Deliverability

• Deliverability isn’t only about an email being delivered, but the chances the recipient will notice and then interact with it.
• Deliverability Score: includes sender reputation, authentication, and domain set up.
• Sender Reputation: score that an inbox service provider (ISP) assigns to your organization as it receives emails from your brand.
• Most popular forms of email Authentication: DKIM, SPF, DMARC, and BIMI.
• If you have yet to send a marketing email from your Brand's Domain, you will need to build a positive reputation.
• Having good email deliverability is an active process.

Sender Reputation Impacted By

• The amount of emails your company sends each month and whether they’re being sent at a steady rate.
• The amount of emails that hard bounce.
• The amount of negative engagement your emails receive, such as being unsubscribed from or being marked as spam.
• The amount of positive engagement your emails receive, such as opens, clicks, replies, and forwards.
• Whether your company’s domain or IPs are listed on impactful blocklists.

Opt-In

• Contact has provided both email address and permission to be sent bulk messaging directly from your brand through a method that's verifiable.
• Explicit Consent: will always be a better form of consent as it provides no gray area.
• Remember that consent expires.
• Best practice is to get explicit consent from contacts and communicating with contacts in a timely and targeted fashion.
• Sending email to contact not having authentication and haven't consented will result in negative metrics that impact deliverability.

Sources of Implied Consent

• Contacts that have converted on a form to download a piece of content.
• Contacts that have made a purchase in the last 24 months.
• Contacts that have provided a business card at an event.
• Contacts that have converted on your ad.
• Contacts that have made a purchase with your brand in the last two years.
• Contacts that have entered a written contract with your brand in the last two years.
• Contacts that have donated to or volunteered with your company in the last two years.
• Contacts that have signed up for and are active users of your service, organization, or club.

Sources of Explicit Consent

• Adding a checkbox to a sign-up, conversion, or point of purchase to give contacts the ability to subscribe to marketing emails.
• Asking the individual to submit a subscription form at an event instead of just receiving a business card.
• Enabling double opt-in, sometimes called confirmed opt-in, to give contacts the ability to confirm their consent once added to your marketing email database.

Unacceptable Forms of Consent

• Full list of attendees provided by an event.
• Personal contacts.
• Publicly available lists or tools that utilize third party data.
• Social media.
• A sales team.
• Membership or organization lists.
• Previous company’s business contacts.
• Contacts who emailed you directly.
• Contacts who submitted a form on another brand's website.
• Contacts from lead or prospect providers or data enrichment tools.

Consent Examples

• Email newsletter to customer has this question - Do you want promo email from us? Yes | No. This is example of explicit consent and single opt-in.
• Webinar signup form has - Confirm you are over 18 years? Yes | No. This is example of implicit consent and single opt-in.
• Confirm purchase form - Receive promotional email? Yes | No. This is example of implicit consent and single opt-in.

Basic Principles of CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing)

• CAN-SPAM Act, a law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop.
• Can’t have false or misleading header information.
• Can’t have deceptive subject lines.
• Message must include a valid physical postal address.
• Message must clearly identify as an advertisement.
• Message must have a clear mechanism for recipients to opt out; “unsubscribe” button.
• Company must promptly comply with customer opt out requests.
• Must monitor those who are emailing on your behalf.
• Every single email that violates the CAN-SPAM Act is liable for penalties up to $46,517 and also impacts sender reputation.

Principles of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

• is a European Union law that gives individuals more control over their personal data and sets stricter rules for how organizations handle it.
• Lawfulness, fairness and transparency: People need to understand what, how, and why their data is being processed by your organization.
• Purpose limitation: Data should be collected only for clear, specified, and legitimate purposes, compatible with your original purposes.
• Data minimization: Only the specific data should be collected.
• Accuracy: Data must be accurate and kept up to date, otherwise it should be erased or corrected.
• Storage limitation: companies can only keep customer data until need to carry out the purposes they specified.
• Integrity and confidentiality: Companies must ensure that the data they keep is secured and protected.
• Accountability: Companies are responsible for the data they hold and should be able to demonstrate their compliance with the GDPR.

Understanding Deliverability and Permission

• Graymail: Mail sent to contacts that have provided consent, but the contacts have stopped engaging.
• Low Open Rates: could be a sign to explore a more strict graymail strategy.
• Low Click-Through (CTA) Rate: could be a sign that to a list that isn't targeted enough and room for better segmentation or the use of dynamic content.
• High Unsubscribes or Spam Complaint Rates: signs that contacts aren't receiving your mail and it's time to revisit your sourcing.
• High Hard Bounce Rate: could mean that contacts are stale.
• Continuing to send unengaged contacts mail will result in reputation damage.

Additional References and Resources

Refer to the additional references and respurces below for the exam preparations.

• HubSpot
  
• What Is HubSpot Breeze, and How Does It Work?
  comprehensive AI toolkit first introduced at INBOUND 2024.