability 👇

7. Don’t send all your emails at once

If you send a large volume of emails simultaneously, email providers could assume you're sending spam and block you. Instead of sending all your emails at the same time, you can schedule them to get sent slowly throughout the day.

8. Use links instead of attachments

Emails with attachments can be flagged as spam since they are often used in phishing attacks. So it’s better to use links instead of attachments when you want to share files or media with your audience!

9. Avoid too many special characters in your email

Special characters, like exclamation marks (!!) and dollar signs ($$), are often used in spam campaigns. Emails containing too many of these characters can be flagged as spam, ultimately leading to blocklisting.

Here’s an example of email content that could get flagged as spam 👇

The Ultimate Checklist to Avoid Email Blocklists

Anything that tells email providers that you’re sending unwanted or dangerous emails to your audience could get you blocked. Getting removed from blocklists can be difficult (and sometimes impossible). The best way to protect your email address is to avoid blocklists in the first place.

To protect your address from getting blocked and make sure you’ve covered all bases to avoid spam, get the Ultimate Checklist to Avoid Email Blocklists.

You’ll find steps to avoid getting blocked & detailed guides for each step.👇

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Whether you send newsletters to an audience, cold emails to prospects, or any other emails to an audience: the first thing they see is your subject line.

A great subject line can:

→ increase your open rate

→ motivate your audience to reply

→ prevent your emails from landing in spam

Here are 5 proven tips you can use to create subject lines that catch your audience's attention and keep your emails from spam!

Tip #1. Personalize your subject line

A personalized subject line shows the audience that your email is written just for them! By talking to your audience directly, your email stands out from the hundreds of generic emails they receive daily. This makes them want to read your email, which boosts your open rates.

When your audience opens, reads & replies to your emails, you’re also less likely to get spam complaints which helps you keep a good sender reputation and avoid the spam folder.

Here are 10 variables you can use to personalize your subject lines:

Tip #2. Keep your subject line short & clear

Subject lines that are short, clear, and to the point catch your audience’s attention. By quickly showing your email's potential value, you motivate the audience to open it. The ideal length of a subject line is between 6 and 10 words.

Here are 5 questions you can ask yourself to write clear subject lines:

→ does my subject line focus on 1 clear idea?

→ does my subject line tell my audience: “what’s in it for them”?

→ does my subject line have at least 1 personalized element?

→ does my subject line avoid complicated words or jargon?

→ does my subject line match the content of my email?

Tip #3. Avoid spam words

Spam words and phrases can trigger email filters and land your emails in the spam folder. They also make your email look sales-y, which reduces your credibility as a sender. Your subject line should be natural and have a “nothing to sell you” approach!

Here are 5 tips to avoid writing subject lines that look like spam:

→ avoid writing subject lines ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS

→ avoid generic subject lines – personalize them using the variables in tip #1

→ avoid using the same subject line for all contacts – A/B test them

→ avoid using too many special characters (%, !!,??) in your subject lines

→ avoid using any spam trigger words 👇

Tip #4. A/B test your subject lines

A/B testing helps you learn more about the tone your audience reacts to. The idea is to create two versions of your subject line with different angles and send each to 2 different audience segments.

Once sent, you can track the open rates, click-through rates, and replies you get for each version. This will help you decide which subject line was the most effective and tell you more about the tone your audience responds to.

By telling you more about your audience, A/B testing helps you write subject lines that are likelier to be opened.

Here’s an example of a subject line you can A/B test 👇

Tip #5. Make it actionable

Action-oriented subject lines tell your audience they will gain something tangible from your email. This could be a solution to a pain point, tips to achieve a goal, or a valuable resource.

Making your subject line actionable adds credibility and encourages your audience to take action. That could be opening your email or clicking on a link within it.

Actionable subject lines make your email stand out, as most people are used to receiving emails that make vague or unrealistic promises.

Here’s an example 👇

100+ subject line templates to get your emails opened

Your subject line can get your emails opened or marked as spam. So, following these best practices & using a tone your audience responds to is key to getting your emails read.

After sending 1000s of emails, we’ve cracked the code on subject lines that push people to open & reply to your emails. With that in mind, we created 100+ email subject line templates that you can use as inspiration for your email outreach!

Get the complete playbook here for FREE! 🚀 ⬇️

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Having high bounce rates or too many spam complaints means your emails could land in the spam folder, where your audience won't see them. This reduces your chances of getting replies and creating new growth opportunities. The best way to avoid landing in spam is to keep your email list healthy and reach the right audience.

In this article, you’ll find 7 ways to keep your email list healthy as it grows and to avoid the spam folder.

(scroll till the end to get your Perfect Email List checklist 🔥)

How does your email list affect where your emails land?

An unhealthy email list means you could be sending emails to invalid addresses. In that case, your emails won't delivered, which could trigger email providers and ruin your sender reputation.

On the other hand, sending emails to valid addresses ensures your emails are delivered and keeps your bounce rates low. You'll be reaching out to the right people and reduce the risk of spam complaints. In the long run, this saves your sender reputation and lands your emails in your audience’s inbox.

Here’s the difference your email list can make in your email performance & deliverability 👇

7 ways to avoid the spam folder as your email list grows

Here are 7 ways to keep your email list healthy and deliverability high as your email list grows!

1. Define your target audience & keep updating it

If you target the wrong audience, they won't find your emails relevant and could mark them as spam. This lowers your chances of getting replies  and ruins your sender reputation. Instead, you should send emails to a targeted audience who is most likely to benefit from your offer.
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By sending emails to a targeted audience, you can:

→ increase your deliverability score

→ keep your emails away from spam

→ get more replies! 🎉
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The best way to do this is to define your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). As your offer evolves, you can update your ICP to ensure you always reach the right audience.
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Here are 3 quick steps to define your Ideal Customer Profile:

Step 1: Make a list of your potential audience

While listing your audience, include people from your audience who:

• open, read, and reply to your emails actively
• are most likely to benefit & gain value from your emails

If you don’t have an audience already, include people who:

• follow social media pages or communities around your topics
• talk about your topics on forums like Reddit or Quora

You should always target an audience that will find your emails valuable to avoid getting spam complaints or being blocked.

Step 2: Research their common attributes & build a persona

Once you have your list of potential audience, find the attributes common to them. For this, you could use LinkedIn or other social media and communities where they are present online.

For example, if you send cold emails to a B2B audience, here's what their common attributes could look like:

These attributes make up your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), which you can use to create audience personas. Personas help you find relevant common points to build rapport with your audience.

Step 3: Segment your audience

Segmenting your audience personas allows you to write highly personalized emails. This way, you can solve specific pain points of your audience segments and build trust with them.

