Between the moment you click "Send" and the moment your recipient reads your email, a surprising amount happens. Decisions are made about whether the message gets through at all, whether it lands in the primary inbox, in the promotions tab or straight in the spam folder. In this lesson we will walk through the whole journey of an email and explain the terms we will use throughout the course.

The journey from sending to the inbox

When you send a campaign in Quanda, the message travels from the sending server to the server of the recipient's mailbox provider. This is called an ESP, an Email Service Provider. Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo and others.

The receiving server inspects your message first. It essentially asks three questions. Is the sender really who they claim to be? Do they have a good reputation? And does the content look like something the recipient wants? Based on the answers, it decides whether to accept the message, reject it or file it in the spam folder.

This filter exists for a good reason. It is estimated that up to 80 percent of all emails sent worldwide in a single day are spam. Mailbox providers simply do not want their users to find dozens of unwanted messages in their inbox every day.

Delivered, not delivered and the spam folder

In practice, sending results come in three forms and it pays to keep them apart.

• Delivered. The recipient's server accepted the message. Careful, delivery does not yet mean the email sits in the primary inbox. It may be in the promotions tab or in the spam folder.
• Not delivered. The server rejected the message and returned a code with the reason. Codes starting with the digit 4 mean a temporary problem, for example an overloaded server or a full mailbox. In that case Quanda keeps retrying delivery for up to another 120 hours. Codes starting with the digit 5 mean a permanent rejection, typically a non-existent address or a typo.
• Marked as spam. The message was delivered, but the recipient flagged it as unwanted. For your reputation, that is the worst possible outcome.

The difference between a temporary and a permanent rejection is often described as a soft bounce and a hard bounce. A soft bounce is an outage that resolves itself. A hard bounce is the end, the address will never work again.

The three pillars of deliverability

Everything we cover in this course falls into three areas. Remember them, because this is the order in which they are worth tackling.

The first pillar is technical sender authentication. SPF, DKIM, DMARC and a verified sending domain. Without it, even the best content will not help you, because the receiving server has no way to confirm that you are really you.

The second pillar is sender reputation and database hygiene. Mailbox providers keep a long-term record of your domain and sending address. How many of your messages bounce as undeliverable, how many people mark them as spam, and how many people open and read them instead.

The third pillar is the content itself. What the subject line looks like, how the links are built, what the ratio of text to images is, and whether the message has a working unsubscribe link.

What "good" deliverability means

Deliverability is not a single number you tick off somewhere and you are done. It is a state that changes over time and that you maintain through work. A healthy database with honestly collected contacts and a properly configured domain commonly sits at a deliverability rate around 98 percent and above. With a purchased database, deliverability commonly drops below 70 percent.

In the following lessons we will go through each pillar separately. We will start with the technical side, domain authentication, because without it the rest of your effort loses its meaning.

Mailbox providers need to know that an email with your address in the sender field was really sent by someone you authorized. Three technologies serve this purpose, and they are all configured in the DNS records of your domain. It sounds complicated, but in reality it is a few lines you fill in once and then have peace of mind. In this lesson we will explain what each record does and how to set them up in Quanda.

SPF, DKIM and DMARC in plain language

SPF, the Sender Policy Framework, says which servers are allowed to send mail on behalf of your domain. The receiving server looks at where the message came from, compares it with the list of authorized servers and can tell whether someone is impersonating you.

DKIM, DomainKeys Identified Mail, adds a digital signature to every outgoing message. Thanks to asymmetric encryption, the recipient can verify not only the sender but also that nobody altered the content of the message along the way. Over time, DKIM helps build your sender reputation.

DMARC, Domain based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance, builds on the previous two. It does not verify anything by itself, it tells receiving servers what to do with a message that failed the SPF and DKIM checks. It also lets you receive aggregate reports about who is sending mail in your name.

Verifying your sending domain in Quanda

In Quanda, you set up SPF, DKIM and sending domain verification by adding three CNAME records. If you also want linkbranding, which we will get to in a moment, you add six records in total. The procedure is as follows:

1. Log in to Quanda and go to the page "Settings / Domain verification & DNS".
2. In a new tab, log in to the service that manages the DNS records of your domain. It is usually your domain registrar or hosting provider.
3. Add the CNAME records exactly as they are listed in Quanda. Some services automatically append your domain to the end of the record name. If that is the case, fill in only the first part of the name to avoid duplication.
4. Return to Quanda and click the "Check DNS records" button. Verification can take several hours.
5. Once everything is in order, green check marks appear next to the domain. Repeat the procedure for every sending domain you use.

The records labeled "s1" and "s2" are the domain keys, that is DKIM. Without them, your message remains technically unsigned.

