Need Suggestions to Improve Email Deliverability

[AJ_Kakrot]

Hello,

I need help to improve the email deliverability and domain reputation. We have recently implemented HubSpot in our organization and started using it. I recently send bulk email to list of audience which was migrated from previous CRM to HubSpot but I faced lot of hard bounces due to which email sending was stopped sending by HubSpotm This happened twice while sending bulk emails.

So can anyone please advise me what best practices should I implement so that for future bulk emails I at least don't have high hard bounces. Also, noticed most of the emails are going to spam, we have connected the same email sending domain which was connected to other tool and while sending emails from that tool emails are being sent without any issues and are delivering in inbox.

So I'm concerned what strategies should I implement to overcome this issue and increase domain reputation. Should I start autoresponders for the leads we generate via paid campaigns?

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @AJ_Kakrot,

There are two main aspects of your question: how to deal with email addresses that will hard bounce + how to not land in the spam folder.

Regarding the spam folder, can you please confirm that you fully authenticated your email domain? https://knowledge.hubspot.com/marketing-email/manage-email-authentication-in-hubspot – not just connecting, but also DKIM and DMARC. Email service providers have gotten less lenient about missing authentication and this will likely be the main reason for emails going into the spam folder.

Regarding the hard bounced email addresses, some of these might be due to lack of authentication (receiving email providers not accepting your emails and bouncing them due to policy reasons). However, it's more likely that contacts have left their companies and these emails are actually not valid anymore. HubSpot is not an email validation tool but these emails should be validated before attempting a send, using tools like Neverbounce, Verifalia, EmailHippo, Zerobounce etc. These will check whether an email address can still be reached. After running the check, remove the invalid email addresses from your email recipient lists in HubSpot and you should be in a place where HubSpot does not stop your sends anymore.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!

[EmailGuru]

Hey AJ,

When it comes to improving deliverability, this recent article via Emailable covers everything you need to do.

You want to get a rid of hard bounces and spamtrap emails right away (potentially ones that get you blocklisted), because that's something super fast you can do that'll have an instantimpact. Ideally, your hard bounce % should be at close to 0 as possible. You'll need to use a list cleaning service to purge all the bad data. The most popular ones with HubSpot integrations are Kickbox, NeverBounce, and Emailable. The last one is ranked the highest atm in the HS marketplace.

Spam proof your signup form:

Then from there if you want to prevent hard bounces in the future, that's a bigger issue. You need to increase the quality of your leads by tighten up who signs up. I'm assuming you confirm emails, because that would be step one. Outside of that, try these:

1) Incorporate SSO signups (Gmail / Microsoft / LinkedIn / Apple) are the most popular ones - you'll know that at least these emails needed to be authenticated first before signing up

2) If step one isn't helping as much as it should be, you'll need to add a secondary page after an SSO signs up to verify their data. 

3) Automate the list cleaning process directly from the form - like using this widget  for example

4) If you're a B2B business - changing the language is actually know to help alot. Instead of saying just "Email Field" for example, say "Business Email" or "Work Email" - that makes the person signing up think twice before trying to spam you

5) Two-factor authentication does wonders. I use to work at an SMS company, and this solves the spam problem most of time. Twilio  has some affordable options.

6) If none of those steps are working, try installing Heap . It's a very expensive tool, but it's complimentary up to a reasonable amount of tests. You can track suspicious activity on your form. You can block someone from signing up if they've entered the email or any other field incorrectly x amount of times. You can then also backtrack the hard bounce emails to find patterns in how these individuals are exploiting your form. It's really cool to use, but once again very expensive if you have lots of signups.

[boostmyemail · Accepted solution]

High Bounce Rates: If you're migrating from another platform, you should be warming up your sending anyways, which means you should focus on your most engaged contacts first, with small sends, and then gradually move out from that. It sounds like if you have a lot of bounces then you're working off a low quality list that is not opt-in, and Hubspot will shut you down for that at some point. 

If that's all the list you have to work with then you might consider an email validation tool to scrub out ones that are known bad email addresses. I haven't used many, but I would look at something like Kickbox. 

As for avoiding spam, that's gonna take time. Your domains need to be authenticated, contacts should be opted in, you should send really good content that people want to read, and then build a history of good email sending. The only way to build up a good reputation is to use good email habits. The world of hacks to get messages in the inbox is quickly disappearing. 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @AJ_Kakrot,

There are two main aspects of your question: how to deal with email addresses that will hard bounce + how to not land in the spam folder.

Regarding the spam folder, can you please confirm that you fully authenticated your email domain? https://knowledge.hubspot.com/marketing-email/manage-email-authentication-in-hubspot – not just connecting, but also DKIM and DMARC. Email service providers have gotten less lenient about missing authentication and this will likely be the main reason for emails going into the spam folder.

Regarding the hard bounced email addresses, some of these might be due to lack of authentication (receiving email providers not accepting your emails and bouncing them due to policy reasons). However, it's more likely that contacts have left their companies and these emails are actually not valid anymore. HubSpot is not an email validation tool but these emails should be validated before attempting a send, using tools like Neverbounce, Verifalia, EmailHippo, Zerobounce etc. These will check whether an email address can still be reached. After running the check, remove the invalid email addresses from your email recipient lists in HubSpot and you should be in a place where HubSpot does not stop your sends anymore.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!