For example, if you’re sending cold emails to a B2B audience, here’s what your segments could look like:

You can use this guide to find the right audience for your outreach and build a healthy email list.
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2. Verify your email list before sending emails

Sending emails to invalid addresses means your emails could not get delivered, or land in spam traps. This increases your bounce rate and the chances of your emails landing in spam. 

So, to protect your deliverability, you should always verify your email list and remove email addresses that are undeliverable from your email list. This way, you reach the right audience and increase your chances of landing in their inboxes.

Here are 3 tips to remember while verifying your email list:

• ensure that your audience’s email domain is active, not expired
• remove any duplicate email addresses from your list
• use reliable tools like Debounce or Bouncer to verify your email list quality 👇

3. Clean your email list regularly

Your audience’s email addresses might change over time or become inactive. So it’s important to keep your email list up-to-date and remove invalid addresses regularly.

Here are 3 ways to keep your email list clean:

• unsubscribe all contacts who mark your emails as spam
• refine your email list every time you update your ICP
• remove any invalid email addresses (they could be misspelled, expired, or no-reply) 👇

4. Add an unsubscribe button

An unsubscribe button makes it easy for the uninterested audience to opt out of your emails. This way, they’re less likely to mark your emails as spam. You can then remove them from your email list and prevent getting spam complaints.

An opt-out option is important no matter the type of emails you send: cold emails, newsletters, transactional emails, etc.

Here are 3 ways you can use the unsubscribe button to your advantage:

• take feedback from people who unsubscribe to improve your email content and targeting
• offer your audience some options to receive fewer emails, less often
• avoid losing touch by sharing other resources or newsletters that they can access 👇

PS: You can subscribe to lemwarm’s newsletter to get expert deliverability tips directly in your inbox every Tuesday 🙌

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5. Segment your email list

Dividing your email list into smaller groups based on common points like their job roles, pain points, etc. helps you send them more targeted emails. This increases your chances of getting replies and convert them to paying customers! You’ll also see which segments get higher bounce rates or spam complaints.

You can use this information to clean your email list and keep it healthy!

For example, imagine you’re selling a project management tool to businesses, i.e., B2B sales. Here are 3 segment examples you could use 👇

6. Don’t buy your email lists

You could reach a large audience with email lists you buy online, but it does more harm than good. Email addresses on these lists can be invalid or spam traps. Such an audience won’t open or reply to your emails. This reduces your engagement and ruins your email sender reputation.

Instead, grow your email list organically to build a relationship with your audience and increase your chances of landing in their inbox and getting replies.

Here are 2 simple tips you can use to grow your email list organically:

Tip #1. Use social media to find email addresses

Your audience might add their email address to their LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram profile.

For example, many people on LinkedIn, especially those working in Marketing, Growth, or Sales, include their email addresses on their profiles so people can contact them quickly. 👇

Looking for effective ways to look for your audience’s email address? Here’s a complete guide to help you find them for FREE!

Tip #2. Use lead magnets

Lead magnets are a great way of sharing value with your audience in exchange for their email addresses. You could use formats like eBooks, free trials, checklists, etc.

For maximum engagement, use your lead magnets to:

• solve a specific problem your audience is facing
• offer actionable value to your audience
• share checklists, frameworks, or steps to get a result

Check out the example of our Email Deliverability eBook, for a step-by-step checklist for everything you need to boost your email deliverability & avoid the spam folder 👇

7. Monitor your email deliverability

Use a warm-up and deliverability booster like lemwarm to monitor your email deliverability. This helps you identify and fix any deliverability issues related to your email list (high bounce rates, for example) in time.

Here are 3 things you should check to monitor your email deliverability:

• the technical setup of your email domain
• email metrics (spam complaint rates, bounce rates, etc.)
• your deliverability score (should be > 90) 👇

What can you do next with your email list?

By reaching out to the right audience and valid addresses, you’re likelier to land in the inbox, get replies and create new growth opportunities!

But to do this, you should also focus on your email content & overall deliverability.

Here’s what you should do once you’ve got your email list ready:

• write high-quality emails that touch your audience’s pain points
• get an email outreach tool to personalize emails at scale
• use a warm-up & deliverability booster to avoid landing in spam

Looking for a simple way to apply all these tips and avoid the spam folder?

Get the “8 Steps to The Perfect Email List” checklist here 👇

Struggling to get replies to your email campaigns? Your email sender reputation could be the reason. A poor score might cause your emails to be blocked or sent to the spam folder, where your audience won’t see them. In this article, you’ll find 5 tips to improve your email sender reputation for better deliverability.

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What is your email sender reputation?

Your email sender reputation is a score given to you based on how you send emails and how much your audience interacts with them. Email providers use metrics like open and reply rates, sending frequency, etc., to decide your sender reputation.

With a poor sender reputation, email providers are likelier to block or send your emails to the spam folder. This hurts your email deliverability and ruins the performance of your email campaigns.

Your overall sender reputation is made up of 2 parts:

1. Your email domain reputation:

This is the reputation linked to your email domain, which is the part that comes after the ‘@’ symbol in your email address. 👇

2. Your IP reputation:

This is the reputation linked to the IP address you use to send emails. Your IP address can be shared between senders from different companies, or you can have one just for yourself.

You can find your IP Address on Google. 👇

How to check your email sender reputation

A strong sender reputation will land your emails in the inbox and get you replies. To check this, you can use your IP address or domain name (for example, lempire.co).

Here's what you should check:

✅ your MX records are set up

✅ SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are configured

✅ your deliverability score is > 80

✅ you're not on any blacklists

Tools you can use:

Use SenderScore to check your technical setup

Use lemwarm to monitor your deliverability score 👇

5 ways to improve your sender reputation & email deliverability

Your sender reputation is critical in deciding if your emails will land in your audience’s inbox or the spam folder. By improving your sender reputation, you increase the chances of your emails landing in the inbox, reaching your audience, and getting more replies & conversions!

In short, focusing on your sender reputation boosts your email deliverability and campaign success!

Here are 5 ways to improve your sender reputation and boost your email deliverability:

1. Keep a healthy email list

To protect your sender's reputation, only contact valid email addresses. Sending emails to invalid addresses increases your bounce rate or lands them in spam traps.

Spam traps are fake email addresses added to email lists online to check whether you're sending emails to a verified list.

This ruins your email sender reputation, lowers your deliverability score, and sends your emails to spam!

