Email guidelines

Before starting your marketing email campaign, make sure that it is in line with multiple regulations placed by mail systems to fight spam. Even emails that are based on customer subscriptions can be classified as spam in mail systems.

To reach your target audience successfully, we recommend looking into the following guidelines:

•Sender's IP and domain reputation

•Sender’s name and email

•Email list validation

•Email subject

•Configure email pre-headers

•Email content and format

•Unsubscribe link

Note

If you use Elastic Email, your account may be suspended if you get a lot of spam complaints. To restore the reputation of the account, it may be necessary to confirm that the recipients have given their confirmation to receive your newsletters.

Sender's IP and domain reputation

Mail systems evaluate sender reputation scores before delivering an email to a recipient. Use the following guidelines:

1.Use the email address registered at your domain as the sender’s address. For example, 123@example.com, where “example.com” is your domain.

We also recommend using different domains for business and marketing emails to avoid potential spam complaints that may affect your business correspondence. Using free mail services may increase your chance of ending up in a recipient's SPAM box, so we do not recommend using Gmail, Yahoo.com, and Hotmail.com and other free email domains for your email campaigns.

2.Verify your sender’s domain on a DNS server to increase email deliverability and prevent any unauthorized mailings on your behalf. Learn more about domain verification in the “Domain verification for the UniOne provider” and “Domain verification for the Elastic Email provider” articles.

Check your rating on sender reputation score services like https://www.senderscore.org/. Please note that IP addresses with reputation scores below 70% get aggressively filtered.

Sender’s name and email

1.Choose a name that will be recognizable to your subscribers. We recommend using your company name, or the product/service people have subscribed to learn about.

2.The name should be short (15-20 characters) due to interface limitations of mail clients. The name should represent your brand as best as possible and should spark instant recognition of your business.

Note

The set character limit allows you to use your trademark, first or last name, website address, etc.

3.Avoid using general mailbox names instead of the sender’s name. Always include real names in the “from” field while sending email campaigns. For example, emails that have “John Best, Axiom” in the “from” field are more likely to be opened than those that have just “Axiom” as the sender’s name.

4.Use slightly different sender names to differentiate your subscription categories and types.

5.We recommend split testing several names to see what resonates best with your subscribers. Read more in the “How to conduct split tests correctly” article.

6.Once you have tested and selected the name, do not change it frequently – this will build customer trust and help with brand recognition.

7.Do not use an email address as a sender name. This may be interpreted as spam.

8.Using a “noreply@company.com” email assumes a one-way communication process, and may be regarded as inconsiderate towards the recipient.

9.The sender's email address must match the sender's name. For example:

•Sender’s name – John Best

•Sender’s email – john.best@company.com (or any other name variation)

10.Create different email addresses that represent your brand and the type of content you are sending for different types of marketing email campaigns (e.g., newsletter@companyname.com, coupons@companyname.com).

For the sender address, use the domain of your primary site or its subdomain. If the e-mail address uses a separate domain, make sure that the text part of the address matches your brand.

Email list validation

1.Perform regular sending of emails to identify invalid addresses and spam traps to make sure you are sending emails to engaged subscribers. If bounce and unsubscribe rates are increasing, scrubbing your list may prevent the risk of having deliverability issues and spam complaints. If some of your subscribers have not been engaging with your emails for the past 6 months,

2.We recommend running a separate re-engagement campaign to confirm their subscription.

Note

We also recommend considering our article on increasing the subscriber engagement.

3.Make sure to remove any contacts who opted out (unsubscribed) from your list. Compare your deliverability rates to your open rates to identify abandoned email addresses. Certain addresses may still be active, but if the recipient is not interacting with your emails in any way (e.g. not opening), it often means that they no longer use the address and therefore have to be removed from the list.

4.If you are collecting email addresses at events (e.g. tradeshows, conferences), make sure to get signed subscription confirmations from all who have agreed to it. Sometimes event participants provide invalid email addresses due to privacy concerns, which then can lead to an increased number of delivery errors.

