Email deliverability can be severely impacted by a high number of inactive subscribers, leading to your emails being flagged as spam by Internet Service Providers. Implementing a sunset policy is crucial for maintaining the health of your email list by regularly cleaning it up. This approach helps in improving key metrics like open rates and click-through rates, protects your sender reputation, and ultimately enhances the success of your email marketing efforts.

Deliverability updates for Google, Yahoo, and AOL continue to roll out. Beginning June 2024, bulk senders with a user-reported spam rate greater than 0.3% will be ineligible for mitigation. This means you need to ensure your reply addresses have a real inbox attached to them, that mailers over 5K should not have private WHOIS setup, and that every level of your links is checked against blacklists.

The general rule of thumb is to keep unsub rates for email under 1% and SMS under 0.5%. High unsub rates could be due to improper segmentation, repetitive offerings, high send frequencies, or poor design. Ensure customer journeys are integrated, know which channels to message a certain customer in and not be too noisy in the others, implement automated flows, and clean lists on a monthly cadence.

It's important to consider using separate email subdomains within your email program to track and manage reputation without different activities affecting one another. If something happens with your root or subdomain, such as a rise in spam complaints or a big swing in send volume that lands you on a blocklist, they're less likely to affect each other if they're separate. This guide covers scenarios that benefit from an email subdomain, how many you need, and subdomain name ideas and examples.

Email health is a program’s ability to reliably send high-quality campaigns that avoid the spam folder and deliver on business goals. Common signs that you might have an email health issue include high spam complaints, a sudden drop in clicks, or increased unsubscribe rates. This piece includes a checklist of 12 indicators to ensure your email program health is in tip-top shape.

Optimizing sign-up forms results in more email subscribers, which leads to better analytics, deeper brand building, and higher-value customers. Start by ensuring you have sufficient tracking on your forms to allow you to properly analyze drop-off points and run tests. Look for opportunities to remove or adjust thought-consuming qualities on the form, such as social media icons, which can create a distraction. Get ahead of user anxiety by letting users know upfront how often you'll be contacting them and with what sort of content. The article contains additional tips around error messages, reciprocity, and social proof.

Find the timeframe where 75-85% of customers would repurchase your products/services and tee up your win-back messaging around that time. Consider segmenting your dormant recipient list by high LTV vs. low LTV, high intent vs. low intent to buy, or location. Experiment with an email sequence — 2 to 5 win-back emails with time delays in between — to increase the odds the recipient will open, engage, and click through. The most effective win-back efforts are also omnichannel — start with email, follow up with an SMS, and retarget on social media.

Spending time optimizing subject lines and send times resulted in minimal long-term gain - the most impactful lever was publishing more consistently and frequently.

Paid subscriptions present an appealing revenue model for content entrepreneurs, allowing audiences to pay for access to valuable content. However, managing a subscription service requires ongoing effort to prevent subscriber fatigue and churn. Simon Owens, a successful newsletter creator, shares essential strategies for launching a subscription-based revenue stream. The first step is to attract an audience. This involves creating free content that provides genuine value rather than promotional material. Free offerings should be designed to build a connection with potential subscribers, encouraging them to engage through email signups, podcast subscriptions, or visits to your website. It’s crucial to create a “sticky” experience by linking to archives and encouraging deeper exploration of your content, reinforcing brand recall to ensure potential subscribers remember your offerings. Next, it’s important to differentiate the paid content from what is available for free. Simply providing additional content in a similar format will not entice subscribers. Instead, focus on delivering unique value that addresses the needs of your most engaged users. Consider what skills or knowledge subscribers will gain by joining, framing your offering around the tangible benefits they will receive. Owens also emphasizes the importance of strategic promotion. Content creators should integrate calls to action for paid subscriptions within their free content, optimizing landing pages to maximize conversion rates. Regular reminders about the subscription service are essential, but creators should also plan for more significant promotional pushes, akin to public broadcasting campaigns, to drive subscriptions. Messaging that highlights the personal impact of supporting a small business can also resonate with potential subscribers. Timing is another critical factor. Launching free and paid offerings simultaneously can hinder growth, as it splits focus between audience building and customer acquisition. It’s advisable to allow time between these launches to establish a solid audience base before introducing paid options. Flexibility in the subscription offerings is also vital, as feedback from subscribers may lead to adjustments over time. Finally, reducing churn is crucial for maintaining a healthy subscriber base. Many entrepreneurs mistakenly focus solely on acquiring new subscribers without considering retention. Engaging with new subscribers through introductory calls can significantly lower churn rates. Identifying and reaching out to inactive subscribers is another effective strategy, allowing creators to re-engage those who may have lost interest. Offering options like subscription pauses and discounts can also help retain subscribers. By implementing these strategies, content entrepreneurs can effectively build and sustain a successful subscription model, ensuring ongoing engagement and revenue growth.

Evergreen content includes how-to guides, FAQs, listicles, and thought-leadership interviews. This type of content, which can be repurposed across various channels, improves a brand's sending reputation and ensures emails are more likely to reach their audience's inboxes. Focus on timeless topics, optimize for SEO, conduct thorough keyword research, and ensure the content is relevant to your audience's needs. Implementing evergreen content into email campaigns also saves time and resources, reducing the need for constant updates.

Commercial emails promote commercial goods or services, while transactional emails facilitate already agreed-upon transactions or update customers about ongoing transactions. Optimizing transactional emails without violating CAN-SPAM involves keeping designs minimal, only including recommended products based on purchased items, and adding an opt-in message to make it easier for a user to hop on to your email list.

To reduce form abandonment, collect contact information early in the intake process. Long forms deter users, so capturing an email or phone number upfront allows for re-engagement if the form is abandoned. Tactics like email drip campaigns, personalized messages, and special offers help recover lost leads and are more cost-effective than paid channels. Deterministic outreach, using reliable data such as emails or phone numbers, outperforms probabilistic methods, which rely on less accurate data like cookies.

BounceBan is designed to improve email deliverability and reduce bounce rates for email campaigns. It validates email addresses before they are added to your list, identifying invalid or risky addresses that might lead to bounces or other issues. This helps ensure that your emails reach the intended recipients and maintain a positive sender reputation.

A holiday email strategy requires clear goals, such as revenue targets or list growth. Segment your audience based on purchase history and engagement. Create engaging content with interactive elements. Design emails with festive themes and clear visual hierarchy. Optimize send times using data and warm up your IP to manage increased volume. Regularly A/B test your emails to fine-tune your strategy.