Campaign Performance Requirements: Achieving Optimal Results

Achieving optimal campaign performance is essential for effectively reaching and engaging your target audience. Thus, SiteGround Email Marketing incorporates predefined metrics as a requirement to prevent spam. To maximize the success of your campaigns, it’s crucial to meet these performance requirements and ensure your messages are well-received.

In this article, we’ll explore the key performance requirements for Bounce Rate, Marked as Spam Rate, and Unsubscribe Rate. By understanding and adhering to these requirements, you can enhance the performance and deliverability of your email marketing campaigns.

SiteGround Email Marketing Campaign Performance Requirements

The main performance metrics SiteGround Email Marketing analyzes are:

• Bounce Rate;
• Marked as Spam Rate;
• Unsubscribed Rate;
• Suspicious content.

These requirements help ensure that the service is not used to send spam. Thus, monitoring and improving these metrics is crucial for email marketing success.

By keeping your Bounce rate low, minimizing the Marked as Spam rate, and managing Unsubscribe rates effectively, you can optimize your email deliverability, maintain a positive sender reputation, and foster stronger connections with your audience.

In this section, we’ll explore these performance requirements in more detail, so read on.

Bounce Rate

A Bounce rate occurs when emails cannot be delivered due to invalid or non-existent email addresses, full mailboxes, or technical issues with the recipient’s email server.

A low bounce rate holds the key to maintaining a stellar sender reputation and ensuring your messages land in the right inboxes. It includes both hard bounces (undeliverable due to invalid or non-existent email addresses) and soft bounces (temporary delivery issues). Thus, cleaning your email list is essential for maintaining a healthy and engaged subscriber base.

A high bounce rate can negatively impact your email deliverability and sender reputation. Regularly monitoring and managing your bounce rate can help you maintain a clean and engaged email list. Maintaining a low bounce rate also improves your email deliverability and ensures your messages reach their intended audience.

5 Strategies to Lower Email Bounce Rate

Improving your email bounce rate is essential for maintaining a healthy email list and maximizing the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. Here are 5 strategies to help you reduce your Bounce rate:

1. Use Double Opt-In – Implement a double opt-in process where subscribers confirm their email addresses by clicking a verification link. This ensures that the email addresses you collect are valid and reduces the chances of typos or fake addresses.
2. Regularly Cleanse Your Email List – Regularly review and clean your email list to remove invalid or inactive email addresses. Utilize email verification tools or services to identify and remove hard bounces. Do not be tempted to buy email listings!
3. Maintain Sender Reputation – Ensure that your email-sending practices align with industry standards and best practices. Implement proper authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to verify your sending domain and establish a good sender reputation. Monitor blacklists and address any issues promptly to maintain a positive reputation.
4. Monitor and Analyze Bounce Data – Regularly analyze bounce reports provided by our Email Marketing service. Identify patterns or trends in bounce types and take appropriate actions to address specific issues, such as addressing content-related triggers or investigating potential delivery problems.
5. Maintain List Hygiene Practices – Encourage subscribers to update their email addresses if they change and provide an easy way for them to do so. Promptly remove unsubscribed or inactive subscribers from your list to prevent future bounces.

Implementing these strategies can improve your email bounce rate, enhance your deliverability, and ensure your messages reach your intended audience.

Marked as Spam Rate

The Marked as Spam Rate indicates the percentage of recipients who have flagged your emails as spam or unwanted. A high Мarked as spam rate can be detrimental to your email marketing efforts.

ISPs and email service providers closely monitor spam rates to protect users from unwanted content. If your emails have a high Мarked as spam rate, it can damage your sender reputation. This leads to lower deliverability and lands your future emails in the recipient’ spam folders.

Emails are marked as spam by recipients when they perceive the content as unsolicited, irrelevant, or deceptive, often leading to negative experiences with previous senders or suspected malicious intent.

7 Tips to Minimize Reported as Spam Rate

Minimizing the marked as spam rate is crucial for maintaining a good sender reputation. Here are 5 effective strategies to help you minimize the Reported as Spam Rate:

1. Obtain Explicit Consent – Ensure that you have explicit permission from recipients to send them emails. Use permission-based marketing tactics, like opt-in forms or checkboxes, to obtain consent.
2. Segment and Personalize Your Emails – Segment your email list based on subscriber preferences, interests, or demographics. By sending targeted and personalized content, you increase relevance and engagement, reducing the likelihood of being marked as spam. Personalization can include using recipient names and tailoring content to their specific needs, making your emails more relevant and less likely to be marked as spam.
3. Optimize Email Content – Avoid using spam trigger words, excessive capitalization, or misleading subject lines. Craft clear, concise, and valuable content that aligns with recipients’ expectations.
4. Use SSL-Secured Links – Incorporate SSL encryption for the links included in your emails. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption ensures a secure connection between the recipient’s browser and your website. It protects sensitive information and demonstrates your commitment to data security. SSL-secured links enhance trust and reduce the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam.
5. Authenticate Your Emails – Implement authentication protocols such as SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance). These protocols verify the authenticity and integrity of your emails, reducing the likelihood of being flagged as spam.
6. Manage Complaints and Feedback – Actively manage spam complaints and feedback from recipients. Address complaints and feedback professionally and use them as an opportunity to improve your email marketing practices.
7. Stay Updated on Anti-Spam Regulations – Stay informed about anti-spam laws and regulations in your target regions. Ensure compliance with laws such as the CAN-SPAM Act or GDPR to maintain ethical email marketing practices and avoid potential legal issues.

Unsubscribe Rate

Retaining a dedicated and engaged subscriber base is a top priority for email marketers. The unsubscribe rate represents the percentage of subscribers who opt out of receiving future emails from your list. While it may seem counterintuitive to focus on unsubscribes, it is an important metric for maintaining a healthy email list.

A high unsubscribe rate may indicate that your content is not meeting subscribers’ expectations or that your targeting is off. Thus, you should pay attention to the unsubscribe rate to gain insight into your audience’s preferences. This way, you can adjust your email content, frequency, or targeting strategy accordingly.

Recipients choose to unsubscribe from email lists primarily due to disinterest in the content, receiving too many emails, or changing their preferences over time.

5 Recommendations for Reducing Email Unsubscribe Rates

Reducing unsubscribe rates is crucial for maintaining a healthy, engaged email subscriber base. Here are 5 recommendations to help you minimize Unsubscribe rates:

1. Provide Relevant and Valuable Content – Deliver highly relevant content to your subscribers’ interests and needs. Segment your email list based on demographics, preferences, or past interactions to ensure you’re sending tailored content. By consistently providing value, you increase engagement and decrease the likelihood of recipients unsubscribing.
2. Set Clear Expectations – Be transparent about what subscribers can expect when they sign up for your emails. Clearly communicate the frequency, type of content, and benefits they will receive. By setting accurate expectations from the start, subscribers are more likely to stay engaged and less likely to unsubscribe due to unexpected content or frequency.
3. Optimize Email Frequency – Finding the right balance for email frequency is crucial. Sending too many emails can overwhelm subscribers and lead to unsubscribes, while sending too few can cause recipients to lose interest. Regularly analyze engagement metrics to determine the optimal frequency for your specific audience and adjust accordingly.
4. Actively Manage Subscriber Preferences – Provide subscribers with options to manage their preferences. Allow them to choose the types of content they receive, update their frequency preferences, or select specific topics of interest. Giving subscribers control over their email experience can help retain them and reduce unsubscribes.
5. Implement an Exit Survey – When a subscriber chooses to unsubscribe, offer them the option to provide feedback through an exit survey. This feedback can provide valuable insights into why people are opting out and help you identify areas for improvement in your email marketing strategy.

Suspicious Content

Suspicious content in email marketing refers to elements within an email that raise red flags or indicate potentially harmful or deceptive intentions. It includes various practices that can trigger spam filters, alert recipients, or violate email marketing best practices.

Examples of suspicious content can include emails containing bad or broken links, phishing attempts, fake offers or promotions, misleading subject lines, personal or financial information requests, suspicious attachments, or fraudulent messages.

Suspicious content can significantly impact an email marketing campaign. It is damaging to your sender reputation and reduces deliverability. Moreover, suspicious content can decrease open and click-through rates and potentially lead to legal and financial consequences for the sender.

How to monitor my Campaign performance according to these requirements?

SiteGround Email Marketing reports on your campaign’s Bounce Rate, Spam Rate, and Unsubscribe Rate. You can monitor these metrics from your Client Area > Services > Email Marketing > Analytics. In that section, you will find all your campaigns listed, and you can see the Bounce rate generated by each campaign.

To get more information about emails reported as spam and the percentage of unsubscribed recipients, click on the campaign you are analyzing. The following page shows the metrics result of your campaign so that you can consider your actions accordingly.

Note that high Bounce rates, Reported as Spam rates, and Unsubscribed rates may lead to the suspension of your campaign. Thus, you must take action to reduce any high values of these metrics to ensure the proper flow of your campaign. If your campaigns excessively exceed the predefined limits, your Email Marketing service may be Suspended.

With a firm commitment to meeting the performance requirements of your campaigns, you’ll avoid penalties, preserve your sender reputation, and unlock the full potential of your email marketing endeavors.