Last
month we revealed the results of our survey into benchmark
deliverability rates at each of the major ISP’s in
the UK. This highlighted some interesting results &
provided us with various action points for ensuring good
deliverability.
However
what we also thought would be a useful insight for many
marketers would be to see how their deliverability rates
compare against others in their industry.
The
Results
| |
AOL |
Gmail |
Hotmail |
Lycos |
Orange |
Tiscali |
Virgin |
Yahoo |
Total |
| B2B |
100% |
100% |
78.57% |
92.86% |
92.86% |
100% |
100% |
85.71% |
94.81% |
| B2C |
100% |
100% |
84.62% |
76.92% |
92.31% |
100% |
100% |
76.92% |
93.71% |
| Finance |
77.78% |
100% |
55.56% |
50% |
88.89% |
100% |
100% |
55.56% |
84.69% |
| Retail |
100% |
92.31% |
73.33% |
92.31% |
92.31% |
100% |
100% |
76.92% |
93.01% |
| Travel |
100% |
98.44% |
73.44% |
100% |
93.33% |
100% |
100% |
73.33% |
94.55% |
On the
whole results are fairly consistent in terms of the order
of harshness of each ISP. Hotmail & Yahoo are the strictest
across all industries.
What
we have seen is a difference in results for certain industries.
If you
sell financial services products you are going to have more
problems than most at achieving good deliverability rates.
The terms you are likely to use in your copy are close,
if not the same as many spammers.
For
example here are two subject lines:
1) Excellent
Mortgage Rates
2) Clear those credit bills
One
of the above is a legitimate permission email and one is
a spammers message. You can see straight away the issue
financial marketers face, as all of these terms are considered
spammy.
While
it is difficult to overcome this issue there are things
you can do to minimise the likelihood of your email going
to junk.
1) Ensure
you use a clean subject line – don’t use any
high risk words here as they will score more.
2) Try not to repeat key spam phrases throughout the copy
3) Got a big headline? Try sending it as an image but be
warned if images are blocked as no-one can see it. Also
don’t just make your email as an image as this will
cause issues.
Retail
& Travel sectors also have more problems at Hotmail
& Yahoo compared to other industry emails.
These
two sectors tend to use more sales language – words
like offers, free & latest are all widely used and considered
more likely to be spam.
Again
think about the subject line but also try to tone down the
language if you are having issues.
Of course
relying on these benchmark figures to evaluate the effectiveness
of your emailing is not a good idea. A marketer who has
the time, patience and a good delivery tool should always
be able to achieve 100% deliverability.
What
this survey should highlight to you is how much of a problem
deliverability is in your sector.
