Email deliverability basics

Deliverability is whether your email actually reaches the inbox rather than the spam folder. Inbox providers are increasingly good at sorting wanted mail from unwanted, and they lean heavily on your sender reputation to decide. The best message in the world achieves nothing if it never gets seen, so it's worth understanding the basics.

Send only with permission

Permission is the foundation of good deliverability:

• Use double opt-in so only genuinely interested people join your list.
• Be clear about what you'll send when people sign up, and stick to it.

The email address lifecycle

Even valid addresses don't stay valid forever, and MailMachine handles a lot of this for you:

• Role-based accounts (like info@ or sales@) are kept off your list automatically.
• Spam traps are flagged and removed.
• Closed accounts become permanently undeliverable and are returned to sender.
• Abandoned addresses quietly go stale as people move on.

A good email marketing platform removes undeliverable addresses for you, handles the technical side that affects reputation, and keeps you compliant - so you can focus on the message.

Timing your sends

Getting delivered matters; so does sending at the right moment. There's no universal best time - it depends on your audience and industry. The question to answer is: when are your readers most likely to open and act? Start from a sensible guess, then test and refine.

The factors that decide deliverability

1. Sender reputation - the single biggest factor.
2. Permission-based lists - only send to people who asked.
3. Content quality - relevant, valuable content earns fewer complaints.
4. List hygiene - clean out invalid addresses regularly.
5. Authentication - set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
6. Engagement - high opens and clicks lift your reputation.
7. Compliance - follow the anti-spam rules.

Troubleshooting

Deliverability is declining - look at engagement over the last 3-6 months for a trend, check whether your content, frequency or list source has changed, and consider a re-engagement campaign to clean the list.

Double opt-in is losing too many subscribers - send the confirmation email instantly, make confirming a single click, sharpen its subject line, and tell people to check spam on your thank-you page.

You're not sure when to send - start from industry benchmarks, A/B test different days and times, and account for timezones on a geographically spread list.

Reputation seems damaged despite good practice - check whether your domain or IP is blacklisted, confirm nobody's sent outside your normal process, and consider a dedicated IP if a shared one is dragging you down.

For the technical setup, see Authenticate your sending domain. If your deliverability problem persists, open a support ticket.