Deliverability Failures Remains a Challenge for Commercial Email Senders

Source: Kathleen Maher, Email Product Manager, V12 Group

ReturnPath, the leader in email delivery, conducted a research report the second half of 2009 that showed an inbox placement rate of just 80.1% for permission-based commercial email in the United States and Canada. The report also showed the percentage of mail delivered to the “junk” or “bulk” email folder remained flat at 3% in the July to December time period. 16% was not delivered at all between July and December, a slight decrease from earlier in the year.

Reaching business addresses is still difficult because these inboxes are protected by systems like Postini, Symantec and MessageLabs. Only 75.2% of email is delivered to the inbox through these enterprise systems.

Three Reasons Why Deliverability Is Still a Crisis for Commercial Email Senders:

The Bounce Rate Myth: Senders are generally given reports month after month that show a “delivered” metric that tends to be about 95% to 98%. But in most cases this metric is actually the bounce rate. The system is reporting the number of messages sent through the pipe and subtracting the number that return a hard bounce. Top-tier marketers keep very clean lists and the system itself is set up to clean out those hard bounces quickly (usually before the next send). What senders really need to understand are their inbox placement rate (IPR)- the number of emails that actually arrive in the inbox.

Revenue Masks a Lot of Sins: Email generates a lot of revenue. So, while deliverability failures cost businesses money, this can be masked by the revenue generated by every campaign that goes out the door.

Change is Hard: Many senders are still resistant to implementing the best practices that make email deliverability more likely and more consistent. We still see programs with high frequency, low value and lack of segmentation. Research done by the Return Path Professional Services team in the last 18 months shows high percentages of top brands missing basic best practices like welcome messages, efficient opt-out procedures and appropriate permission level.

Download the complete ReturnPath research report