Setting up the DMARC record

DMARC is configured as a separate TXT record named _dmarc. A typical starting record looks like this:

v=DMARC1; p=none; pct=100; rua=mailto:you@yourcompany.com; sp=none; aspf=r; adkim=r;

The p value defines the policy. Always start with p=none, where nothing is blocked and you only collect reports. Once the reports show that all sending from your domain is properly signed, switch to p=quarantine and finally to p=reject. If you want to check whether you already have a DMARC record, you can verify it at mxtoolbox.com.

An important warning. As soon as you enable DMARC, all mail from your domain gets checked, not just campaigns from Quanda. So make a list of every place your emails are sent from. Regular correspondence, notifications from your online store, forms on your website. SPF and DKIM must be in order everywhere.

Linkbranding and free mail providers

Linkbranding replaces the onquanda.com domain in the links inside your emails with your own domain. It uses a subdomain such as link.yourcompany.com, for which you generate an SSL certificate and set up a redirect. The links then look like yours, which strengthens the credibility of the message.

And one more rule. Never send bulk emails from addresses on free mail providers such as gmail.com or yahoo.com. You cannot set up DNS records on those domains and Gmail blocks such messages. Always use your own company domain.

The technical setup of your domain is the ticket. Reputation decides whether you get all the way to the primary inbox. Mailbox providers keep a long-term record of your domain and sending address and use it to make decisions about every following campaign. The good news is that your reputation is fully in your hands. In this lesson we will look at what destroys it and how to build it up instead.

What makes up your sender reputation

Providers mainly track these numbers across your mailings:

• The share of undelivered emails. A high number of non-existent addresses is the classic sign of a purchased or neglected database.
• The share of spam complaints. Gmail requires the complaint rate to stay below 0.3 percent. Above that threshold, your messages start falling into the spam folder.
• Recipient engagement. Opens, clicks and replies are a signal that people want your messages. Long-term ignoring by your whole database, on the other hand, drags your reputation down.
• Sending regularity. A stable rhythm is better than three years of silence followed by a sudden mailing to ten thousand addresses.

You can keep an eye on your reputation in Google Postmaster Tools. Registration is free and you will see the reputation of your domain, your complaint rate and any authentication errors.

Why purchased databases kill deliverability

Buying a ready-made database looks like a shortcut. In reality, it is the fastest way to destroy your reputation. More than 40 percent of the addresses in purchased databases tend to be outdated or non-functional, so deliverability commonly drops below 70 percent. On top of that come complaints from recipients who never gave you their consent.

The consequences are not limited to one campaign. A damaged domain reputation carries over into all your future mailings, including those to your own loyal customers. Repairing it takes months.

Working with blacklisted contacts

Quanda automatically excludes addresses that could not be reached from your mailings. You will find them in the contact list under the "Blacklisted contacts" filter. For each contact, you can see the reason in the Hard Bounce Reason and Soft Bounce Reason columns.

A hard bounce means a permanent rejection. The address does not exist or contains a typo. Fix such contacts, replace them with new ones or delete them. A soft bounce means a temporary problem, for example a full mailbox. Quanda automatically tries such addresses again after some time.

If neither column is filled in for a contact, it means your email was marked as spam. It may have been flagged by the recipient themselves or by their email client. Do not contact such a contact again.

Unsubscribed contacts and regular hygiene

Unsubscribing is the recipient's legal right and Quanda handles it automatically. After a click on the link in the footer, the contact's GDPR section is set to the status "Cannot send (unsubscribed)" and the contact no longer appears among campaign recipients at all.

Keep unsubscribed contacts in Quanda, do not delete them. By deleting them you would lose the history and the very record of the unsubscribe, so you would risk accidentally contacting them again during the next import.

A proven hygiene rhythm looks like this. The day after every campaign, go through the list of undelivered addresses and fix what you can. Once a quarter, look at the contacts that have not opened a single message in the past six months. Try reaching them with one reactivation campaign, and remove those who do not respond from your regular mailings.

A smaller, active database delivers better than a large, dead one. The number of contacts is a vanity metric, deliverability is the one that earns money.

You have a verified domain and a healthy database. The last pillar remains, the message itself. Filters look at what the email looks like, how the links in it are built and whether it meets the legal requirements for commercial messages. In this lesson we will go through what to avoid and what belongs in every campaign.

Legal requirements for commercial messages

GDPR and the applicable e-privacy rules are clear on this, and provider filters look at the same things. You must not send a commercial message if:

• it is not clearly identified as a commercial message,
• it hides or conceals the identity of the sender,
• it does not contain a valid address where the recipient can tell you they no longer want to receive further messages.

Every campaign therefore needs sender details and a working unsubscribe link in the footer. The unsubscribe link is not a sign of weakness. It is your insurance against people marking you as spam instead of unsubscribing, which is much worse for your reputation.

Links that look suspicious

The most common technical mistake in content concerns links. To measure clicks, Quanda replaces all links after sending with addresses pointing to its system and redirects the recipient to the target from there. If you use a web address directly as the visible link text, for example when you turn the words www.yourcompany.com into a link to www.yourcompany.com, the visible address stops matching the real one after sending.

At that moment, the email client suspects that you are trying to deceive the recipient and marks the message as suspicious or fraudulent. The solution is simple. Never use a URL as the link text. Instead of "Visit our website at www.yourcompany.com", write "Visit our website" and place the link on those words.

Linkbranding from the second lesson helps too. When links carry your own domain, they look more natural to recipients and filters alike.

Subject line, images and structure

Filters also judge appearance and wording. There is no magic list of forbidden words, it is about the overall impression. Stick to a few principles:

• Write the subject line like one person talking to another. No all-caps across the whole field, no strings of exclamation marks and no promises like "FREE!!!".
• Do not build the whole email from one large image. Filters have nothing to read in such a message and many recipients have images turned off by default. Always write real text.
• Send value, not just calls to buy. Messages like "Buy now" every single week lead to complaints faster than anything else.
• Do not attach files unless necessary. Replace them with a download link.
• Keep the message a reasonable size. Email clients truncate HTML code that is too long.

Before you send: a short test

Before every larger mailing, send yourself a test email to several mailboxes at different providers. Ideally Gmail, Yahoo and a company Outlook mailbox. Check which folder the message landed in, what it looks like with images turned off and whether all the links point where they should.

If the test messages do not display correctly or the images do not show, it may be down to the settings of your email client. In Outlook, you can add a sender to the safe senders list on the Home tab under the Junk button in Junk Email Options. In Thunderbird, the same is found in Options in the Privacy & email content section.

This five-minute ritual will save you a lot of grief. Once a campaign is sent, you cannot take it back.

Deliverability cannot be managed by gut feeling. You need numbers, and above all you need to know what each value really means. In this lesson we will go through the statistics Quanda shows for every campaign, explain why the open rate is less and less reliable, and set up a simple monitoring rhythm.

Terms in the campaign statistics

For every campaign in Quanda, you will find these values:

• Sent. The number of unique recipients the email was sent to.
• Delivered. The number of unique recipients the email was delivered to.
• Not delivered. The number of recipients the message could not be delivered to. You will find their list, including the reasons, at the bottom of the statistics page.
• Total opens and unique opens. The first number counts every open, the second counts each recipient only once. If one person opens the message ten times, the first number goes up by ten and the second by one.
• Total clicks and unique clicks. The same logic. One recipient who clicks five different links adds five to total clicks and one to unique clicks.
• Marked as SPAM. The number of recipients who flagged your message as unwanted. Again, you will find the list at the bottom of the statistics page.
• Unsubscribed. The number of recipients who used the unsubscribe link in the footer.

For deliverability, three of these matter most. The share of delivered messages, the share of spam complaints and the share of unsubscribes.

Which numbers to watch and where the limits are

You calculate deliverability as the share of delivered messages out of those sent. With a healthy database and a verified domain, it should stay high and definitely should not drop below 95 percent. If you see values around 70 percent, your database contains outdated addresses and it is time for the hygiene from the third lesson.

Keep your spam complaint rate below the 0.3 percent threshold that Gmail requires. You will see this value more precisely in Google Postmaster Tools than in the statistics of a single campaign, because it is calculated across all your sending.

A healthy unsubscribe rate sits around a few tenths of a percent. A sudden jump is always a signal. It usually means you sent something people did not expect or you contacted a segment you had not communicated with for a long time.

Why the open rate is no longer reliable

Opens are measured with a tiny image that loads the moment the recipient displays the message. This mechanism has stopped working reliably. Apple Mail with privacy protection enabled loads the images itself right after delivery, so the message is reported as opened even if nobody saw it. Conversely, recipients who have images turned off are not counted as opens at all.

The practical consequence is simple. Treat the open rate as a rough trend, not as a precise figure. Make your decisions mainly based on clicks and conversions. If you build automations or the winning criterion of an A/B test on opens, consider switching to clicks.

A monitoring rhythm

For the numbers to be worth anything, you have to look at them regularly and at the right scale.

After every campaign, review the share of delivered messages, the list of undelivered addresses and the counts of complaints and unsubscribes. Fix faulty addresses, remove the permanently undeliverable ones.

Once a month, check Google Postmaster Tools for your domain reputation, your complaint rate and the results of SPF, DKIM and DMARC authentication. Also check the DMARC reports arriving at the address from the second lesson.

Once a quarter, compare deliverability over time, go through inactive contacts and verify that your linkbranding certificate is still valid. Write down your conclusions. In a year, you will have your own overview of what helps your deliverability and what hurts it.