When email marketing is done well, it can be one of the most effective tools in a
marketer’s arsenal. But there are a lot of factors that play into whether your
messages end up in the inbox or the spam folder. This is why email deliverability is
so important.
The simplest definition of email deliverability is the ability for an email to get
delivered directly to the primary inbox of the recipient. It includes the ability for an
email to avoid being filtered or blocked, and it also involves making sure the email is
readable when it does land in the inbox. This means that marketers need to
understand how different elements of the email can influence delivery, and they
need to know what to look for if they are having deliverability issues.
Increasing email deliverability ensures that your emails are not only being sent but
that they are being received by your target audience, and it gives your message
more visibility. If your emails are consistently being filtered or blocked, the majority
of your audience will never see your message and may never even notice that it is
there. Achieving high email deliverability can make all the difference in the success
of your campaigns.
There are a variety of things that can impact email deliverability, and some of them
are more common than others. The top two factors that determine whether an email
is delivered or pushed into the spam folder are identification and reputation.
Identification asks whether the sender is who they say they are, and reputation asks
if the sender can be trusted to provide engaging and relevant content.
In order to improve deliverability, it is important to consider the following
best practices:
1. Only send to people who have given you permission. This means that you should
always ask for permission before sending to any new subscribers, and you should set
expectations about how often they can expect to hear from you. This is an important
step for improving email deliverability because it can help to prevent a large
percentage of your messages from getting pushed into the spam folder.
2. Use clear and concise subject lines that accurately reflect the content of your
emails. This will help to reduce the number of your emails being marked as spam,
and it can also help to increase your open rate.
3. Avoid spam trigger words in your subject line, preheader text, and email copy.
This can include triggering words such as “money” and “free,
” as well as symbols
and exaggerated numbers.
4. Keep your bounce and unsubscribe rates low. These metrics are important for
both improving email deliverability and driving a strong sender reputation with ISPs.
ISPs weigh engagement and sentiment in their decisions, so if you are constantly
sending to people who don’t engage with your content it can damage your
reputation over time.
5. Consider using a dedicated IP address. This can help to
improve email deliverability because it helps to isolate your reputation from other
businesses who are also using the same IP address, and it can also prevent a shared
pool of IP addresses from being blacklisted by ISPs.

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Hi, I’m Colleen Hiltz — a retail manager turned freedom-seeking digital marketer.
After two decades of clocking into 9-to-5s, I traded in store aisles and tight schedules for affiliate marketing and a laptop lifestyle. Now, I help everyday people break free from burnout and start building income online — no fluff, no overwhelm, just real strategies that work.
For over 20 years, I lived the daily grind — long hours, limited freedom, and the kind of routine that makes your dreams feel like something you read about in a magazine. I managed retail teams, supported homebuilders, and worked tirelessly to build a stable life. But deep down, I knew I wanted something different — something more.
Colleen Hiltz
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