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Articles by Devon Montgomery
How to Stop Your Emails From Going to Spam - 10 Tips
This article was updated on January 27, 2021. Email deliverability is not an exact science, which can be frustrating for senders of all types. You can accidentally end up in the spam folder for any number of reasons, from your email list health to your authentication status, but there are a few tried-and-true tricks that can help you land back in the inbox in no time.
5 Tools to Check Your Sending Reputation
Updated September 2020. We always stress the importance of a strong sending reputation. Your sending reputation, or how mailbox providers judge your mail, is driven by how your subscribers are reacting to your messages. If the messages you send generate a lot of spam complaints, your sending reputation will worsen and future messages will be harder to get to the inbox.
SendGrid Email Deliverability Blog | We Make Email Delivery Easy
The Ins and Outs of DMARC Monitoring Denis O'Sullivan August 10, 2021 • 5 min read
What Is DMARC? Understanding DMARC Records
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance, or DMARC, is a protocol that uses Sender Policy Framework, (SPF) and DomainKeys identified mail (DKIM) to determine the authenticity of an email message. DMARC records makes it easier for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to prevent malicious email practices, such as domain spoofing in order to phish for recipients’ personal information.
How to Set Up Benchmarks and Reporting for Your Email Program
If you’re an email marketer, you’re probably pretty used to being asked questions like, “How was the open rate on that email campaign?” or “How did you choose that subject line on that email?” The answers to these questions can often be a bit more complex than the requester realizes. To thoughtfully and accurately answer these types of questions, we need to make sure we’re comparing apple to apple metrics, and have strong and dependable reporting to reference back to.
9 Time Saving Tips for Marketers
We all want to be the best marketer we can be, but time just doesn’t let us have it all. There aren’t enough minutes in the day to stay up on all the latest marketing trends, to write new, engaging copy for each email you send, or to attend to each request that comes your way.
Balancing Customer Email Requests at a Scaling Company
Being on the email team at an email company brings a lot of visibility and, oftentimes, scrutiny. We’ve all heard the old adage that “the paint is always peeling at the painter’s house,” or “the chef unwinds to a TV dinner.” But while our team has made more than a couple of mistakes over the years, we do our best to keep our email program in tip-top shape. Executing flawless campaigns is just one part of the battle though.
6 Tips and Examples for Personalized Email Marketing
Personalization, also known as 1 to 1 marketing and marketing to the individual, is an increasingly common tactic that marketers are using to connect with their prospects and customers. In email, this means segmenting your data into different categories (e.g. male and female, U.S. and U.K. residents, or first-time purchasers and consistent customers) in order to provide more tailored content and to create a greater connection with each individual receiving your email.
What Makes A Great Display Ad?
Whether you’re new to advertising or an expert veteran, making a great display ad is tough work. How do you make your message resonate in an ocean of advertising? What does it take to break through and actually catch someone’s attention? How do you make a great ad?
How Adding SMS to Your Email Program Can Keep Your Contacts Engaged
Now that Twilio and SendGrid have combined to create a more complete customer communication platform, we want to let you know about how you can start leveraging SMS to better reach your customers. Twilio SendGrid was built by developers, for developers, and now you can benefit from another robust API. SMS, (which stands for Short Message Service) adds another communication channel that you can use to reach your contacts.
Twilio Programmable SMS App Inspiration
You may have heard that SendGrid joined forces with Twilio. In order to have a better understanding of Twilio’s products, many on the SendGrid team participated in Twilio Bootcamp to learn about Programmable SMS and create our very own Twilio-based app. Our apps ranged from comical enjoyment to the impossibly cute with ideas that send you DJ Khaled quotes or corgi gifs.
Creating an Email Development Workflow
Most of us know that email development can be a bit tricky and that it doesn’t typically follow best practices that we see across websites and applications. In short, it can be a pretty frustrating process, especially, if you’re planning on creating a whole set of custom templates for your business needs. This is where a solid workflow can help, breaking up the development process into manageable chunks and making sure we don’t get too far down the road before noticing a big problem.
Clever Transactional Email Subject Lines and Tips
Email marketers talk a lot about subject lines because they are one of the keys to getting email newsletters and promotions opened. Marketers love to test variables like the length of subject lines, calls-to-action in subject lines, and even emojis–all in the spirit of increasing subscriber engagement. On the other hand, transactional emails, like purchase receipts and account alerts, tend to have more dry, to-the-point subject lines.
