Email deliverability best practices
Practical habits that keep your SendCoop emails out of spam: authentication, permission, list hygiene, bounces, complaints and good content.
Deliverability is whether your email reaches the inbox rather than spam. Inbox providers judge you on how you send and how people react. These habits make the biggest difference.
1. Authenticate your domain
Send from an address on a domain you own, and verify it with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. See Verify your sending domain.
Avoid sending from free addresses such as Gmail or Yahoo. Those providers’ own rules can cause your mail to be rejected, and the inbox score flags it.
2. Only email people who asked
- Import only contacts who agreed to hear from you.
- Never buy or rent lists.
- Turn on double opt-in for sign-up forms. It keeps typos and fake addresses out.
3. Let SendCoop handle bounces and complaints
SendCoop does this automatically:
- Hard bounces (addresses that don’t exist) are blacklisted, so you never send to them again.
- Soft bounces (temporary problems, such as a full mailbox) are logged, but the contact stays on your list.
- Spam complaints mark the contact Spam reported and blacklist them.
You can see these in each campaign’s Bounce log and Feedback log, and in Settings > Deliverability > Blacklist. See Unsubscribes, bounces and the blacklist.
4. Keep your list clean
- Remove people who never engage. Build a segment of contacts who haven’t opened or clicked in, say, 90 to 180 days. Send them one “Do you still want to hear from us?” email, then unsubscribe or stop mailing those who don’t respond. See Create a segment.
- Verify old lists before you mail them. If your list has an Email verification option, use it to find undeliverable addresses before a big send.
- Make unsubscribing easy. Every email needs a clear unsubscribe link. People who can’t unsubscribe mark you as spam instead.
5. Send content people want
- Write a clear subject line that matches the email. Avoid ALL CAPS, lots of exclamation marks and fake “RE:” subjects.
- Balance images with real text, and add alt text to images.
- Use a few clear links rather than many, and avoid link shorteners.
- Add a preheader.
- Run the inbox score before every send and fix what it flags.
6. Send steadily
- Send on a regular schedule, so subscribers expect you.
- If you have a new domain or a large list you haven’t mailed in a while, start with your most engaged contacts and grow the send over a few campaigns.
- Watch your reports. A sudden rise in bounces, unsubscribes or spam reports is a sign to slow down and clean your list.