Authored by Adrian Williams, Founder of Email Angels
As an email deliverability consultant for the past ten years, I have worked with many different clients within different industries. Although each client presents its own unique need for my services, these are the tools that I have used to effectively solve their deliverability issues. These five tools have my highest recommendation when it comes to managing your email deliverability.
1. Excel Sheets
Although Airtable and similar platforms may suffice, Excel Sheets is my most important tool. I pull every single metric into an Excel sheet to create different dimensions to examine all the data points available. Once you have a “pulse” on the metrics, you’ll quickly notice anomalies that can indicate deliverability problems. It also forces you to look at everything. If you’re trying to resolve an existing problem, compare previous data points to current ones. In my experience, this will reveal the issues 90% of the time.
2. Seeds for Monitoring and Engagement
Seeds are the ultimate email growth hacking tool. They can be used for monitoring, or boost engagement for difficult scenarios up to a certain volume. It’s also great to kickstart a new domain and IP, especially if you don’t have a lot of engaging records yourself. For B2B mailing, I consider seeds invaluable, and InboxAlly is currently my favorite seed tool to use.
3. Deliverability Focused ESP
An ESP designed to maximize deliverability should have granular metrics broken out by ISPs like Gmail, Microsoft, and Verizon Media Group. Study the specific mailbox providers’ metrics to find which one(s) have issues. The ESP should also allow for throttling and different engagement segmentations based on the different ISPs. Another critical feature is the ability to plug in external SMTP relays. There’s no perfect system. The best tool I found to maintain deliverability is Ongage coupled with Sparkpost.
4. Email Intelligence Tool
If you haven’t heard of eDataSource, you’re in for an amazing treat! It allows you to get visibility to most of the high-volume senders. It will tell you their open rates, spam-folder ratio, and more. I’ve used it often to monitor my own email programs, and I’m always surprised to see how accurate eDataSource is.
5. Postmaster Tools
Checking your reputation with different ISPs is crucial because different ISPs have different tools and visibility. Outlook, Gmail, and Verizon Media Group are the three main ones you should sign up for.
Keep in mind that all of the tools above will not fix deliverability issues by themselves. The “know-how” on how to find the root causes and finding solutions are always more important. Be aware of the business model of the mailing program you’re analyzing, and reaffirm the following to yourself — “the right message, to the right user, at the right time.” If the recipients are not interested in your emails, getting them out of the spam folder will not fix anything.