Here are 3 ways you can keep your email list healthy:

• verify your email list using tools like Debounce or Bouncer
• avoid buying email lists online
• check your email list for typos like these to make sure your email is delivered 👇

2. Use proper sending practices

How you send emails tells email providers if you’re a spammer or a genuine sender. Sending emails at a natural pace that matches human behavior boosts your sender reputation and helps you avoid spam.

Here are 3 email sending practices to boost your sender reputation:

• send between 50-200 emails per day, per address
• don’t send all emails at once; spread them throughout the day
• increase your sending volume gradually like this 👇

3. Write spam-free email content

Write high-quality, relevant emails that your audience will find valuable and engaging. Your emails should solve a pain point, and your audience should have the option to opt-out if they don’t want to receive them. A relationship with your audience prevents spam complaints and boosts your sender reputation.

Here are 3 tips for writing valuable emails:

• your subject line should be consistent with your email content
• add an unsubscribe button for people who aren’t interested in your emails
• avoid spam-trigger words like these to prevent landing in spam 👇

4. Use a dedicated IP address

If you share your IP address with a group of companies, their bad email practices can damage your sender reputation. A dedicated IP address gives you complete control over your sender reputation. Other senders won’t affect your reputation, and you can keep your email deliverability high by following best practices.

Here are 3 tips to boost your sender reputation with a dedicated IP address:

• use a warm-up & deliverability booster before-during-after sending emails
• increase your sending volume gradually after the warm-up phase
• complete your technical setup on this new IP address before sending emails

Check out the key differences between using a shared & dedicated IP address for your outreach 👇

5. Warm up your email address

If you’re using a new email domain, don’t start with your email campaigns immediately. Warm up your email first to build your sender reputation and avoid landing in spam.

Email warm-up gradually increases the emails sent from your account to boost your email engagement, reputation, and deliverability. You could think about the warm-up as a protection tool for your emails.

Here’s how email warm-up improves your deliverability:

• helps you avoid the spam folder
• shows email providers that your emails aren't spam
• matches "human behavior,” which boosts your sender reputation

Sending natural, personalized warm-up emails like these boosts your sender reputation 👇

Bonus Tip: Fill out the details on your email address

Having a clear sender identity helps you build trust with your audience & with email providers. This increases your chances of getting replies and prevents spam complaints.

Quick checklist for a strong sender reputation in the long run

In the long run, keeping a strong sender reputation can be complicated. But with the right tools, you’ll have higher email deliverability, get more replies and create more growth opportunities!

Before sending your next email campaign, use this quick sender reputation checklist to ensure you land in the inbox:

☑️ complete your technical setup

☑️ verify your email list

☑️ warm up your email address

☑️ follow email sending best practices

☑️ monitor your email deliverability before-during-after sending campaigns

Want to land emails in your audience’s inbox? Get expert tips and strategies to avoid deliverability issues in our weekly newsletter 🙌

Sending too many emails too quickly can trigger spam filters, so your audience will never get to read your emails. You can avoid the spam folder by sending emails at a natural pace that matches human behavior.

In this article, you’ll find the top 4 best practices for sending emails that increase your chances of reaching the primary inbox and generating more responses.

Why do you need to follow email sending best practices?

If you send emails the wrong way, it can make email providers suspicious and:

→ ruin your sender reputation

→ land your emails in the spam folder

→ make email providers block your address

By following email sending best practices, you protect your deliverability and land emails in your audience’s inbox.
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4 email sending best practices for your campaigns

Here are 4 tips you should use before pressing "send" on your email campaigns to make sure you reach your audience!
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1. Send a reasonable volume of emails

Sending too many emails in a short period can trigger email providers to mark your emails as spam. Each email provider has specific sending limits.

For example, Outlook & Gmail have a daily limit of between 300-500 emails. If you use a custom domain, this limit increases based on your plan.

Here are some steps you can take to control your sending volumes:

• check your email provider’s sending limits
• keep your sending volume between 50 and 200 emails per sender per day
• use multiple sending addresses if you need to send more emails

2. Keep a good ratio between emails sent to received

Keeping a good balance between emails sent to received shows email providers that your emails are relevant and that you're not a spammer.

Here’s what you can do to keep a good sent-to-received ratio:

• monitor your sent-to-received ratio after sending email campaigns
• keep a 4:1 ratio: for every 4 emails you send, aim to get at least 1 reply
• write email sign-offs that encourage your audience to reply

3. Increase your sending volume gradually

If you haven’t been sending emails but suddenly start sending 500 emails daily, email providers will consider them spam. Send a consistent volume of emails daily to reach your audience's inbox.

Here’s what you can do to increase your sending volume gradually:

• start with a small volume of emails and gradually increase it over time
• monitor your deliverability before-during-after sending campaigns
• use multiple sending addresses if you need to reach a large audience at once

4. Pace your sending speed

Sending all your emails at the same time can trigger email providers and land your emails in the spam folder. To prevent this, spread the sending schedule throughout the day. This also ensures that your emails reach your audience at the best time for them.

Here are some steps you can take to pace your sending speed:

• use an email service provider that allows you to schedule your emails
• schedule your emails to be sent throughout the day
• use a warm-up & deliverability booster before-during-after sending campaigns

Key takeaways to boost your email deliverability

The key to reaching your audience & getting your emails read is high deliverability. By using these email sending best practices, you can boost your deliverability & avoid the spam folder.

Here are some more tips you can use to boost your deliverability:

• complete your technical setup before you start sending email campaigns
• use a warm-up & deliverability booster before-during-after sending campaigns
• monitor your deliverability score before-during-after sending campaigns

Join our weekly newsletter to get more expert tips and strategies to avoid deliverability issues and land your emails in the inbox. 🙌

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Seeing a high bounce rate on your email campaigns? This means your emails aren’t getting delivered to your audience. And if your emails don’t reach your audience, you won’t get any replies or create new growth opportunities.

In this article, you'll find 7 proven tips to reduce your email bounce rate, improve email deliverability and get more replies!
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What is email bounce rate?

Email bounce means an email that couldn't be delivered to your audience. Your email bounce rate is the percentage of emails that couldn’t get delivered, also known as ‘bounced.’

There are two types of email bounce:

1. Hard bounce:

A hard bounce happens when your email isn’t delivered because the receiver’s email address is permanently invalid.

An email address is permanently invalid if:

• the email address has been deleted
• there is a typo or formatting error in the email address
• the domain of the email address is inactive

2. Soft bounce:

A soft bounce happens when an email bounces because of a temporary issue with the receiver’s email address. Unlike a hard bounce, this doesn’t mean a permanent delivery failure; you can try sending the email again.

Some common reasons for soft bounces could be:

• your receiver’s inbox is full
• your receiver’s email server is temporarily inactive
• your email size is too large to be delivered
• the receiver’s email provider blocks your email address
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Why is it important to reduce your email bounce rate?

