Email Deliverability in Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) refers to the ability of an email to successfully land in the recipient’s inbox, rather than in the spam or junk folder. A strong deliverability strategy ensures that your emails reach your subscribers and have the best chance of achieving high engagement rates.

To achieve optimal email deliverability, it’s important to follow best practices, maintain a good sender reputation, and regularly monitor key metrics. Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides several tools and features to help improve and monitor deliverability.

Key Elements of Email Deliverability in SFMC

1. Sender Authentication:

1. • Sender Authentication ensures that email service providers (ESPs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) recognize and trust your email domain.
   • Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides tools to help authenticate your emails using SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM
     (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message
     Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance).

Steps to Set Up Sender

Authentication:

1. • SPF: Add an SPF record to your
     DNS (Domain Name System) settings. This tells receiving servers that SFMC
     is authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain.
     • Example
       SPF record:

• v=spf1 include:_spf.salesforce.com ~all

1. • DKIM: Set up DKIM to digitally
     sign your emails, proving that they haven’t been tampered with in
     transit.
     • In
       SFMC, go to Admin > Sender Authentication > DKIM
       to configure.
   • DMARC: DMARC is an email
     validation system that uses SPF and DKIM to prevent email spoofing. Set
     up a DMARC record on your DNS to specify how email receivers should
     handle emails that fail SPF or DKIM checks.

2. IP Warming:

1. • When you send emails for the first time from a new IP address, it’s important to warm up the IP gradually to avoid being marked as spam.
   • IP warming involves sending emails in increasing volumes over a period of time, starting with smaller batches to trusted recipients and gradually expanding.

SFMC Tools: SFMC’s Dedicated IP feature allows you to send emails from your own IP, which provides better control over your sender reputation. However, you must carefully manage IP warming, especially if you’re transitioning from a shared IP.

3. List Hygiene and Data Management:

1. • Maintain a clean and up-to-date email list. Ensure that you are not sending emails to invalid, non-existent, or unengaged email addresses.
   • Use Data Filters and SQL queries to segment your audience effectively and ensure you’re sending relevant content to those who are likely to engage.

Key Strategies:

1. • Remove hard bounces (invalid email addresses) and unsubscribes regularly.
   • Avoid sending emails to spam traps (email addresses set up to catch spammers).
   • Segment your lists based on engagement (e.g., active subscribers, recent opens/clicks) and engagement history.

4. Content Optimization:

1. • The content of your email plays a critical role in deliverability. Avoid spam-like language, excessive use of images, and poor-quality formatting.
   • Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides tools like the Content Detective to analyze your email content and identify elements that may trigger spam
     filters.

Best Practices:

1. • Avoid spammy words and phrases: Phrases like “Free money”, “Get rich quick”, “Guaranteed!”, and excessive use of capital letters and exclamation marks can trigger spam filters.
   • Use a good text-to-image ratio:Too many images without corresponding text may cause your email to be
     flagged as spam.

Personalization: Use personalization to make emails relevant to
recipients. Dynamic Content and AMPscript can enhance personalization
and reduce the likelihood of emails being marked as spam.

5. Engagement Metrics:         

1. • High engagement rates
     (opens, clicks, and replies) signal to ISPs that your emails are wanted,
     which positively impacts deliverability.
   • Track metrics like bounce
     rates, complaints, unsubscribes, and spam complaints.

Key Metrics to Monitor:

1. • Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who opened your email.
   • Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of recipients who clicked a link within the email.
   • Bounce Rate: The percentage of emails that were not delivered.
   • Spam Complaints: The number of recipients who marked your email as spam.
   • Unsubscribes: The number of people who unsubscribed from your list.

SFMC Tools for Monitoring:

1. • Use Email Studio to track campaign performance.
   • Use Tracking and Reporting features in SFMC to monitor real-time deliverability and engagement statistics.

6. Feedback Loops (FBLs):

1. • Feedback Loops (FBLs) are services provided by ISPs that inform you when a recipient marks your email as spam. Setting up FBLs ensures that you can quickly remove these users from your list and prevent further complaints.
   • SFMC allows you to manage feedback loops for supported ISPs, ensuring you address deliverability issues promptly.

7. A/B Testing:      

1. • Use A/B Testing to test different email subject lines, content, and send times to identify what works best for your audience and improve engagement rates.
   • Higher engagement leads to better
     deliverability.

8. Send Time Optimization:

1. • SFMC offers tools like Send Time Optimization (STO) that allow you to send emails at the optimal time for each individual subscriber, based on their past engagement.
   • By sending emails when recipients are more likely to open and interact, you improve your chances
     of reaching the inbox and driving engagement.

9. Dedicated IP Address:

1. • Consider using a dedicated IP address if your sending volume is high enough. With a dedicated IP, you control the reputation of the IP and don’t share it with other senders.
   • However, you need to maintain consistent sending volume to protect the reputation of the dedicated IP, so it’s a good option for brands with a significant email sending volume.

Tools in SFMC for Improving Deliverability

1. Sender Authentication
   Package (SAP):
   • This package provides tools to authenticate your sending domain and ensure your emails are not flagged as spam.
2. Content Detective:
   • A tool that scans your email for elements that may trigger spam filters (e.g., suspicious links, excessive punctuation, unbalanced text-to-image ratio).
3. Deliverability Reports:
   • Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers reports that help you track your email performance in terms of deliverability. These reports allow you to see bounce rates, unsubscribes, complaints, and other key metrics.
4. Bounce Management:
   • SFMC automatically handles hard bounces (invalid emails) by removing them from your active list. It also tracks soft bounces (temporary issues, such as a full inbox), allowing you to try again with a different approach.
5. Engagement Metrics:
   • Use the Tracking tab in Email Studio to monitor how many emails are being delivered, how many are being opened, and what the click-through rates are.

Best Practices to Improve Email Deliverability in SFMC

1. Maintain List Hygiene:
   • Regularly clean your email list to remove inactive subscribers, bounces, and unsubscribes.
2. Use Double Opt-In:
   • Use a double opt-in process to ensure that subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails. This can help reduce complaints and improve engagement rates.
3. Test Your Emails:
   • Test your emails using pre-send tests in SFMC to see how they will be perceived by spam filters.
4. Monitor Reputation:
   • Use tools like SenderScore or third-party reputation checkers to monitor your sender reputation.
5. Follow Spam Regulations:
   • Always comply with email regulations like CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and CASL to ensure that your email practices are legal and ethical.

Conclusion

Email deliverability is a crucial factor for the success of your email marketing campaigns in Salesforce Marketing Cloud. By focusing on authentication,
list hygiene, engagement, and content optimization, you can significantly improve your email deliverability and ensure that your messages reach your subscribers’ inboxes.