The next level of email performance is something that email marketers are constantly striving for. However, it can be challenging when the playing field is always shifting. The accelerating Apple’s Mail Protection Privacy (MPP), COVID-19 throwing new curveballs, and new consumer privacy regulations have prohibited standard personalisation methods and more in the past year alone.
Even tried-and-true performance indicators (such as open rates) started to lose value, making matters worse. Do not be alarmed; just as people have walked on the moon, investigated the ocean floor, and ascended Everest, email marketers can successfully navigate and grasp this uncharted region.
Global Email Volume
It’s simple to become totally absorbed in one’s own email program. However, astute marketers know how important the broader email ecosystem is to their success. Unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic’s start in early 2020 significantly influenced the number of emails sent and received worldwide.
Companies all over the world came to understand the actual significance of the email channel as consumers shifted to online purchasing, and many looked for advice to help them cope with the pandemic life.
The outcome? Global email volume increased from 2020 to 2021 by 14%. A “new normal” for email activity was established following the initial disruption, and it has remained ever since.
The Global Email Volume will rise as per the “new normal” in 2023. The email channel is proving to be more useful than ever, which is fantastic news. High sending volumes, however, put additional strain on deliverability and exacerbate the fight for subscribers’ inbox space.
How to adapt?
Uphold a stellar sender reputation:
A strong sender reputation is essential for deliverability due to the increased email volume. Mailbox providers (MBPs) base their delivery and throughput decisions on the sender’s reputation to determine who gets blocked, junked, or throttled. Senders should regularly check their sender reputation to spot issues right away.
Offset scheduled sending times:
Most MBP partners saw that the first 10 minutes of every hour see 70% of all email traffic (since bulk sends usually start at the top of the hour). Your messages will experience less competition for bandwidth and processing capacity and less crowded inboxes if you shift by 10 or 15 minutes.
Utilise the weekend period:
Weekends are a great time to communicate with customers because daily email volume is 25% more than on weekends.
Email reading platforms:
The majority of email service providers (ESPs) use the term “deliverability” to refer to the percentage of sent emails that don’t result in soft or hard bounces or “delivery rate.”
MBPs might accept emails of lower quality, but if they fail one or more filtering checks, they might be put in recipients’ spam bins. Email gateways on MBPs may reject low-quality emails. The term “missing” is used to describe these emails.
Senders should keep an eye on each of these variables to determine deliverability precisely.
How to adapt?
Send reputation measurement:
All significant MBPs track sender reputation and utilise this data, much to a credit score, to choose when and where to accept emails (inbox, spam, junk, etc.). Use Sender Score every day to monitor your reputation and take proactive measures to resolve any problems before they undermine programme effectiveness.
Keep an eye on your inbox:
Delivery rate and inbox placement are different, and accurate reporting requires specialist monitoring. The greatest approach to obtain this visibility is frequently with the proper software like Route Mobile’s Email Platform.
Bounce Rate:
An essential component of a sound email hygiene plan is tracking bounce rates. High percentages of unknown users hurt the sender’s reputation and make achieving high deliverability more difficult. These percentages can appear insignificant, but as they increase year after year, their impact grows.
Some bounces are the result of things like a bad reputation. Unfortunately, senders will have a harder time determining subscriber recency due to Apple’s MPP. Apple Mail accounts that appear active but are actually idle or dormant will produce more bounces. Senders should be ready for Apple’s “hide my email” feature to increase bounce activity as users deactivate their temporary addresses rather than unsubscribe, increasing bounce activity.
How to Adapt?
Check your bounce logs:
A bounce code in the form of “4.x.x” for temporary failures or “5.x.x” for permanent failures is often generated when emails cannot be sent. These codes serve as the foundation for senders’ bounce-reduction tactics. Review your bounce logs frequently to spot these discrepancies because MBPs can be inconsistent and reject emails with permanent codes while the bounce message points to a transitory cause, for example. You can then put rules into place to properly handle these rejections.
In Conclusion:
The state of email in 2023 is marked by the continued importance of email as a communication tool, as well as the emergence of new trends such as email marketing, the use of AI, and the need for enhanced security measures. By staying up-to-date on these trends and best practices, you can master the new email landscape and effectively communicate with your audience.
Get in touch with our experts for a free consultation and discover the best opportunities to simplify and exemplify communications for your business. You can also write to us at marketing@routemobile.com