A high email bounce rate ruins your sender reputation and reduces your chances of getting replies. Email providers and spam filters could permanently block your emails from getting delivered to your audience.

Your average bounce rate should be between 2-5%. This depends on the types of emails you send (cold emails, newsletters, transactional emails, etc.) and your sender reputation.

A bounce rate of 5% or higher could mean a problem with your email list, sending practices, or email deliverability and should be fixed immediately!
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7 ways to reduce your email bounce rates

Here are 7 proven ways you can reduce email bounce rates and reach your audience:
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1. Verify your email list before you send emails

Your email list is all the people you’re reaching out to via your emails. Sending emails to invalid addresses increases your email bounce rate, which lowers your deliverability score, and sends your emails to spam!

Verifying your email list prevents this by telling you which email addresses on your list are undeliverable or invalid.

Here are some tips to verify your email list:

• use tools like Debounce or Bouncer to verify your email list quality
• remove all invalid email addresses from your email list
• remove any email address that marks your emails as spam from your list
• check your audience’s email address for typos or errors like these before sending 👇

2. Avoid hard bounces

Remove all email addresses that show “permanent delivery failure” from your email list. Sending emails to such invalid addresses damages your sender reputation.

3. Use a professional sender domain

By using free email domains (for example, name@outlook.com), you're more likely to have a poor sender reputation and get blocked by email providers. Instead, use a professional sender domain (for example, name@lempire.co) while sending email campaigns to protect your sender reputation and keep bounce rates low.

4. Use a reputable email service provider

The email service provider that you choose for your email campaign plays a huge role in the success of your email marketing efforts.

Here are some tips for choosing the right ESP for your business:

• make sure it follows email deliverability best practices
• your ESP should provide email automation support & track email metrics
• avoid ESPs that spammers often use, this hurts your sender reputation
  ‍

You can use an outreach tool like lemlist to track your email campaign bounce rates 👇

5. Optimize your email content

Your email content should be relevant to your audience and give them value. This reduces your chances of getting spam complaints and improves your sender reputation.

Here are 5 tips for writing emails that land in your audience’s inbox:

• use links instead of attachments to share files
• keep a healthy image-to-text ratio (check out the example below)
• add an opt-out option at the end of your emails
• personalize your subject line & email
• avoid using spam-trigger words in your emails

6. Maintain your email list as it grows

As your email list grows, you need to maintain it to keep bounce rates low. Here are 3 best practices to use as your email list grows:

1. Segment your email list: Divide your email list into smaller, more targeted groups. This increases your chances of getting replies & boosts your deliverability. You’ll also see which segments are getting higher bounce rates.
2. Send re-engagement campaigns: Create a segment of the audience that hasn’t engaged with your emails in the past 90+ days. Send highly personalized, valuable content to warm up this audience again and get more replies.
3. Use a double opt-in option: A double opt-in process means sending an email to new subscribers to confirm that they want to receive emails from you. Emailing people who have explicitly asked to get them prevents spam complaints.
   
   The double opt-in process boosts your open rates, replies, and deliverability.
   
   Here’s what you could include in your confirmation email:
   ‍
   • what are your emails about?
   • when & how often do you send emails?
   • what’s the value for your audience?

7. Monitor your deliverability

Use a warm-up and deliverability booster like lemwarm before-during-after sending email campaigns. Monitoring your deliverability is an effective way to avoid soft bounces and keep your emails away from spam.

While monitoring your deliverability, here’s what you should check:

• your deliverability score (keep it > 90)
• your technical setup
• your email metrics (spam complaint rates, bounce rates, etc.)

You can use your warm-up and deliverability booster to check your technical setup. ⬇️

The key to low bounce rates in the long run

There’s no point in writing effective emails if they aren’t delivered. A high email bounce rate ruins your sender reputation and reduces your deliverability. Using the tips in this article, you can avoid email bounces, reach your audience & get more replies!

To keep your bounce rate low in the long run, make sure to:

• use a warm-up & deliverability booster
• verify your email list before sending email campaigns
• and get a professional sender domain for your outreach

Join our weekly newsletter to get more expert tips and strategies to avoid deliverability issues and land your emails in the inbox. 🙌

‍

If you’re sending cold emails, transactional emails, or any emails to reach an audience and not monitoring your deliverability, your emails could be landing in spam without you knowing!

But what is email deliverability, and how can you improve it to avoid spam? In this article, you’ll discover how deliverability affects your emails and what best practices you should put in place to land in your audience’s inbox and get more replies.

What is Email Deliverability?

Email deliverability is your ability to deliver emails right into your target’s primary inbox. In short, your deliverability measures whether your emails successfully reach your audience.

Most people confuse “deliverability” with “email delivery”.
‍

The difference between email deliverability and delivery

So, while sending emails, keep in mind that:

• high delivery rate ≠ your emails landing in the inbox
• high delivery rate + low deliverability score = emails landing in spam

Your emails may have been delivered but landed in the spam folder. The only way to avoid this is to improve your email deliverability.
‍

Why is email deliverability so important for you as a sender?

When sending emails, most people focus on:

• how well they define their target audience
• the content of their emails
• or their subject lines and icebreakers

But this is pointless if your audience doesn’t see your emails.

Your email deliverability tells you if your emails are reaching your audience. Improving your deliverability helps you get your emails opened, increase your reply rates and make your campaign a success!

What affects your email deliverability?

Many elements affect your email deliverability. They come under 3 main categories:

1. Your Sender Reputation: If you have a history of sending spam or unwanted email, email providers are more likely to land your emails in spam.
2. Technical Setup: If you haven't done your email authentication correctly, your emails could land in spam or not be delivered at all.
3. Email Content: Emails with spammy or inappropriate content have a lower deliverability rate.

But the good news is that these factors are in your control, and using email deliverability best practices will help you avoid spam.
‍

Email Deliverability Audit: do you have deliverability issues?

To start, you can check if you have any big deliverability issues that need to be fixed immediately.

Here are 3 steps you can take to audit your email deliverability:
‍

1. Check your sender reputation:

A good reputation with email providers is essential for good deliverability. To check this, you can use your IP address or your domain name (for example, lempire.co).

Tools you can use: SenderScore or MxToolbox.

Here's what you should check:

✅ your MX records are set up

✅ SPF, DKIM, DMARC are configured

✅ you're not on any blacklists

Here’s what your DNS settings check will look like:

2. Check your bounce and complaint rates:

High bounce and spam complaint rates show issues with your email deliverability. Use your email outreach software (for example, lemlist) to track these metrics.

