Improve Email Campaign Deliverability With Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Introduction

Email marketing is celebrated for its exceptional return on investment, with a study by Litmus claiming an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent. But when emails fail to reach inboxes, this ROI is bound to decrease drastically. This is why ensuring deliverability is important for any successful email marketing campaign.

Unfortunately, email marketing delivery is getting complicated. A recent study shows that over 20% of marketing emails never reach the recipient's inbox. Evolving subscriber preferences and new technology trends add to this complexity.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement provides an easy-to-use solution for these challenges across industries. It helps users set up marketing campaigns and ensure effective monitoring at every stage.

What Is Deliverability?

Email deliverability refers to the ability of an email to reach the recipient's inbox without being filtered or marked as spam. It is a crucial metric in email marketing, ensuring that messages are successfully delivered to the intended audience. Several factors influence deliverability, including sender reputation, content quality, and adherence to industry best practices.

High deliverability rates are essential for the success of email campaigns, as emails that end up in spam folders or are blocked can result in missed opportunities and decreased engagement. To optimize deliverability, marketers employ various strategies such as:

• Maintaining a clean and engaged subscriber list
• Crafting relevant and valuable content
• Monitoring and improving sender reputation through proper authentication and feedback

Deliverability Features In Salesforce Marketing Cloud

The Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement makes it easier for users to set up and monitor email deliverability across campaigns to ensure that emails get to the subscriber’s inbox. It also provides other benefits like:

• Scalability

The Marketing Cloud platform provides shared and private IP delivery, allowing users to deliver at high rates, usually above 2 million emails per day, while maintaining a good sender reputation.

• Reduce Complexity

SFMCE is a single platform that organizations can use to run marketing campaigns at scale. Even if third-party tools are required, the AppExchange platform allows users to integrate the necessary tools within the Marketing Cloud workflow and ensure compliance.

• Security

All data processed within the Salesforce Marketing Cloud is done while following the latest security and privacy regulations.

SFMCE also comes with features suited to fulfill various deliverability needs like:

Apart from these standard features, users can leverage advanced deliverability tools through AppExchange.

Tips To Improve Email Deliverability With Salesforce Marketing Cloud

There are several tips that users can employ to improve the deliverability of emails sent through Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Ensure Compliance

Countries have rolled out laws to control the quality of transactional and commercial emails, like the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM). According to this legislation, commercial emails must feature a functional internet-based opt-out option active for at least 30 days post-sending.

Organizations’ physical mailing addresses should also be visible in the email body. Marketers cannot use false or misleading names, harvest email addresses off the internet, and use open relays to send emails.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud automatically checks for these requirements to ensure that you remain compliant. This ensures a high sender reputation and deliverability.

Email Authentication & IP Warming

Impersonation by spammers is a common threat. To combat this, authenticate your email using standards like DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) to safeguard your brand.

SFMC provides a Sender Authentication Package for managing email authentication, making your emails come across as legitimate. Users can also perform IP warming while migrating to or from Salesforce Marketing Cloud. This involves gradually increasing the volume of your regular emails over a few weeks to prevent ISPs from flagging your new IP address as spam.

Address Book Strategy

Incorporate address book instructions directly into your emails to increase the likelihood of subscribers adding you and reducing the chances of ending up in spam folders. The Add to Address Book tool simplifies this process by offering a hyperlink with instructions for major email providers.

By including this link in your emails, subscribers can easily access instructions on adding your sending address to their address book, ensuring the successful delivery of your future emails.

Ensure Permission

Ensure all the contacts in your subscriber lists have given you permission to email them. High complaint rates are possible if you don't have explicit permission, which can lead to low deliverability and reputation.

Remove Bounced Addresses

If your bounce rate is over 20%, proactively remove your bounced addresses before your next send. A bounce rate of over 20% can dramatically damage your deliverability and ISP reputation. 

Subject Line Engagement & Recognition

Craft a subject line that depicts the clear intentions of your email. Make sure that your subscribers are also able to recognize your email from the subject line as well.

Organizations can do this by using subject lines that generate curiosity and contain the organization's name for easy recognition. The Content Detective tool in Email Studio will also help identify spam triggers in your email content.

From Name & Address

Ensure that the 'from name' and 'from email address' are easily identifiable for your subscribers. Some organizations may display only the 'from address,' emphasizing the importance of having a recognizable name instead of a number or cryptic address.

Manage Frequency & Content

Effectively managing email content and frequency is crucial for engaging subscribers. Begin by understanding your audience, segmenting based on preferences, and tailoring content accordingly.

Create a content calendar to plan, ensuring consistency and relevance. Implement personalization, monitor engagement metrics, and regularly optimize content based on feedback. Comply with regulations, conduct A/B testing, and stay adaptable to changing trends.

Segmentation For Personalization

Segment your audience based on their interests, behaviors, and engagement levels. Salesforce Marketing Cloud's segmentation capabilities allow organizations to create highly targeted email lists and also improve their digital experiences.

Dynamic Content Personalization

Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows you to dynamically adjust email content based on recipient preferences, behaviors, or demographics. For example, a retailer can use dynamic content to showcase details about women's apparel in the content section for female subscribers and details about men's clothing for male subscribers.

Launch Successful Email Marketing Campaigns With SFMCE

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement makes sure that your emails reach the right audience. It helps create a tangible impact with higher open rates, improved customer engagement, and a stronger brand presence.

With SFMCE, users are not just optimizing for algorithms but also boosting their brand's reliability in their recipients' inboxes. It helps launch successful email marketing campaigns to foster consistent, meaningful communication and connections.

Schedule a call with our experts to learn more about enhancing email campaign deliverability with Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement