Even though it might seem a little intimidating at first, understanding email deliverability is essential to run efficient and effective email marketing campaigns. We will cover the basics and best practices of email deliverability in this article to help your emails reach your recipients' inboxes.

What is email deliverability?

Email deliverability is the ability of an email to reach a recipient's inbox, without landing in the spam folder or bouncing back (being rejected by the mail server). It can be influenced by factors such as sender reputation, email content, and subscriber engagement. Understanding and optimizing these factors can lead to more successful campaigns.

➡️ To learn more, check our next section What factors influence email deliverability?.

Email deliverability vs email delivery

Email deliverability and email delivery are often mistaken to be the same, but they are in fact two separate concepts. Understanding the difference between them is important:

• Email delivery refers to the recipient's mail server accepting the email file and delivering it to the mailbox, regardless of the specific folder.
• Email deliverability, on the other hand, not only involves the server accepting the file and delivering it to the mailbox, but also takes into account where the email lands - whether it's the inbox, spam, social, updates, or any other folder that the recipient might not check frequently.

What factors influence email deliverability?

Email deliverability is key to the success of your campaigns. At Brevo, we consider an email that has reached its destination as a delivered email. Therefore, our engineers consistently monitor our sending servers to ensure optimal deliverability.

However, we cannot guarantee that all your emails will reach the inbox, as this also depends on other factors:

• The email address you are sending your emails from can influence whether your emails reach your recipients' inboxes. If you send emails from a free email address (@gmail, @yahoo, or @orange) or an unauthenticated domain, your emails will most likely end up in the spam folder or be rejected by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) following Gmail and Yahoo's new requirements for email senders.
• The content of your email also impacts deliverability. The quality of your HTML, the wording in your subject line and email body, and the type of links included could trigger spam filters, preventing your email from reaching the inbox.
• Your sender reputation, which is influenced by your sending behavior, directly affects if an ISP delivers emails to the inbox or spam folder. Good practices like regular emailing, maintaining low bounce rates, and receiving fewer spam complaints can improve your sender reputation.
• User complaints, such as when a contact unsubscribes from your emails or marks your email as spam, can also impact your email deliverability. That's why, at Brevo, we automatically blocklist these contacts to prevent any negative impact on your deliverability. Consequently, these contacts will no longer receive your emails, and they won't affect your statistics.
• Subscriber engagement significantly affects email deliverability. If recipients regularly open and interact with your emails, ISPs are more likely to view your emails as desired and not spam.

How to improve email deliverability?

There are several strategies you can employ to improve your email deliverability. We've gathered all our best practices to improve email deliverability in our dedicated article Best practices for email deliverability.

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