✅ Aim for a bounce rate of < 5%

✅ Aim for a complaint rate of < 0.08%

Using lemlist, you can track your email metrics and avoid deliverability issues:

3. Check your deliverability score:

Use a warm-up and deliverability booster like lemwarm to check your deliverability score. Based on this score, you’ll know if it’s safe or not to start sending campaigns.

Depending on your email health, your deliverability score could be under 3 different stages:

→ Red

This stage means you might be blacklisted or have a wrong technical setup. You shouldn’t send email campaigns at this stage as you risk landing in spam.

→ Orange

At this stage, your email address is warmed up & fewer emails are landing in the spam folder. But you should still wait for the green stage to start sending emails.

→ Green

At this moment, you should start sending emails. Make sure to keep your warm-up & deliverability booster ON before-during-after sending campaigns to keep deliverability high.

Based on your deliverability status, you can get personalized tips to increase your deliverability and avoid the most common issues people have when sending emails.

Now that you have a better idea of your email deliverability issues, you can improve your deliverability.
‍

What is the best practice to improve email deliverability?

To improve your deliverability and avoid the spam folder, you should start with two steps:

Step 1: Warm up your email

Email warm-up gradually increases the number of emails sent from your account to boost your email engagement, reputation, and deliverability. Think about the warm-up as a protection tool for your emails.

How an email warm-up improves your deliverability:

• helps you avoid the spam folder
• shows email providers that your emails aren't spam
• matches "human behavior,” which is a good sign for your email provider
  ‍

Step 2: Use a deliverability booster

Warming up your email address helps you avoid deliverability issues but won’t keep you away from spam forever.

In the long run, the deliverability booster process helps by:

• improving your email reputation
• directing emails to your audience’s primary inbox
• alerting you in case of any deliverability problems

The warm-up and deliverability booster stages work together to keep your emails away from spam. But warming up your email manually can be a time-consuming process. Plus, you need to make sure you do this every single time when you send campaigns.

The best way to warm up your email is to use a warm-up and deliverability booster like lemwarm. It creates a personalized deliverability strategy based on your goals and email characteristics. This helps you build a strong email reputation and improve your deliverability score to avoid spam folder.

You'll also get a deliverability score based on where your emails are landing. The higher your deliverability score is, the more your emails will avoid spam, reach your audience and help you create new growth opportunities.
‍

Common Deliverability Questions

In this section, you’ll find answers to some of the most common questions around email deliverability, from how to monitor it to what tools are necessary for improvement.

Use the tips here to make sure your emails land in your audience's primary inbox. 🙌
‍

How do I monitor my email deliverability?

You can track your deliverability using a deliverability booster. It monitors your email deliverability and alerts you if there are any issues.

Some other metrics you can track are:

• deliverability score > 90
• open rate > 50%
• bounce rate < 5%
  ‍

How can I test my deliverability?

You can test your deliverability by:

• checking your deliverability score on lemwarm
• monitoring email metrics (open rate, reply rate, bounce rate, click-through rate, etc.)
• check your sender reputation on SenderScore or MXToolbox
  ‍

What is good email deliverability?

Good email deliverability is your ability to land emails in your audience's primary inbox. This is also called your inbox placement rate.

Having a high deliverability rate lets you:

• reach your audience
• get more replies
• create more growth opportunities
  ‍

What tools do I need to improve my deliverability?

Some tools that will help you get good deliverability are:

• a warm-up and deliverability booster tool to avoid the spam folder
• an email outreach tool to write high-quality emails
• an email verification tool to keep a healthy email list
  ‍

What has the biggest impact on email deliverability?

Some common mistakes that can lead to deliverability problems are:

• not keeping your deliverability booster ON
• not doing email warm-up before sending emails
• not completing your technical setup
• sending generic emails with spam words
  ‍

How do I know if my emails reach the inbox?

To get an idea of where your emails are landing:

• track email metrics and engagement rates (open rate, click rate, reply rate, etc.)
• ask your audience where your email landed
• use a deliverability booster like lemwarm to get alerted if your emails are landing in spam
  ‍

Why aren't my emails getting delivered?

Your email might not get delivered if:

• you haven't set up your SPF, DKIM & DMARC
• your email address has been blacklisted, or your email domain is blocked
• you're sending emails to an incorrect address
• your email size is too big for your email provider
  ‍

Key takeaways & more deliverability tips

The success of email campaigns depends on email deliverability. If you want to get in touch with your prospects, get your subscribers to join your events, or send emails that reach your audience, you must monitor and improve your deliverability.

The best way to reach a high deliverability score and forget about all deliverability issues is to:

• use a warm-up and deliverability booster before-during-after sending campaigns

• monitor your deliverability score before-during-after sending campaigns

• use the Email Deliverability eBook to fix what 90% of people forget when sending emails

‍

Get the eBook here to boost your deliverability and keep your emails away from spam 👇

When you send an email, the last thing you want is for them to land in spam. Still, if you don’t get any replies from your audience, there’s a huge chance that your emails do land in the spam folder without you even knowing it.

In this article, you’ll find out why your emails are landing in spam, why you should care about deliverability if you send emails, and the top 10 best practices to avoid the spam folder.

‍

Why do emails go to spam?

Email service providers check your emails to decide if they belong to the inbox or spam folder.

5 main factors influence where your emails are sent:

1. Your sender reputation: have you been sending spam in the past?
   
   
2. Email content: is your email content safe or has spam-trigger words? 
   
   
3. Spam traps: are you sending emails to unverified email addresses?
   
   
4. User reports: has your audience reported your emails as spam?
   
   
5. Email authenticity: have you verified your identity as a sender? 
   ‍

If your emails trigger any of these factors, there are huge chances that your emails land in spam.

So, how to keep your emails out of spam and land them in your audience’s inbox?

The ability of your emails to land in your audience's inbox depends on your email deliverability.

That’s why you should always monitor your deliverability and check your deliverability score before, during, and after sending your email campaigns. If your deliverability score is low, you might have deliverability issues that send your emails directly to the spam folder.

Here are 10 ways to improve it and avoid the spam folder.

‍

10 Tips to Prevent Emails From Going to Spam

‍

1. Warm up your email

‍

Think about the warm-up process as a protection for your emails that prevents them from landing in spam. Email warm-up gradually increases the number of emails sent from your account to boost your email engagement and deliverability.

How email warm-up improves the deliverability of your emails:

• shows email providers that your emails aren't spam
• matches "human behavior" which is a good sign for your email provider
• helps you avoid spam filters

Warming up your email manually can be a time-consuming process. Plus, you need to make sure you do this every single time when you send campaigns.