6 Tips For Responding to Your Email Recipients
Here at SendGrid, we not only send billions of emails a month on behalf of our customers, but we’re also responsible for sending emails to our own customers. Over the years, the email team (known as Nurture and Conversion internally) has juggled the art of sending out mass email communications while responding to customer replies. We want to share our experience with you along with suggestions on how to approach recipient replies and what constitutes a good response.
How to Optimize Your Email for Mobile
From the customer email you review mid-flight to the email you write while you’re waiting in line at Starbucks, we’re all doing much more on our phones. In fact, SendGrid found that a majority of emails (55.6%) were opened via a mobile device. As more and more of our communications occur on-the-go, it’s important to send emails that look great across all devices. Here are 10 tips to help you optimize your emails for mobile devices. 1.
What Are Email Blacklists? How to Avoid Them in 2020
Most email marketers have found themselves on at least one IP or domain blacklist at some point. If you find yourself on a blacklist, it’s a good idea to assess your address collection practices, evaluate your sunsetting policy, and then request a delisting at the relevant blacklist removal form (if they’re available). The impact of having your IP or domain on a blacklist can range from being a small annoyance to a complete showstopper for your email deliverability.
Catalyst 2018 Review and 2019 Preview
To kick off 2019 we’re taking a look back at a few of the Catalyst videos released in 2018 and a look forward to what’s to come in 2019. If you’re not familiar, Catalyst is SendGrid’s new video series that’s focused on sharing marketer’s career stories (risks taken, advice for starting out, big wins, and learnings moments along the way) from professionals around the world.
10 Tips for Designing and Developing Emails
A well-designed email shows that you care about your brand and the communications you send to your customers. It helps foster trust among your recipients, making them more likely to engage with your content and continue to open your emails. We all want beautifully designed emails, right? The only thing standing in our way is how we code them… HTML email design is considered particularly tricky.
Pay-Per-Click Trends and Other PPC Best Practices for 2019
A new year is beginning, and that means that now is the best time to review pay-per-click (PPC) best practices and implement new ideas into your program. Looking to the future of PPC, 2019 will bring on some very important trends that will help define the space. Audience targeting Google has made it easier for marketers to target users beyond keywords, device type, and location.
What are Display Ads, and How Can They Help You in 2019?
There are so many different forms of advertising out there, and more are created all the time. As a marketer, you have a plethora of choices when you want to promote your brand: billboards, radio spots, podcast sponsorships, and even television commercials are all options when it comes to teaching people about your brand or company. The fact is, however, some forms of advertising are a bit more targeted and effective than others.
Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2018 By The Numbers
The halls are being decked–which means we’re over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday hump, and eagerly awaiting the New Year. So now’s a perfect time to sit back, relax, and review the trends that marked SendGrid’s biggest mailing days of the year and ruminate on how to make the coming holidays even more successful. The Big Picture We saw massive email sending volumes on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday that translated to a 43% and 37% year over year growth respectively.
3 Ideas for Thank You Email Campaigns
We ask a lot of our customers: to click, look, read, purchase, attend. It’s important to stop asking every once in a while and give thanks to the people that keep us in business. From a recipient perspective, it’s refreshing to receive a thank you email and be recognized for our contribution. And from the business side of things, it’s not only a good reminder to be grateful, but also a great opportunity to connect and engage with your customers.
Your Guide to Nurture Emails
Nurture emails are excellent tools that you can use to move prospective customers down the sales funnel until they make a purchase. Nurture emails, drip campaigns, and welcome emails are all really similar.
SendGrid v3 API + Postman
Developers use a wide array of different applications, code libraries, and methodologies to build out their SendGrid integrations for sending all types of mail related to their businesses. From transactional type order confirmations, password resets and identity emails to promotional newsletters to drive sales or introduce new products or services.
5 Email Types Explained (With Examples)
Product, event, promotion, oh my! There are many different types of emails that you can send for a variety of purposes. To help you craft the best email for your business goals, below we’re sharing examples of 5 different types of emails and tips for each. Keep reading for information on product, privacy, event, educational, and promotional emails. The product release email When sending a new product or update email, refrain from including every detail about your product.
What Is Email Throttling?
