A Complete Guide to Email Deliverability in 2024 [+ FREE Checklist]

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.
‍

Oh, and if you're concerned about your email's content, run it through our Cold Email Audit tool below. It will analyze your email and let you know if there are any issues. ⬇️

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: Deliverability Checker on lemstack

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 this Deliverability Checker
  ‍

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 👇