Are you send your e-mail blast, you realize that many of the e-mails ended up 'Bounced', 'Rejected', or 'Undelivered'.
How did this happen and how can it be prevented?
1) Why is my e-mail's status listed as 'Rejected' in my 'Donor Management' system?
Here are some of the most common reasons e-mails in your 'Donor Management' system can have a status of 'Rejected':
your IP address has been "denied" by the recipient (or their e-mail client)
the content of your e-mail contains elements the recipient's e-mail provider has flagged as "Junk" or "Spam"
there was a technical issue that occurred between the two servers (yours and the recipient's) at the time you attempted to send the e-mail
2) What is a “deliverability rate”?
A “deliverability rate” is the rate at which a particular e-mail was successfully delivered to your contacts without any obstacles, such as getting caught in a "Junk" or "Spam" folder. They are measured in percentages – for example, an e-mail with a deliverability rate of 45% means that 45% of the intended recipients received it with no issue.
3) What is an “open rate”?
An “open rate” is the rate at which e-mails are opened by recipients, instead of being left unread or deleted. A “click-to-open" rate (the “clicked” metric in your 'Email Blasts') is the rate at which individuals who opened that email clicked on the links within – like a link to your donation page, or your nonprofit’s social media accounts.
To learn more about how Bonterra is working to address changes to e-mail open rates, check out this related article.
4) What is considered a “good” deliverability rate or a “good” open rate?
It can be difficult to determine a “good” deliverability rate in the nonprofit sector since several factors can impact how successful an e-mail’s deliverability is. A "good" deliverability rate can depend on how large the e-mail’s audience is, how large the e-mail was, and several other aspects that are difficult to compare across the entire nonprofit sector.
However, nonprofit organizations have one of the highest industry averages for their e-mail open rates, with 20-25% of nonprofit e-mail communications being opened by their recipients. The click-to-open rate for nonprofits can also vary, depending on what kind of link is included in the message. Only about 1% of e-mail recipients click on links within a nonprofit’s e-mail blast – but, nearly 5% of e-mail recipients click links that allow them to share the message or post directly to social media.
5) What causes an e-mail’s deliverability rate to decrease?
Many things can negatively impact an e-mail’s deliverability rate. Here are some of the most common:
generic “from” e-mail addresses, such as noreply@yourorganization.com, or development@yourorganization.net
using “shortened” URLs for links or buttons within the message
e-mail subject lines in all capital letters
e-mail subject lines that include special characters or excessive punctuation
sending communication infrequently or inconsistently
sending an e-mail to a large audience (e.g. 10,000 contacts)
sending too many similar e-mails to the same audience within a short amount of time
including large attachments, images, or videos
inconsistent formatting (such as using multiple colors and fonts)
spelling errors
6) How can you improve an email’s deliverability rate?
There are several ways to help increase the chances your e-mail hits more of your contacts’ inboxes:
remove any e-mail addresses that previously have unsubscribed or bounced from your mailing lists
update your 'Email Blast Senders' in 'Donor Management' (Not sure how? Learn more here.)
use the full link (including the https://) when including a hyperlink, image, or button within the body of the e-mail
use short, catchy, personalized subject lines that avoid excessive punctuation, special characters, or all capital letters
personalize the e-mail by using merge fields to pull in a donor’s name
be consistent with your font colors and sizes throughout the message
use spell-check
send consistent communications to your audience (weekly, monthly, etc.)
use filtering and segmenting to share the e-mail with multiple targeted audiences (Want to learn more about filtering and segmenting to send more effective e-mails? Click here.)
minimize the size and number of images and attachments included in the e-mail
avoid the use of that may trigger e-mail clients to assume the message is not legitimate (Examples: “free gift”, “giveaway”, “miracle”, “promise”, “act now”, “take action”, “dear friend”, etc.)