Deliverability: A Primer Part 2

There are some more key components that contribute to good deliverability (and similarly, a good sender score):

5. Email configuration

The technical configuration of your IP addresses and various domain and sender records are crucial to establishing your sender reputation. The infrastructure component of your sender reputation is measured by two key items: reverse DNS and host type. These items in conjunction with confirmed identity via SPF (Sender Policy Framework), SID (Sender ID), and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) ensure your email is properly configured to show your identity as a sender.

Customers with the Eloqua Branding and Deliverability package receive assistance in setting up the optimum configuration for deliverability. For those without such assistance here is a baseline of the items to pay attention to when configuring your IP addresses for deliverability:

• IP addresses should be static to build up your domain and IP address reputations consistently.


• Senders who send more than 50,000 emails a week should maintain dedicated IP addresses (i.e. not utilize shared IP addresses pooled between multiple senders using a given Marketing Automation Platform or Email Automation Platform).


• It is best practice to set up separate domains and subdomains for your marketing, transactional and corporate emails. Along these lines, it is highly recommended that the From address and domain actually match. Some ISPs are very picky about mis-matches in domain and from address.


• Authenticate your IP/Domain with SPF, DKIM, DomainKeys and SenderID. Without these in place you are likely to end up in the junk folder (or not delivered at all).

In addition to the technical setup, consistency in your identity, from address, reply-to address and records (listed above) are critical to identifying yourself as a legitimate email sender and not a spammer.

6. Transmission rate, volume and frequency

The rate at which you send emails out is important to ISPs, spammers often send email without regard to volume, speed of send or list cleanliness. ISPs sometimes perform a “volume block” (blocking transmission of massive amounts from one sender to many of their account holders) if they feel the volume of emails coming to them in the timeframe is excessive or potentially spammy. The volume of invalid and undeliverable emails combined with the number emails coming into a given domain may also result in a block by the ISP. Transmission rate is handled on the Eloqua side typically however, it is recommended that larger batches of emails be released in groups instead of a single hit, a good rule of thumb is to not force more than 40k emails per hour in any given send.

Volume of email is another important factor to your sender reputation. Inside Elouqa and Return Path, volume is the number of emails reported by ISPs that contribute data to the Reputation Data Network maintained by Return Path. While mailing volume is not inherently good or bad, high volumes are likely to trigger tighter scrutiny by ISPs and inconsistent sending patters or large volume spikes will trigger similar inspection. It is best to establish a cadence of sending and maintain it over time to keep a consistent volume and avoid such examination by ISPs.

Frequency of sends is important in that you should keep a consistent frequency. If you have dips and spikes in your sending that are without pattern it is likely that you will appear to be a spammer to more stringent filters.

7. Content

Everything from the HTML coding and design of your email to the actual copy of the offer contribute to the content and are evaluated by filtering mechanisms (previously discussed under Blacklists and Filters and in Appendix: Spam Filters). Everything from broken or miscoded HTML to lack of a text-only version of your email, lack of alt-text for images or code embedded scripts in your HTML can cause a filter to block your messages. For a comprehensive list of best practices in email design see Appendix: Email Design and Coding for Deliverability.

Typically when discussing content, marketers associate using words like “FREE” or “ADVERTISING” to instantly doom their message to the spam filter. Unfortunately it’s not quite that simple, filters are much more nuanced than that and use a variety of methodologies to determine if a message is spam or a legitimate email. The best possible results for avoiding content-based filtering is to test using a tool such as the deliverability tools in Eloqua or third-party tools such as:

• Litmus


• Campaign Monitor


• MailTester


• EmailOnAcid

8. Gain Recipient Permission and Respect Recipient Preference

Your audience falls into three buckets: new recipients, active recipients and inactive recipients, for each of these buckets you should have slightly different approaches.

New Recipients:

• Only send to those who have explicitly requested email from you.


• Target “neutral” contacts (i.e., those who have neither opted in nor opted out) with the goal of gaining permission.

For this you will want to look at the specific legislation for the Regions/Countries you mail in, this is not always legal (ex: Canada).

Active Recipients

• Strengthen the relationship with active opt-in contacts by soliciting feedback on the quality and frequency of your communications, and their communication preferences. Confirm preferences with the recipient and then comply.


• Send only what the subscriber signed up to receive.

Inactive Recipients

• Re-engage inactive contacts by confirming subscription status one or two times per year.


• Nurture inactive contacts and cut inactive contacts after they fail to re-engage after a set timeframe

Deliverability: A Primer Part 2