Transactional email is subject to mailbox provider spam filters and require a good sending reputation to ensure inbox placement. Transactional email reaching the inbox is as important, and in some cases more important than bulk marketing email because there may be legal requirements, purchase information or important notifications involved.
Many of the benefits realized for marketing email are also realized for transactional email using Everest.
Common types of transactional email
- Receipts, order confirmations, shipping confirmations, password resets, legal notifications, policy updates, registration confirmation, abandoned shopping cart, and re-engagement.
How can I use Everest with my transactional email?
Send transactional email to the seed list:
- Identify all of the types of transactional emails sent to your subscribers.
- Analyze the volume of your transactional emails sent throughout the day and week and look for times of higher volume.
- During peak volume times, send a copy of your transactional email to the seed list from your email system.
- Set it up programmatically: Ask your Email Service Provider, email administrator or IT department to configure or program your sending system to deploy a copy of your transactional message to the seed list at a specific time of day or after every nth message. For example, after every 10000 messages are sent to subscribers, message 10001 is sent to the seed list. Be sure to set it up to stay within your allotments as outlined in your service agreement.
- Send a message manually: Using a transactional email template, enter any personalization using fake subscriber information. Send that transactional email from your sending system to the seed list, similar to how you send a marketing email.
- Send transactional email to the seed list at the same time as your marketing email to determine if your marketing email may be affecting the transactional email's performance.
Design & Content
- Review the appearance of all transactional email templates in Design & Content to ensure the template is free from HTML or design errors and that it is easily recognizable via the friendly-from address (display name) and branding.
- When making changes to any transactional templates, test in Design & Content first.
- Design with engagement in mind. Although you are sending a transactional email, it is a good idea to include prominent calls-to-action to encourage the subscriber to engage with the email. Higher engagement contributes to a positive sender reputation and increases your chances of reaching the inbox.
Sender Score
- Monitor the sending reputation of your transactional IP addresses using Sender Score. Transactional emails often become an afterthought of an email program. Notifications and other transactional emails are often sent to people who have no current relationship with your company and may not be interested in receiving your emails.
- Sending transactional messages to unengaged subscribers or customers can lead to an increase in complaints, unknown users and spam traps.
- If transactional emails share an IP address or domain with marketing messages, deliverability may be affected, especially if the marketing messages don’t adhere to sending best practices.
- Monitoring your transactional IP address with Sender Score helps you to see correlating data between transactional and marketing email.
Engagement
Similar to marketing messages, it is important to know what email clients and devices are being used to open your transactional email. For example, should a large percentage of your email be opened using mobile devices, you will want to ensure that all of your transactional email templates are easily viewed on mobile devices.
- Use custom properties to help identify the different transactional templates and email segments.
Certification
- Certify your transactional IP addresses to help ensure important messages reach the recipient.
- Many Validity customers certify their transactional IP addresses.
How does it benefit me?
Although transactional email is sent based on an action or trigger to a subscriber, it is perceived by mailbox providers no differently than bulk marketing email in terms of IP address and domain reputation. Everest allows transactional senders to experience the same benefits as all Everest clients with a robust email optimization platform infused with insightful and actionable data.