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Improving Email Marketing
Inbox or Spam Folder?
Message Opened or Ignored?
Prospect Engaged or Just Annoyed?
ISPs (Internet Service Providers) play a critical role in determining whether marketing emails reach their intended recipients or end up in the spam folder.
They use a combination of algorithms, filtering systems, and engagement metrics to categorize emails, identifying those that provide value and those considered spam. For auto dealerships and other businesses relying on email marketing, understanding how ISPs filter and judge emails is crucial to improving deliverability and ensuring that messages reach customers' inboxes.
1. The Role of Algorithms in Email Categorization
ISPs use algorithms to analyze factors like sender reputation, email content, recipient engagement, and authenticity to determine if emails reach the inbox, promotions folder, or are marked as spam. While designed to block unwanted emails, even legitimate marketing emails may be flagged if they don't meet ISP criteria, making compliance with best practices essential for businesses.
2. Sender Reputation
ISPs prioritize sender reputation when filtering emails, considering factors like bounce rates, spam complaints, and engagement. For auto dealerships, maintaining a strong reputation is vital. High bounce rates, low engagement, or spam complaints can harm deliverability. Sending to a clean, updated email list and encouraging engagement helps protect reputation and improve inbox placement.
3. Content Analysis: What Triggers Spam Filters?
ISPs analyze email content for spam indicators like keywords, formatting, and suspicious links. Overuse of promotional language, all-caps, or excessive punctuation can trigger spam filters. Auto dealerships should balance their content, avoiding aggressive sales language and focusing on value-driven messages, such as service reminders or personalized offers, to improve deliverability.
4. Relevance: What’s In It For Them?
Relevance is crucial to an effective email message as it ensures that the content resonates with the recipient's needs, interests, or current situation, increasing the likelihood of engagement. Tailoring the message to be timely and specific enhances its value, making it more likely to achieve the desired response or action. The message has to be about them… not your offer, product or service… but about what it can do specifically for them.
5. Engagement Metrics: How Customer Interaction Affects Deliverability
ISPs monitor recipient engagement, such as open and click-through rates, to determine future email deliverability. High engagement signals value, increasing inbox placement, while low engagement or spam complaints can lead to emails being flagged as spam. Auto dealerships can boost engagement by sending personalized, relevant content and segmenting email lists based on customer preferences and history.
6. Email Volume and Frequency
ISPs consider email volume and frequency when filtering messages. Sudden spikes or excessive emails can trigger spam filters. Auto dealerships should maintain a consistent email schedule, like monthly newsletters or spaced-out service reminders, to avoid overwhelming recipients and causing disengagement or unsubscribes, which can harm reputation.
7. Technical Authentication: Proving Email Legitimacy
ISPs also use technical protocols to verify the legitimacy of an email sender. These protocols include technologies such as SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance). These systems help ISPs ensure that the email is coming from a legitimate sender and has not been spoofed or altered during transmission.
8. Spam Traps and Blacklists
ISPs also employ spam traps—email addresses that are not actively used by real people but are monitored for unsolicited emails. If a sender’s email ends up in a spam trap, it indicates to ISPs that the sender may not be following best practices for list management, such as sending to outdated or invalid email addresses. Hitting a spam trap can severely damage a sender’s reputation and reduce deliverability.
Similarly, if an auto dealership’s IP address or domain is flagged for sending spam, it can end up on a blacklist. Emails from blacklisted senders are automatically blocked from reaching recipients. To avoid these issues, dealerships should regularly clean their email lists, removing inactive subscribers, and ensuring that their list contains only valid, engaged recipients.
9. Machine Learning and Evolving Filters
ISPs use machine learning algorithms to constantly refine their spam filtering processes. These algorithms adapt over time, learning from previous data to better categorize incoming emails. As a result, even emails that once passed filters could later be flagged as spam if engagement drops or if the content appears suspicious based on new patterns.
For auto dealerships, staying informed about changes in email marketing best practices and adjusting strategies accordingly is crucial for maintaining high deliverability rates. Continuous monitoring of email performance metrics, such as open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates, provides insight into how ISPs view the dealership’s emails.
This post was a very short adaptation from just one of the chapters in the New DealersEdge Guide - "Senior Management's Guide to Automotive Digital Marketing".
This guide is loaded with information that dealership senior managers can use to understand the details of the digital marketing process and... more importantly... guide them to asking the right questions when evaluating those efforts by your staff or outside contractors.
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