Project Overview
Client: Check Into Cash
Industry: Payday Lending and Financial Services
Project Type: Email Deliverability Improvement Strategy
Role: Lead UX & Front-End Developer
Project Summary
While working at Check Into Cash as the Lead UX and Front-End Developer, we encountered a significant issue with email campaigns. Our marketing team’s email IP had been blacklisted, resulting in poor email engagement rates, despite showing high delivery statistics. To address this, I worked closely with the marketing and technical teams to devise and implement a comprehensive email deliverability improvement plan. The goal was to recover the IP’s reputation, improve inbox placement rates, and restore the email marketing strategy’s effectiveness.
Goals & Objectives
The primary objective of this project was to restore Check Into Cash’s email deliverability rates by improving sender reputation and ensuring that emails reached users’ inboxes instead of their spam folders. Our marketing team had noted a significant drop in email performance, with open rates hovering around 3% and click-to-open rates just over 1%, despite high delivery rates. Upon investigation, we realized that our company’s email IP had been blacklisted, severely affecting our ability to communicate with customers.
The goal was clear: to develop and execute a recovery plan that would increase email deliverability and engagement. This would involve suppressing unengaged recipients, re-warming the IP, adjusting email content and frequency, and monitoring the IP reputation through tools like Google Postmaster. Our broader objective was to recover the integrity of our email campaigns in time for upcoming product launches and promotional events.
Research & Discovery
Our first step was understanding the extent of the problem. Despite receiving reports of high email delivery rates (mid to high 90%), our open rates and click-through rates were alarmingly low, suggesting that our emails were landing in spam folders or not being seen at all.
Analyzing the Problem:
- I worked with our email service provider (ESP) to dive deeper into the issue, where we discovered a major distinction between email delivery (successful delivery of emails to mail servers) and email deliverability (emails successfully making it into users’ inboxes).
- Using an email deliverability service, we found that only 58% of emails were landing in inboxes, with 35.5% going to spam and some emails being entirely blocked by Google due to our IP reputation.
By connecting to Google Postmaster Tools, we identified that emails were triggering Google’s spam filters due to our IP’s poor reputation. With a 0.00% spam rate, our emails weren’t even reaching inboxes for users to mark them as spam, signaling a significant deliverability problem.
Design & Strategy
The strategy for improving email deliverability involved several key steps aimed at rebuilding Check Into Cash’s IP reputation and restoring our email campaigns’ effectiveness:
Suppressing Non-Engaged Recipients:
We immediately reduced the size of our send list by cutting out recipients who had not engaged with our emails over the last 3-6 months. This allowed us to focus on sending to a trusted group of engaged users, which is critical for improving deliverability.Re-Warming the IP:
We launched a re-warming campaign to rebuild our email IP’s reputation. This involved sending smaller email batches to the most engaged users, gradually increasing the number of recipients as engagement improved. By showing ESPs that our IP was delivering emails to users who were opening and interacting with them, we were able to rebuild trust with the email providers.Content and Frequency Adjustments:
To further improve deliverability, we adjusted the email content by encouraging replies rather than just click-throughs to landing pages. This made the emails appear more conversational and less promotional, which ESPs like Google and Yahoo favor. We also reduced the frequency of email sends to avoid overwhelming recipients and triggering spam filters.Monitoring IP Reputation:
I set up monitoring tools like Google Postmaster to keep track of our IP reputation, ensuring that we were moving in the right direction. This allowed us to make data-driven decisions and adjust the campaign as needed.
Implementation & Development
The implementation phase involved creating and executing the email recovery plan. I collaborated closely with the marketing and IT teams to ensure that the necessary changes were made on both the technical and content sides.
List Segmentation & Suppression:
We segmented our email list, removing inactive users and focusing on high-engagement recipients. This helped reduce the risk of emails being flagged as spam and allowed us to re-establish a solid sender reputation.Email Send Strategy:
I developed a tiered send strategy, slowly ramping up the volume of emails sent as the IP began to show signs of recovery. This tiered approach helped ease the IP back into high-volume sending without triggering spam filters.Technical Adjustments:
We reviewed and adjusted our SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to ensure that our emails were authenticated properly and appeared legitimate to mail servers. This played a key role in improving email deliverability rates.
Outcome & Results
Within four weeks of implementing the recovery plan, we saw significant improvements across key email metrics:
Email Deliverability:
Inbox placement improved dramatically, with 95% of emails landing in users’ inboxes by the end of the recovery process, up from just 58%.Open and Click-Through Rates:
Open rates jumped from an abysmal 3% to 15%, and click-to-open rates increased to 5%. This was a direct result of improved deliverability and more targeted email content.Reduced Spam Placement:
The percentage of emails going to spam dropped from 35.5% to under 5%, allowing more recipients to see and engage with our emails.Reputation Recovery:
By using Google Postmaster Tools and other monitoring services, we were able to gradually rebuild the IP’s reputation, ensuring that future emails would land in inboxes rather than being filtered as spam.
Lessons Learned & Reflections
This project highlighted the critical importance of understanding the distinction between email delivery and email deliverability. Simply delivering emails to recipients is not enough; businesses need to ensure that those emails are actually reaching inboxes and not being filtered into spam.
Our experience recovering from an email IP blacklist reinforced the value of quality over quantity. By focusing on sending emails to engaged users and gradually re-warming the IP, we were able to restore our email campaigns’ effectiveness without compromising our relationship with ESPs like Google and Yahoo. The use of Google Postmaster Tools was also instrumental in providing real-time insights into our IP reputation, helping us make informed decisions throughout the recovery process.
Looking forward, we would prioritize ongoing monitoring of email deliverability metrics to catch potential issues early and avoid blacklisting in the future. Additionally, maintaining a clean, engaged email list is key to ensuring long-term success in email marketing.