Before You Begin:
- Transgressions by one GrowthZone customer affect ALL GrowthZone subscribers — GrowthZone uses a shared pool of email servers. When one server gets flagged for a violation, it affects all customers using that server pool.
- Review these recommendations before sending any large mass email campaign.
Pre-Send Best Practices
- Text-to-image ratio: Messages over 40% images generally receive a higher spam score, contributing to emails landing in junk mail or being caught by firewalls. Test your text-to-image ratio here. *Third-party site used for best practices — GrowthZone has no control over third-party sites.
- Missing Alt Text tags: Adding alt text to images improves spam scores by indicating your message follows ADA guidelines. See alt text recommendations here. *Third-party site used for best practices.
- Active Email List Management: GrowthZone provides multiple reports and actions to help keep your email lists current and clean. List management is an ongoing practice, not a one-time task.
- Arbitrary 6-month limit: Messages older than 6 months will receive a high spam score. There is an arbitrary limit of 6 months for email replies — replies after this period are given a high spam score and may restrict your ability to respond. Old threads are common spoofing candidates.
Post-Send Email List Management Steps
Email list management is the best regular task for maintaining a strong email-sending reputation. After each mass email, take these steps:
- Check email delivery stats. Go to Marketing & Communication, Communication section, click All Communications. Click the … in the Actions column for your mass email and select Delivery Stats. See View Email Delivery Statistics for more detail.
- View Delivery Failures (Soft Bounces and Rejections). Soft Delivery Failures that remain for 3–4 days after sending should be evaluated on a per-error basis to determine whether they are caused by someone marking the email as spam. See the FAQ on rejection errors below.
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Download the Soft Bounces and Rejections list and act on it. Click the download icon in the top right corner of the Soft Failed Communication Details window. Use this list to reach out to contacts or as a checklist of whom to remove from your list.
Tip: The downloaded list includes each contact's phone number and any additional email addresses on their record — a ready-made call list for follow-up.
Other Cleanup Tips to Improve Engagement
GrowthZone automatically marks hard bounces as invalid. It also does not attempt to send to contacts who have no address, are set to "Do Not Contact," or are duplicates. These contacts do not harm your email reputation, but updating their contact info will improve their engagement with your association.
Check these additional locations for addresses that may need attention (reach out to contacts and get updated email addresses, or remove them from your mailing list):
- View Delivery Failures (Hard Bounces) on the Email Delivery Stats.
- View "Removed Due to Flood Protection, Invalid, Do Not Contact, or No Email Address" on the Email Delivery Stats.
- Review the Invalid Email Addresses Report to see a list of everyone with invalid addresses in your entire database. Filter to the most recently marked invalid to start with your most current contacts.
Additional Recommendations
Segment your list of active members from non-members and, where possible, further into smaller groups. Sending to groups separately makes it easier to isolate issues if troubleshooting is needed.
What Is GrowthZone Doing to Help?
GrowthZone continually monitors to ensure outbound emails are not getting its IP addresses added to blacklists such as the SORBS list. If an email causes a blacklisting, GrowthZone can generally match the listing's date and time to the email message that caused it; however, the date and time may correspond to a previous email that is now retrying. Good mailing list management and knowing your lists consist of real, opted-in contacts is the best defense.
If an entry on a blacklist is traced to a specific list from your domain, there may be no option other than removing that list entirely. Segmenting into smaller groups and sending at different times can help identify the offending list more quickly.
FAQs
Q: Why does the Email Delivery Stats screen show different soft-bounce numbers today vs. yesterday?
A: After an email is sent, certain bounced emails are retried several times. As retries succeed, the bounce count decreases. Wait 3–4 days after sending for the final, stable list of soft bounces. Note: the Email Delivery Failures report retains all bounces and is not cleared.
Q: Is it OK to delete an email address marked as invalid?
A: Yes. Adding a previously marked invalid email address back to another contact will retain that invalid status if re-entered.
Q: Why don't I need to regularly review Hard Bounces?
A: You can actively correct them, but hard bounce addresses are no longer damaging your email reputation because GrowthZone automatically marks them as invalid.
Q: Is it OK to delete contacts I no longer want?
A: Generally not recommended — especially when a contact has historical data (event registrations, payments, membership history, etc.) attached. However, deleting a specific email address from a contact record is acceptable.
Q: What do the various Rejection errors mean for Soft Bounces?
A: Rejections vary in cause but often indicate that the recipient's ISP views you as a spammer. Examples: 550 - Rejected by header based manually Blocked Senders, 550 - Envelope blocked, 550 - we do not accept mail from this address. There is no standard message format from ISPs.
Common Pitfalls
- Don't wait until there's a problem: Email list hygiene should happen after every mass send, not just when deliverability issues arise.
- Don't look at Delivery Stats immediately after sending: Soft bounce numbers fluctuate as retries succeed. Wait 3–4 days after the send date for stable, final data.