The best way to warm up your email is to use a warm-up and deliverability booster like lemwarm. It creates a personalized deliverability strategy based on your goals and email characteristics. This helps you build a strong email reputation and improve your deliverability score to avoid spam folder.

Check out the improvement in this user's deliverability score within 3 weeks of using lemwarm 👇

2. Complete your email authentication

Completing your technical setup or email authentication ensures that your emails are delivered to your audience. Email providers use this to verify your sender identity.

You can do your technical setup in 5 simple steps:

Step 1: Set up your SPF

SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework. This verifies that your emails have been sent from your domain.

Step 2: Set up your DKIM

DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail. This guarantees that your emails are not changed after they are sent.

Step 3: Set up your DMARC

DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance. This helps protect your domain from attacks, phishing emails, etc.

ℹ️  Here's a guide to help set up your SPF, DKIM, DMARC

Step 4: Set up your MX Record

MX Record stands for your ‘mail exchange’ record. This helps providers know what servers accept emails for your domain. Without it, you won’t be able to receive emails.

ℹ️  Here's a guide to help set up your MX Records

Step 5: Set up your Custom Tracking Domain

This allows you to track open and click rates in your emails safely.

ℹ️  Here's a guide to help set up your Custom Tracking Domain

You can use your warm-up and deliverability booster to check your technical setup. ⬇️

3. Personalize your emails

Personalizing your emails prevents them from looking like spam and earns your audience’s trust. It shows that your email is written specifically for them. Making your emails stand out is a great way to get more replies from your audience.

But it can be time-consuming if you have a large audience. The best way to personalize emails at scale is to use custom tags.

Here are 3 custom tags you can use on lemlist to catch your audience’s attention:

• {{firstName}}
• {{companyName}}
• {{painPoint}}

You can also check out this guide to help you personalize emails at scale.

4. Add an unsubscribe button

An unsubscribe button allows your subscribers to opt out of receiving your emails. You can remove them from your email list and prevent getting spam complaints. This is important no matter the type of emails you send: cold emails, newsletters, transactional emails, etc.

5. Avoid clickbait in your subject lines

Your emails will either be opened or marked as spam based on how well you write your subject line. It should hook your audience, nudge them to read the email, and check the value they could get from you.

But always ensure that the promise in your subject line matches the content of your email. If not, your audience could mark it as spam.

6. Verify your subscriber or email list

Your email list is all the people you’re reaching out to via your emails. Sending emails to invalid addresses increases your bounce rate. This ruins your email reputation, lowers your deliverability score, and sends your emails to spam!

Verifying your email list prevents this by telling you which email addresses on your list are undeliverable or invalid. Also, avoid buying email lists online. Email providers put spam traps in these lists. Spam traps are fake email addresses to check if you're sending emails to a verified list or not.

You can use tools like Debounce or Bouncer to verify your email list quality.

Before sending, check your email list for such typos to make sure your email is delivered 👇

7. Don’t use spam trigger words

Some words in your emails can trigger spam filters and land your emails in the spam folder. The overuse of these “spam trigger words” ruins your deliverability.

Here’s a list of the top 12 spam words to avoid in your emails:

8. Don’t use link shorteners & attachments

Link shorteners are common in spam and phishing emails. And attachments are known to carry viruses. So, avoid using these elements to prevent getting flagged as spam by email filters.

Instead, you should hyperlink your text or insert the entire link in your emails. This protects your deliverability and lets you share files with your audience.

9. Follow proper sending practices to avoid spam filters

An underrated action that helps you avoid spam is sending emails correctly. Keep a natural pace that matches human behavior while sending emails.

Here are some sending tips to avoid the spam folder:

• send between 50-200 emails per day, per address
• don’t send all emails at once; spread them throughout the day
• for every 200 emails you send, aim to get at least 50 replies

10. Don’t use complex HTML

Complex HTML can have broken code that triggers email providers. This reduces the chances of email delivery and can land your email in spam even if it’s delivered. To avoid this, use simple variables to personalize your emails.

Final thoughts

Only one thing can stop your emails from going to the spam folder: your deliverability. The next time you send emails, use the tips in this article to make sure they reach your audience and help you get more replies and better results 🚀.

And if you want to:

• save time by automating your email warm-up
• get a personalized deliverability-boosting strategy
• and monitor your deliverability with detailed reports

… you should get a warm-up and deliverability booster!

Find out more about this in our deliverability guide here 🙌

PS: you can subscribe to lemwarm's weekly newsletter for more such expert deliverability tips, guides, and updates to keep your emails away from spam 🚀

‍

GMass is shutting down its email warm-up services, and other warm-up tools are following suit. What does this mean for your email outreach? In this article, you’ll find out why most warm-up tools will shut down in the coming months and what you can do next to keep your emails from landing in spam.

Why is GMass shutting down its email warm-up service?

Most warm-up tools, including GMass, use a specific API to offer their services. The providers of this API have decided that GMass and other similar tools might lose access to the API if they don’t shut down their warm-up services.

So, to maintain access to this API, GMass, and other warm-up tools have decided to disable their email warming features.

We saw this coming — here’s why lemwarm will keep working

In August 2022, we changed how our warm-up and deliverability service works by switching from API to an IMAP-based system.

Along with a new and improved algorithm, lemwarm is now one of the best warm-up and deliverability boosters on the market, 100% reliable and safe to use for anyone out there sending cold emails, newsletters, transactional emails, or simply reaching out to an audience via email.

So, how to avoid deliverability issues when sending emails?

If you send emails to an audience, you should check your deliverability before, during, and after sending your campaigns. Only by monitoring your deliverability score, you can prevent your emails from landing in the spam folder.

You can take different actions to increase your deliverability, but keep in mind that only by using an email warm-up and deliverability booster, you can make sure your emails will be received by your audience in their inboxes.

Here are 4 easy steps to start improving your deliverability.

1. Do your technical setup

Your technical setup shows email providers that you are a verified sender and that your emails are safe. This keeps them away from the spam folder.

You can do your technical setup in 5 simple steps:

Step 1: Set up your SPF

SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework. This verifies that your emails have been sent from your domain.

Step 2: Set up your DKIM

DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail. This guarantees that your emails are not changed after they are sent.

Step 3: Set up your DMARC

DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance. This helps protect your domain from attacks, phishing emails, etc.

ℹ️  Here's a guide to help set up your SPF, DKIM, DMARC

Step 4: Set up your MX Record

MX Record stands for your ‘mail exchange’ record. This helps providers know what servers accept emails for your domain. Without it, you won’t be able to receive emails.

