Which Email Metrics Impact Deliverability
  • 31 Mar 2024
  • 2 Minutes to read
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Which Email Metrics Impact Deliverability

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Article Summary

Large mailing services like Google or Yahoo have their own rules for sending promo emails. Adhering to these rules increases the likelihood of customers receiving your emails in their "Inbox" folder instead of the "Spam" folder — in other words, your deliverability increases.

Some of these requirements apply to email marketing platforms, and Maestra is compliant — you can check for yourself by testing an email with a mail tester.

Businesses are required to follow a number of mailing service rules

  • Send emails only to customers who opted in to receive these communications.
  • Send emails only to active customers.
  • Maintain email list hygiene (i.e., regularly clean contact lists).
  • Provide a straightforward way to unsubscribe right in the email.

Which KPIs mailing services want to see

Large mailing services track your subscribers’ engagement and the quality of your email list. Below we describe the metrics that determine sender reputation and whether your email will pass their spam filter. This is how mailing services protect their users from unwanted emails.

Factors that increase deliverability:

  • Open rate. A high open rate suggests customers find your emails interesting.
  • Click rate. A high click rate suggests customers find your emails useful.

Factors that decrease deliverability:

  • Unsubscribe rate. A high unsubscribe rate means that you’re sending emails to customers who didn’t opt in or that they are no longer interested.
  • Spam rate. Mailing services view it as one of the most important factors in assessing a sender’s reputation.
  • Hard bounce rate. A high hard bounce rate indicates the low quality of your email list. It’s very likely that these customers didn’t opt for receiving your emails or they have long since stopped using their email account. A high hard bounce rate can lead your email into a spam trap.

How to monitor your deliverability metrics

Each dashboard has a "Reports" section where you can find Email Health and Campaigns reports. They show you your deliverability KPIs, and the Email Health report includes guidelines on how to improve them.

Email Health report

This report helps you:

  • Quickly assess your deliverability and email KPIs.
  • Review your deliverability statistics for the last 30 days and compare them to the median value of other Maestra clients.
  • Get general guidelines on how to improve each KPI and increase your deliverability rate.
  • Find out the thresholds for your KPIs.

For more details on scoring and thresholds, please refer to our article on the Email Health report.

Recommended thresholds from the Email Health report:

ORCRHard bounce rateUnsubscribe rateSpam rate
Excellent15% and more2.5% and more1% and less0.5% and less0.05% and less
Good10% and more0.8% and more2% and less1% and less0.2% and less
Poor10% and less0.8% and less2% and more1% and more0.2% and more

Keep each KPI score at or above "Good" to maintain a high email deliverability rate.

Email Campaigns report

This report helps you:

  • Track metrics that influence deliverability (with an adjustable time period).
  • Filter your email campaigns from low to high KPIs and vice versa — e.g. select the campaigns that are most often reported as spam.