We discussed email throttling in a previous post called Email Throttling Basics, but we wanted to revisit the subject and talk a little more about how throttling works within the SendGrid platform and how it affects email sending. Email Throttling Causes Some ISPs limit (throttle) the amount of email they accept from a particular sender during a specified period of time.
SMTP Service Crash Course
Today, we’re re-visiting Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) basics including the benefits of using SMTP, who should be leveraging SMTP in their email programs, and some common questions that email clients ask when getting set up. 1. What is an SMTP service? On the most basic level, an SMTP service functions as a method to send emails from one mail server (or mail client) to another across the Internet.
What's Display Ad Retargeting, and Why is it so Effective?
With the recent release of SendGrid Ads, you can now leverage display ads to grow your business and increase website engagement. One of the best ways you can do this is through display ad retargeting. What is display ad retargeting? Retargeting, also called remarketing in some circles, refers to the common digital advertising practice of targeting your website visitors with ads when they’re on websites other than your own.
Transactional Email
Transactional and marketing email both serve specific use cases. Far and away, the biggest question we get from potential and existing customers alike is this: “What’s the difference between marketing email and transactional email?” Whether you’re sending a newsletter, coupon, promotion, password reset, account update, or any other email communication, we can help you get those messages delivered.
Shared and Dedicated IPs: Which Should You Choose?
Trying to determine whether you should be on either a shared or a dedicated IP? Before you make any decisions, let’s start with the basics. All email is delivered over an IP address. It’s basically the pony express for email, but a lot faster! Internet Service Providers, such as Gmail and Yahoo!, use the IP address to determine whether or not to deliver your email to the inbox based on your sending reputation. If you have a good reputation, your email is more likely to get delivered.
Causes of Email Delivery Failure
You work hard to create emails that engage with your customers or audience, so it can be very frustrating to learn that some recipients never received your email during an email delivery failure. Despite the fact that your customers request and agree to receive your emails, Internet Service Providers (ISPs—like Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL) and other filters can make can make 22% of them go undelivered. What’s a sender to do? First of all, it’s important to understand that it’s not personal.
Email Marketing Length Best Practices
Providing valuable content that isn’t too long is one of the bigger challenges facing marketers and content producers, and it’s especially difficult with emails. There are so many factors to consider when writing emails—the devices your recipients use to view your emails, the type of content you’re including, your offer/CTA, the list goes on. To help you determine the best length for your emails, here’s a look into all things email length, from subject lines to copy, and everything in between.
Email Sending Reputation 101: IP Reputation vs. Domain Reputation
Email deliverability is influenced by a lot of factors, including sender authentication, keeping clean email lists, sending wanted content, having a good sending reputation, and much more. Your sending reputation is how ISPs identify you as a legitimate sender. Every time you send an email campaign, ISPs collect valuable data that says whether or not you follow proper sending practices. There are two types of email reputation—IP reputation and domain reputation.
Email Marketing Examples and Tips From Holidays Past
2020’s been a year, and now we’re to make it or break it season. Get your end-of-year campaigns right, and you might just stroll into the New Year with a smile on your face. To help send the very best holiday email marketing campaigns and engage with customers during the busiest season, here are insights from holiday emails past that broke through the inbox hubbub. Short and sweet solutions Uber’s email “Flying to the feast?
SMTP Relay Service 101 [Back to Basics]
Simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) delivers outgoing email and does not accept incoming email. You may have heard the term SMTP relay service, especially if you’re looking for an email provider for a newsletter or transactional email delivery. But why is delivering outgoing email only so important and how does it work? Peer-to-peer email hosted via the cloud and accessed on a web browser is not sufficient for specific types of mass email campaigns and programs.
Email Marketing Inspiration - Learning From the Best
As a highly-caffeinated individual, my ear is always perked for word of the best coffee shops in town, so when Yelp’s email arrived in my inbox with the subject line, “Look directly into this email for coffee ☕,” how could I not open it?
How to Use Gmail Actions in Your Email Program
What are Gmail actions? We’ve all seen them in our inboxes–those little grey buttons on the right side of email subject lines that provide a direct route to that email’s call to action without having to open the actual email. We see call outs like, “View order” or “Track package.” Gmail actions enable recipients to interact with your product or service from right within the inbox and without opening the email if they don’t need to (fewer steps means less friction).
