How Poor Business Choices Can Impact Email Deliverability Negatively

Many deliverability strategies primarily focus on issues related to email lists and the processes of creating, sending, and managing email campaigns. However, it’s important to note that deliverability challenges can stem from factors beyond just inactive subscribers or optimizing your email formatting to evade spam filters.

In fact, seemingly irrelevant business decisions can significantly influence the overall success of your email initiatives and hinder their deliverability. This was exemplified by a client who encountered delivery blocks until we broadened our scope of review beyond just email-related decisions.

This particular client was a SaaS provider that contracted my consultancy to assess its email marketing efforts. They were sending out both transactional and promotional emails to users on free trials and to paying customers who had ceased using their services.

The result? They experienced total delivery failures to Gmail inboxes, which made up 70% of their audience. Consequently, they were practically barred from connecting with the majority of their users.

I identified two critical issues:

• Transactional emails that led to an unusually high number of spam complaints.
• Promotional emails directed at disengaged customers.

The emails themselves were not problematic enough to activate spam filters; rather, it was the business tactics guiding the communications that were to blame in both scenarios.

Although the company managed to sidestep these issues in earlier years, the rise in complaint rates finally caught up with them earlier this year, coinciding with stricter engagement standards implemented by Gmail and Yahoo Mail, leading to total blocking on Gmail.

Learn more: Email deliverability: Essential insights

The challenges of transactional emails

During the deliverability assessment, I uncovered that the client’s transactional emails were generating unexpectedly high spam complaints. This was uncharacteristic, as such emails typically garner few complaints. Customers appreciate these messages because they validate their actions, ensuring they made the correct purchases and used appropriate payment methods and delivery addresses.

The real issue lay not with the emails themselves but with how the company managed communications related to its free trial offers and users who had opted out of paid services.

Every new subscriber was offered a free trial, and the company implemented double opt-in procedures to confirm those trials and prevent misuse by fraudsters.

However, the email confirming the initiation of the free trial — classified as a transactional email rather than regular promotional content — was sent to users prior to their opt-in confirmation for the trial service. We suspected that the company’s affiliate marketers may have been signing up individuals for trial services without their explicit consent.

To mitigate this, we decided to suspend the confirmation emails until after customers had opted in. While this step helped reduce complaints, the rate remained above Gmail’s complaint limitations.

You can exit, but you can never disengage

Upon reviewing the client’s membership framework, we found that customers could not terminate their accounts, regardless of whether they had never converted from a free trial or if they had canceled their paid subscriptions.

These users were no longer interested in the company’s marketing efforts. They either ceased engaging with promotional messages or reported them as spam.

However, the organization disregarded these evident signs of inactivity and persisted in sending promotional and transactional communications, such as reminders to upgrade or notifications about inactivity. This specific business choice led directly to severe blocking from their primary inbox provider.

It becomes clear how such business choices contributed to a precarious deliverability situation. Mistimed transactional emails triggered high spam complaints from users who had never legitimately signed up. Users were unable to cancel their accounts, and the company continued to reach out to emotionally detached subscribers.

This predicament persisted for several years without major repercussions. The elevated complaint rate didn’t initially bar the company’s emails from Gmail inboxes. However, with the introduction of “Yahoogle,” which set a threshold of 0.3% for spam complaints, the situation escalated rapidly.

3 strategies to preserve or reclaim inbox access

The recent changes to deliverability standards at Gmail and Yahoo Mail surprised many email marketers. If you find yourself facing diminished inbox access, consider these three measures to identify and rectify issues both within and outside your email strategy.

1. Perform a thorough audit of your marketing strategy

I conducted a deliverability assessment for this client, addressing just one aspect of their email strategy. This unraveled problems such as sudden volume surges, lack of user engagement, high complaint rates, and violations concerning Yahoogle. However, it did not encompass external business issues like a complete email audit would have. Had we conducted a full-scale audit that examined the entire customer journey, the problems could have been remedied much earlier.

2. Assess business choices impacting your email strategy

A more in-depth evaluation would have highlighted the consequences of preventing account closures. This issue was only uncovered through persistent investigation and not through the focused deliverability assessment.

3. Address deliverability issues swiftly

Before the Yahoogle policy changes, this client’s email practices were already displaying significant warning signs, like high spam complaints from transactional emails. Despite the company not facing penalties at that time, this type of email behavior was atypical and warranted an investigation far sooner. If that had happened, the company might have avoided being blocked by its crucial inbox provider.

Poor deliverability damages revenue and engagement

This should be an apparent point: if your business relies on inbox access for transactional and promotional emails, you must take every conceivable measure to maintain that access. Recognizing the various factors and decisions that influence email messaging, as well as proactively addressing issues as they arise, will greatly assist in keeping your email pathway clear.

Learn more: Email deliverability versus email warmup: Which strategy can boost your outreach efforts?