Email Contacts

[ironorr]

We have over 8000 contacts, but only around 1000 open the emails.  I just watched the Hubspot Academy about email marketing and she mentioned that unopened emails can actually decrease your domain authority.  Is this accurate and does this mean we need to delete all the contacts that aren't consistently opening?  Thanks!

[DeliveryByJess · Accepted solution]

Hello @ironorr ,

ISPs and inbox providers will use historical data about your brand's past sends to contacts using their services to make a determination on what to do with the next message you send to their users.  ISPs look for high rates of positive engagement (opens, clicks, replies, forwards) and low rates of negative engagement (bounces, unsubscribes, spam compliants) as a major factor in how your mail will be accepted (delivery) and placed after acceptance (deliverability).  Senders who demonstate that recipients want and interact with their mail are more likely to be placed in the primary inbox and see higher open rates. 

Supressing contacts who persistently don't open your messages is a great step to keeping your brand's sender reputation healthy, and helping to surface more of your messages to the primary inbox instead of the spam folder.  HubSpot has a built in feature for suppressing your graymail contacts that you can learn about here. We suggest using the graymail supression feature on all sends unless you are running a re-engagement campigan to try and reach unengaged subscribers. 

Section 5 in the HubSpot Academy Email Marketing Ceritification is a great crash course on email deliverability if you are new to this subject. 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hello @ironorr,

The Email Marketing Certification is a great starting point for learning about email deliverability, good choice!

In addition to this course, I would recommend this knowledgebase article on Graymail. It explains the concept of contacts who have opted into receive, but never open or click. It also outlines some of the measures that you can implement to (sunset policy and graymail supression).

This HubSpot blog post also has some further suggestions: use post-send engagement data, test your email send frequency, develop re-engagement campaigns, improve segmentation.

Hope this helps!

[DeliveryByJess · Accepted solution]

Hello @ironorr ,

ISPs and inbox providers will use historical data about your brand's past sends to contacts using their services to make a determination on what to do with the next message you send to their users.  ISPs look for high rates of positive engagement (opens, clicks, replies, forwards) and low rates of negative engagement (bounces, unsubscribes, spam compliants) as a major factor in how your mail will be accepted (delivery) and placed after acceptance (deliverability).  Senders who demonstate that recipients want and interact with their mail are more likely to be placed in the primary inbox and see higher open rates. 

Supressing contacts who persistently don't open your messages is a great step to keeping your brand's sender reputation healthy, and helping to surface more of your messages to the primary inbox instead of the spam folder.  HubSpot has a built in feature for suppressing your graymail contacts that you can learn about here. We suggest using the graymail supression feature on all sends unless you are running a re-engagement campigan to try and reach unengaged subscribers. 

Section 5 in the HubSpot Academy Email Marketing Ceritification is a great crash course on email deliverability if you are new to this subject.