Be an Email Superhero: 8 Ways to Beat Your 2018 Email Goals Right Now
Sometimes being an email manager can feel like a thankless job. With tireless hoops to jump through (changing ISP filters, new email laws, troubleshooting engagement stats, etc.) it seems like you need superhero capabilities to get through it all! We believe anyone who helps create email campaigns is a superhero in disguise.
How Email Authentication Works
Email authentication is a daunting subject. There’s often an alphabet soup of acronyms and initialisms. But the core concepts are not complicated, and most everyone will be able to quickly understand them. Email authentication has become increasingly necessary as spammers and phishers continue to use email to distribute unwanted or harmful messages. Most email servers now use a number of protocols to verify email messages before they reach the intended recipient.
Time-Sensitive Mass Email: How-tos and Tips
Sometimes you have a time-sensitive mass email that needs to be sent in order to accomplish an immediate goal or meet a requirement.
Why Buying Email Lists is a Bad Idea & How to Grow a Healthy Email List
If you’re a marketer, you’re likely juggling several tasks at once such as feeding the sales funnel, increasing brand awareness, driving engagement, and creating valuable content pieces. And if you use email as part of your marketing program (and I seriously hope you do), you have likely been solicited by companies that want you to buy an email list.
Test Before You Trust: Black Box Email Tools
Remember that game MASH? It told you how certain major areas of your life would end up. What is your spouse’s name? How many kids are you going to have? What kind of car will you drive? The game was certainly entertaining and fun, but not intended to be taken too seriously nor provide accurate information. In the email marketing world, there are some tools out there that have about the same level of accuracy as MASH, but are unfortunately given much more credit than deserved by those selling them.
How To Get The Most Out Of New Gmail Features in 2018
We all know Gmail is building great things all the time and continually improving their products. It’s also nice when we hear what these updates are and how they may affect email deliverability as it can affect email marketing goals and strategy.
How to Get the Most From SendGrid's New Knowledge Center
Whether you’re sending your first email campaign, troubleshooting sending, or exploring ways to optimize your sending strategies, the new SendGrid Knowledge Center empowers you with how-to articles and reference information on the SendGrid user interface, Marketing Campaigns, APIs, and webhooks. The Knowledge Center replaces our former documentation website and ensures that resources are concise, easy to find, and provide you with the answers you were looking for.
Avoid No Reply Email & Learn Best Practices to Follow Instead
No-reply emails are easy to recognize as they typically from an address that looks like “noreply@domain.com.” While brands might think a no-reply email address is the solution to receiving a flood of email replies, it actually frustrates and confuses users. Additionally, it interferes with communication and negatively impacts email deliverability. In this post, we’ll discuss why no-reply emails are a problem, and why we decided to create a workaround.
How Cached Images Affect Email Engagment Metrics
Email was built to provide an easy-to-use electronic communication platform. Since the first legitimate message was sent in 1971 and the first spam message was sent in 1978, there has been an ongoing dance for email filters to determine which message is which. Because of this, the delivery consultants here at SendGrid often hear a familiar question from the marketers we work with.
How to Use SendGrid's Dynamic Templates for Your Transactional Emails
Imagine it’s time to update one of your transactional email templates. Whether you’re updating a time-sensitive password reset, purchase receipt, registration confirmation, or any other type of communication, one thing remains true: the importance of transactional email templates to your business is critical.
How Apple's DMARC Changes Affect Email Senders
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance, otherwise known as DMARC, is a protocol and best practice for email deliverability that continues to grow within the email marketing world. Email mailbox providers continue to update their DMARC policies and we want to make sure email senders are aware of these changes and what it means for their programs. Yahoo and other inbox providers have done it previously, and Apple is the most recent inbox to take this step.
How to Play (and Win) the Email Marketing Game
Do you ever feel like creating an email is a bit like playing a game and winning is a moving target? To help you reach the finish line, we’ve created a training plan we’re calling Play the Game of Email that takes you through 3 levels of email marketing optimization and breaks down all the steps you need to take when creating a marketing email. Not ready to play the full game?
Lead Generation: 5 Tactics Every Marketer Should Focus On
As marketers, we are constantly trying to multitask, generate and evaluate reports, and do whatever possible to ensure our marketing-related revenue charts are pointing north. Marketers are often tasked with generating leads for the sales staff or the organization as a whole, but how do we scale those efforts while ensuring the leads we drive are high quality?
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