Playbook objective
This playbook’s objectives are to:
- Send email representing your entire email program to the Everest seed list for a holistic view into your deliverability problems.
- Add a fully enforced DMARC policy and implementing Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) to your inbox placement improvement plan.
- Expand your Everest troubleshooting skills by comparing inbox tests and reading email headers.
- If you are a new Everest customer with no prior relationship with Validity, complete onboarding to ensure you are familiar with navigating and using Everest.
- If you were a Return Path or 250ok customer and are moving to Everest, complete your migration process.
- Ensure you have completed the Everest Basic Set Up Guide.
- It is recommended to complete the advanced setup guides. Delivery and engagement data will help diagnose deliverability problems.
- Everest Advanced Setup Guide 2: Sending Reputation (FBL Complaints, Microsoft SNDS and Google Postmaster integrations)
- Everest Advanced Setup Guide 3: Engagement (Pixel and ESP/sending platform integration)
Important! Be sure you know the subscription allotments based on your service tier and plan according to your sending frequency. You can find your subscription information by navigating to: My Everest> Account Settings>Subscription
- Common inbox placement challenges
- How Everest's Inbox Placement feature fits into your process
- Obtain inbox placement data using the Everest API
- Send email representing your entire email program to the Everest seed list
- Work towards a fully enforced DMARC policy and implement BIMI
- How to use Everest to compare inbox tests and troubleshoot using email headers
- What to do next
Common sender challenges associated with inbox placement are:
- I have done what I can think of to improve deliverability for my marketing mail and I don't know what else might be affecting performance.
- I need additional ways to troubleshoot deliverability problems such as reading email headers.
By using Everest’s Inbox Placement feature and fixing deliverability problems, senders see improvements in:
- Inbox placement rate
- Delivered rate
- Open rate
- Click rate
A traditional email marketing process consists of three phases: Pre-Send, In-Flight, and Monitoring. Understanding deliverability performance metrics across the email ecosystem is vital to maximizing the return on your email investment.
Pre-send
- Inform your email campaign strategy with Everest’s Competitive Intelligence
- Plan campaign
- Select target subscriber list
- Design campaign
- Validate target subscriber list using Everest’s List Validation
- Test campaign design using Everest’s Design & Content
In-Flight
- Send your campaign to subscribers and the Everest seed list
- View your campaign’s inbox placement, spam, and missing results using Everest’s Inbox Placement feature.
Monitoring
- Monitor engagement metrics using Everest’s Engagement, your ESP, or internal sending platform.
- Monitor sending reputation metrics using Everest’s Monitoring to understand the deliverability impact.
- Monitor DMARC compliance to identify unauthorized use of your domain and brand using Everest’s Infrastructure feature.
If you have not started to use the Everest API, it is recommended to automate Inbox Placement data consumption to save time and for the flexibility to use and view the data according to your business needs. Developer resources required.
Spam filter methodology involves a complex web of data involving your IP addresses and domains. One of the best ways to monitor this relationship is by sending campaigns to the Everest seed list that provide a holistic view of your sending practices and content. You should be sending campaigns to the seed list for your:
- IP addresses and domains
- Email streams
- Transactional and marketing email
- Ad-hoc email campaigns
- Important segments
- A/B tests
Having a full picture into your deliverability performance and sending reputation helps ensure that you don't miss anything that may be impacting your performance. If you only send your marketing mail to the seed list, you'll never know if your transactional mail is harming your overall performance.
Tips:
- Use the Everest Daily Deliverability Checklist as you incorporate Everest into your email marketing workflow and proactively monitor for problems.
- Be sure to check your available allotments prior to sending additional email to the seed list.
Use Everest's full feature-set to support your improvement plans. When all of Everest's features are used together, it arms you with the insights you need to take your email marketing program to the next level.
Add fully enforced DMARC compliance and BIMI to your improvement plan. Messages authenticated with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are less likely to be rejected or perceived as spam by mailbox providers such as Gmail. For senders with a DMARC policy, many of them have the enforcement policy set to "none", which means that mailbox providers take no action on potential domain abuse. In order to get the full benefits of DMARC for your brand, work towards a fully enforced rejection policy. Under a fully enforced rejection policy, when a mailbox provider identifies domain abuse, the email is rejected and not delivered to the recipient.
- Everest Authentication Compliance Playbook: Beginner
- Everest Authentication Compliance Playbook: Intermediate
- Everest Authentication Compliance Playbook: Advanced
Implement Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI)
BIMI requires a DMARC enforcement policy of quarantine or reject for your logo to appear at participating mailbox providers. The higher open rates senders see after implementing BIMI improves sending reputation and can help improve inbox placement.Tips:
- As part of an inbox placement improvement plan, some senders can place a lower priority on a fully enforced DMARC policy and implementing BIMI. But, authenticating your email with SPF and DKIM are a priority to get started, so talk to your email administrator, ESP, or hosting provider to ensure they are set up correctly or to get them implemented.
- You may need to place higher priority on a fully enforced DMARC policy if you are in a high risk industry (e.g. banking, finance, and government) or have a highly visible brand that is more susceptible to domain abuse.
As you work through your inbox placement improvement plan, comparing inbox tests and reading the email headers can help you Identify and fix deliverability problems.
Compare inbox tests
Comparing your inbox tests is a good habit as it helps you identify deliverability patterns and trends for all of your configured mailbox providers. You may use it for comparing:
- The A/B tests for your latest campaign.
- Campaigns from a specific IP or domain.
- Performance from the same or between different segments.
- Tests from a new IP or domain with an existing or old IP or domain as part of your warmup process.
- Campaigns reflecting a change in sending strategy such as a new email address acquisition process, email stream, or increasing sending frequency.
1. Login to Everest
2. Navigate to In-Flight>Inbox Placement
3. On the Overview page, locate the Inbox Placement Trends section and click the subject line of the campaign you wish to compare.
4. Click Settings and select Compare Tests
5. Click Add Inbox Test
6. Select the Inbox Tests you want to compare by clicking the checkbox on the left sideof each test
- You can compare up to three Inbox Tests
7. Click Compare Tests
8. Compare the tests you selected
9. Click Change Test Selection to select different tests
10. Click Export to download a CSV file of the results (optional)
11. Analyze the results for patterns and trends across tests
Troubleshooting using email headers
The email headers can provide additional insights into deliverability problems. You can see:
- Server hops
- Delivery timing
- Authentication results
- X-headers
- Sending IP and domain identification
- Spam fingerprints
- Spam filter analysis
Preview HTML & Headers
1. Login to Everest
2. Navigate to In-Flight>Inbox Placement
3. On the Overview page, locate the Inbox Placement Trends section and click the subject line of the campaign.
4. Click Settings and select Preview HTML & Headers
5. Click the Entire Message tab for details.
- If you see unexpected issues with your HTML or header information, check with your design team, ESP, or email administrator.
- Design issues can be avoided by using Everest's Design & Content feature.
Review headers for a specific mailbox provider
If you are having deliverability problems at a specific mailbox provider, look at the headers for additional clues. Some mailbox providers insert spam fingerprint or filter information into the headers and provide detailed authentication results.
1. Login to Everest
2. Navigate to In-Flight>Inbox Placement
3. On the Overview page, locate the Inbox Placement Trends section and click the subject line of the campaign.
4. Find the mailbox provider you are interested in and click on the details arrow.
5. Locate the seed(s) indicating inbox or spam placement and click on the details arrow to review the headers.
1. Use Everest to identify and fix deliverability problems as you work through your inbox placement improvement plan.
2. Continue reading our other Everest playbooks to help take your email marketing program to the next level.