ℹ️  Here's a guide to help set up your MX Records

Step 5: Set up your Custom Tracking Domain

This allows you to track open and click rates in your emails safely.

ℹ️  Here's a guide to help set up your Custom Tracking Domain

2. Keep a healthy mailing list

Having invalid email addresses in your list increases your bounce rate and ruins your sender reputation. Verify your email list regularly, and never send emails to unsubscribed people.

Check out bouncer.io or debounce to make sure you only send emails to valid addresses.

3. Send high-quality emails

Email providers check if your audience is engaging with the emails you send. The only way to get opens and replies is to personalize your emails and always provide value. Here’s how you can make your emails unique and well-structured to stand out in your audience’s inbox.

If you have a large audience, a tool like lemlist can help you send personalized emails at scale and 10x your business growth 🙌

4. Maintain a good sender reputation

A good sender reputation avoids suspicion from email providers and keeps your emails away from spam. Make sure to follow email-sending best practices.

Use these tips while sending emails to avoid landing in the spam folder:

• send between 50-200 emails per day, per sender
• spread your sending schedule throughout the day, don’t send them all at once
• make sure to get at least 1 reply for every 4 emails you send

Check out the Ultimate Email Deliverability Checklist for more tips to improve your deliverability so you can land your emails in your audience’s inbox. 🚀

‍

What email warm-up service should you switch to?

Your next step is to choose a safe and reliable warm-up tool like lemwarm.

lemwarm is the most complete email warm-up tool and deliverability booster on the market that can help you achieve a high deliverability score and maintain it in the long run.

The tool is used by 10,000 people worldwide and keeps their cold emails, newsletters, and transactional emails away from spam.

Why is lemwarm the best warm-up & deliverability booster on the market?

With lemwarm, you can personalize your deliverability strategy - warm-up and deliverability booster process - based on your goals and email characteristics. This helps you build a strong email reputation and improves your deliverability score to avoid the spam folder.

The best part? It runs 100% on auto-pilot.

So, here’s how you can avoid the spam folder forever with lemwarm:‍

1. Keep your deliverability high with detailed reports & custom tips

You can monitor all factors impacting your email deliverability on a single dashboard. For example, if you’re on any blacklist, have a bad spam ratio, or missed your technical setup.

With custom tips for maintaining a high deliverability score, you can take quick action to continue sending your emails to your audience’s inbox.

Get detailed reporting and use the custom tips on your lemwarm dashboard to avoid the spam folder:

‍2. Avoid the spam folder with a custom deliverability strategy

You get a custom warm-up strategy based on the information you provide. lemwarm assigns you to a smart email cluster based on your industry and audience. This will increase your deliverability and chances of landing in the primary inbox.

Send ultra-personalized warm-up emails to boost your deliverability with this quick setup:

3. Improve sender reputation with human-like conversations

One of the biggest differences between lemwarm and other warm-up tools is that lemwarm comes with reliable and accurate warm-up emails based on users’ target audience.

The tool automatically starts conversations with 10,000+ real users with up to 25+ years of domain age and great reputation instead of talking with fake email addresses or bots. In the long run, this results in more accurate stats and a higher deliverability score for all users.

lemwarm’s warm-up emails are realistic to boost your deliverability further:

Here’s what you can do automatically with lemwarm’s smart cluster feature:

✅  sent ultra-personalized warm-up emails based on your industry and email goals

✅  get relevant replies & follow-ups on your warm-up emails that improve your sender's reputation

✅  send warm-up emails during your audience’s working hours to boost your deliverability with the smart scheduling feature

‍

Final thoughts

If you’re sending cold emails, newsletters, or any type of email, and you’re not using a warm-up and deliverability tool, your audience might not even get your emails. With all the warm-up tools shutting down, choosing a safe and long-term solution is important for your outreach success.

10K salespeople, entrepreneurs, marketers, and ‘email senders' avoid the spam folder by keeping lemwarm ON before - during - after sending campaigns.  🚀

So, if you want to:

1. save time and money by automating your warm-up process
2. make sure your audience gets your emails
3. increase your deliverability score over time
4. get personalized deliverability tips and access FREE tips & guides

… get your lemwarm account now 🔥

‍

PS: you can subscribe to lemwarm's weekly newsletter for expert deliverability tips, guides and updates to keep your emails away from spam 🚀

Are you sending cold email campaigns, newsletters, transactional emails or simply reaching out to your audience via emails?

Then you should start monitoring your deliverability to make sure that your emails land in your audience’s inbox.

In this article, you’ll see why your email deliverability matters and how to avoid the spam folder with a warm-up and deliverability booster like lemwarm - used by 10,000+ customers worldwide.

So, if you want to get directly into your target’s inbox and generate more business opportunities, keep reading as you’ll discover: 

• Why should you care about email deliverability?
• What’s the best way to ensure a high deliverability score?
• How can lemwarm boost your deliverability?
• How to set up your deliverability booster and land in your audience's inbox? 

Why should you care about your email deliverability?

Email deliverability is the ability to deliver emails right into your target’s primary inbox.

So, why should you care about yours?

Because it measures if your emails are successfully reaching out to your audience.

No emails in the prospect’s inbox = No replies = No meetings = No business growth opportunities. That’s why low deliverability often results in low ROI, putting your business at stake.

As your emails can land in the spam folder without you knowing, having a warm-up and deliverability booster helps you spot and prevent any deliverability troubles.

What’s the best way to ensure a high deliverability score?

The deliverability score presents the ability of all your emails to land in the primary inbox. The higher the number is, the more likely your emails will reach out directly to your audience and help you create new business opportunities.

If you want to have a high deliverability score, you should warm up your email address. Email warm-up is a process of gradual increase in your email sending volume in order to build a good domain reputation.

By ensuring human-like activity, the warm-up process keeps your email activity balanced and makes sure you stop landing in spam. Receiving emails regularly is crucial since non-consistent sending behavior can trigger warnings to your email provider.

But, sending a lot of emails manually to a fixed schedule can be a pain as it requires a lot of resources. That’s where deliverability boosters come in handy, as they 100% automate your sending efforts.

Why do you need a deliverability booster before, during, and after sending emails?

There’s a false belief that people can warm up their emails for 2 weeks before sending emails and that should ensure high deliverability.

But, even if you do that, your emails can still land in spam. Why? Because if you stop your warm-up process all of a sudden, your uneven sending pattern will be a trigger to your email provider.

The warm-up is like a protection tool for your emails. Just like peanut butter and jelly, warm-up goes hand-in-hand with your emails. If you continuously warm up your domain, your emails will be moved from spam to inbox, which teaches email providers that they shouldn’t initially end up in spam. 

