Marketers Cite Deliverability As Major Stumbling Block to Email Success June 26, 2020, | Posted by Guest

What is the biggest obstacle for email marketing efforts to achieve success? That question gets asked a lot, and for good reason: marketers are all about data, and figuring out the key obstacles takes you a lot farther towards resolving them than just waiting and seeing. A recent study published by the Data and Marketing Association, in partnership with Validity, found that 91% of the marketers surveyed identified deliverability as one of the greatest stumbling blocks to success in their campaigns. For the experts here at Site Impact, this comes as no surprise; after all, everything ultimately hinges on getting your message where your audience will receive it. Deliverability impacts opens, click-through rate, and conversions alike, so it’s definitely a major factor to the success or failure of a campaign.

Key factors that all add up to deliverability problems

The survey asked marketers about specific challenges within the broad category of deliverability: 20% of marketers surveyed cited high bounce rates, 18% cited sender reputation, a further 18% cited ‘low reader engagement/spam complaints,’ and a final 17% credited being “blacklisted” as the cause for their troubles when it came to landing in the inbox. All of these are, of course, aspects of deliverability that can be repaired and taken care of; but ultimately, the common factor is that the major drivers of success or failure in an email marketing campaign are whether or not the campaign lands where it’s supposed to. 

In spite of knowing the key issues, many marketers are still baffled

The survey also discovered that in spite of being able to identify key issues when it came to deliverability problems, marketers rated their knowledge of best practices regarding those issues as “poor” frequently--16% of marketers made that self-assignment this year, compared to 10% last year. There’s a degree to which unexpected trials and tribulations come into play here, but it’s worth noting that best practices do shift and change over time, and it’s important for brands and marketers alike to keep in touch with the trends and developments. Some areas in which knowledge of best practices can quickly fall out of date include spam filtering red flags and similar aspects that are based in the algorithms that email platforms use to continue trying to serve up the most relevant emails to their customers. 

Deliverability drives every other metric of success in email marketing, so it’s no surprise that email marketers would cite it as their biggest stumbling block. If emails aren’t landing in the inbox, they can’t be opened, clicked, or sales completed. In spite of recognizing this, a significant chunk of the email marketing world doesn’t feel up to the challenge of remaining on top of best practices to get the results they’re looking for when it comes to delivery. It’s important to vet agencies and other email marketing partners carefully to discern those who are putting in the work to stay at the top of the game. Contact Site Impact to hear how we constantly monitor and keep track of the latest trends and changes in the email marketing world.