5.Only send to addresses you obtained through honest means. We recommend generating your own list of contacts who have shown interest in your product or field of work. Third-party contacts do not have the initial interest in your services are not expecting your emails, and sending unsolicited mail violates the CAN-SPAM act. If the third-party provider includes inactive email addresses and spam traps in your list, it may affect your overall deliverability rates in the long run.

Note

Spam traps are emails created by providers to catch spammers and users of abandoned and publicly available email addresses.

Email subject

The effectiveness of your marketing email campaign highly depends on the quality of your subject lines. In most cases, a subject line determines whether the recipients will open your emails or not. Always consider the needs of your target audience, and what words and phrases resonate well with your recipients. Here are some tips for creating successful subject lines:

1.Use macros (e.g., [#Current user.Contact name#]) to personalize the subject line. Macros are fields populated with personal data. For example, the “[#Current user.Contact name#], please learn more about our special offer” phrase of the original template will be displayed in the email received by an addressee as follows: “John, please learn more about our special offer”. Personalized subjects tend to generate better open rates due to their eye-catching nature.

To check the macros, send a test email. Read more in “How to send a test email”.

2.Create straight-to-the-point subjects that are easy to read through. Highlight the key points and avoid popular slogans (e.g. “20% off your first purchase”).

3.Always keep in mind that some of your recipients may be using their phones to check their inbox, and will more likely notice a shorter subject line. Always keep in mind that some of your recipients may be using their phones to check their inbox, and will more likely notice a shorter subject line. We recommend split testing your subject lines to see what words and phrases resonate with your subscribers. Split tests are covered in a separate “How to conduct split tests correctly” article.

4.Determine the mail clients used by your recipients. The following table includes subject line length recommendations, depending on various mail clients:

Email content and format

Making sure that your content is relevant to the recipient positively affects email deliverability. If subscribers are not interested in the content in the emails they receive, they flag these emails as spam. We recommend A/B testing the contents of your emails, figuring out your target audience and segmenting the recipients into multiple folders. Learn more about user folders in a separate article.

Note

We recommend using free services like www.mail-tester.com to test the quality of your marketing emails.

Email content mistakes to avoid

1.Excessive number of exclamation points in headers and email bodies.

2.Overusing the “CAPS LOCK” button.

3.Using spam trigger words and phrases in subject lines. Spam filters check spam trigger words and phrases to flag "trash mail". Spam triggers are words such as: “Click here!", "SALE!", "FREE!", “$$” etc. When sending a test letter, do not use words like "Test", "Hello", "Check" in the subject line.

Email template preparation guidelines

1.For the correct message display on different types of devices (e.g., PCs and on mobile devices), the width of the template should not exceed 600 pixels. Read more in the “Recommendations for adaptive email message layout” article.

2.We recommend creating simple templates. Use pre-configured elements and avoid complex ones that require HTML pop-up elements or positioning.

3.Keep in mind that email clients often block graphics and images, and certain image types (for example, background images) are sometimes not displayed at all.

4.We do not recommend creating templates that consist of a single solid image or individual blocks of images. These emails may look nice, but they are not effective.

5.Use basic universal fonts, e.g., Arial, Verdana, Georgia, and Times New Roman.

6.Avoid template elements that require Flash or JavaScript. The .gif format is the most suitable option for moving images.

7.Keep in mind that a lot of your subscribers may open their emails in a mobile device. Check whether your email is readable at arm's length or on a small screen, if images are downloaded quickly, if it's easy to click the links on a mobile device

8.Always check for any broken links in the template.

9.Different email clients display emails differently. Send test emails to your corporate mailbox to see how they look. Read more in the “How to send a test email” article.

Unsubscribe link

The unsubscribe link is required in the marketing email template. In Creatio, the link is added automatically to pre-configured templates. The absence of the unsubscribe link is a direct violation of the CAN-SPAM Act and the terms and conditions of most popular mail services. Unable to unsubscribe, the client may mark the email as spam, which can lead to a temporary block. Learn more about configuring the unsubscribe link in a separate “How to set up an unsubscribe link in emails” article.

See also

•Split tests

•Email FAQ

•Email marketing terms