Once you initially warm up your email, there’s the booster stage where your deliverability will maintain high for the long run, as long you keep your deliverability booster ON.

How can lemwarm boost your deliverability?

1. Avoid the spam folder with a tailored deliverability strategy

To keep your emails warm for the long run, you’ll get the tailored-up warm-up strategy. lemwarm will gradually increase the number of emails sent until the perfect delivery is achieved, keeping your emails away from the spam folder.

And to make sure you leave the best impression for your email provider, you’ll get assigned to a specific email cluster according to your industry, audience, and email goals. This will keep your warm-up emails related to your business which increases your chances of landing in the primary inbox.

2. Improve sender reputation with human-like conversations

Instead of talking with fake email addresses, you can automatically start conversations with 10k+ real users with up to 25+ years domain reputation.

Because of ultra-personalized emails under the assigned clusters, conversations under the same thread give the impression that they’re written and sent manually. 

The human-like activity will be a good sign for your email provider and leave a positive impact on your email domain and IP reputation.

3. Maintain high deliverability with a detailed deliverability report

By having access to a detailed deliverability score dashboard, you can make sure you’re not present on any blacklist.

You’re able to monitor your inbox reputation and deliverability, and apply exclusive lemwarm tips to keep a high deliverability score.

All data available helps you react promptly and maintain a healthy domain reputation aka reach out straight to your audience each time.

How to set up your deliverability booster and land in your audience's inbox? 

1. Configure your account

Without the technical skills needed, you can set up your deliverability booster within a few-minute process.

Once you log into your lemwarm account, you’ll see the dashboard with 4 simple steps that will get you started:

So, let’s see how each of them can help you reach out your target audience.

Step 1: Choose your plan

Depending on your business needs, choose between two lemwarm plans - Essential and Smart:

What’s the main difference between these two plans?

• The essential plan helps you improve and maintain high deliverability by sending generic emails and monitoring your deliverability score.
• Smart plan users have that extra boost thanks to features such as the smart cluster and smart content emails. Those will help you personalize your warm-up emails based on your goals, targeted audience, or industry.

Before purchasing, you want to make sure you used the correct address and billing data in the Billing & Invoices tab.

Once you choose the most suitable plan for your business, you’ll be ready to connect your email provider.

Step 2: Connect your email provider

There are two ways to connect your email address to lemwarm:

1. If you have Office 365 account, you’re able to connect it right away by using a “Connect” button.
2. If you’re using other email providers, enter your login information:

To do this easily, check out the How to connect your email provider with lemwarm guide we’ve prepared for you.

Step 3: Verify your email address

By clicking on the “Verify your email” button, you’ll receive a verification email (in the inbox of the email you used to log in on lemwarm):

To verify your account email, simply click the link in your email. And voilà! You’re ready to start warming up your account.

Step 4: Start lemwarm

By clicking on step 4 “Start lemwarm” button, you’re authorizing lemwarm to send and reply to warm-up emails for you:

From now on, you can track your DNS check which will tell you if there’s something you should do to improve your setup:

Now, you’re ready to customize your settings even further to maximize the deliverability according to your domain age and business details.

2. Customize your settings

Whether you have an old or brand new email address, these smart settings will help you keep your email warm for the long run:

Set up smart ramp-up & warm-up

Based on your email domain’s age, you’ll need the right strategy to increase the number of emails sent until the perfect delivery is achieved.

To set up your ramp-up and warm-up settings, go to the Cockpit:

From here, you can indicate:

1. The number of warm-up emails lemwarm will send per day after ramp-up

This value will be the limit of total emails that can be reached per day with lemwarm. Once this limit is reached, the increment stops.

• If your email account is < 6 months old this maximum number should be 30.
• If your email account is > 6 months old this maximum number should be 40.

2. The ramp-up increment value per day

You want to gradually send warm-up emails over the days to progressively reach the maximum number you set.

• If your email account is < 6 months this value should be 1.
• If your email account > than 6 months this value should be 2.

The initial warm-up will last one month. Once completed, you should see your open rates hit 50%+ levels.

During the initial warm-up phase, try not to send outreach campaigns at all. But, in case you really need to, we strongly suggest you keep your volumes lower:

• 25-50 emails a day during week 1
• 50-100 emails during week 2

…and increase gradually week after week.

After the initial warm-up phase, you can start sending campaigns, but beware - if you want to hit 80% open rates and never go to spam, keep your lemwarm ON.

Activate the smart cluster

This feature will allow you to send automated and ultra-personalized emails from your inbox based on your audience and email goals. Each message and subject line will be generated based on the info you put into the smart cluster questionary.

Why is that important? Because email providers will check out the content you’re sending and evaluate it. That’s why email exchange relevant to your business increases your sending reputation and helps you achieve better deliverability results.

So, to boost your deliverability score, tailor the content according to your business requirements as shown below:

P.S. Emails that your account sends and receives for the warm-up process are automatically labeled in your inbox so that you can filter them out and keep them out of your primary inbox.

Here’s how:

To keep your lemwarm emails away from your Outlook’s primary inbox, check out this video.

3. Monitor deliverability score

At any time, you can check the deliverability reports, monitor your inbox reputation, and apply lemwarm’s exclusive tips that help you keep a high deliverability score.

Within your Dashboard interface, you’ll have access to your deliverability score and tips on how to improve it:

If your deliverability score is:

Red -> You might be blacklisted, have a bad DNS, or wrong configuration. Whatever it’s your case, you’ll be in the know thanks to lemwarm tips.

Orange -> It means your results are not optimal yet. You can start sending campaigns but keep them low in volume.

Green -> You’re ready to start sending campaigns, but make sure to keep lemwarm active at all times to keep the results good.

You can also pick a time frame and get a detailed report containing:

• total lemwarm email sent including emails & replies sent to other users
• total lemwarm email saved from spam & categories

• a full overview of where your emails are landing

• and a full overview of where your replies are landing in other users’ email boxes

All these reports will keep you aware if your messages are reaching out to your audience and what are the steps to improve your deliverability.

The key takeaways

If you want your emails to land in your audience’s inbox, your need to improve and maintain your deliverability.

To make sure that you don’t lose any growth opportunities, you should use a warm-up and deliverability booster that will keep you away from spam.

So, if you want to:

1. Save time and money by automating your warm-up process
2. Gain a good sender reputation with a tailored strategy
3. Maintain high deliverability with detailed reporting

…get an account on lemwarm. 🔥

P.S. You can check out our help articles for even more instructions on how to set up your deliverability booster and skyrocket your business growth!