Reading and interpreting email error messages is vital for resolving delivery issues and maintaining a healthy sender reputation.

It's really important to actually look at what the error messages are saying. If you're looking at data from just like an overview level, sure you're gonna see bounces, you're gonna see that that number increase, but it doesn't tell the whole story. You have to, you know, get in there, dig into the data, dig into the error messages and the error codes and really kind of find those patterns...

Takeaway:

• Investigate error messages beyond surface-level metrics.
• Identify patterns in error codes to troubleshoot delivery issues.
• Adjust your email strategy based on insights from error message analysis.

Understanding how zero deliveries can falsely show engagement metrics is essential to accurately assessing your email campaign performance.

We did notice that, you know, there were situations where we saw zero deliveries for, you know, let's say we've never delivered to this address, but it's recorded engagement. And that's what, you know, the sender was looking at, that's what they were actually using to filter...

Takeaway:

• Acknowledge that engagement metrics may be misleading without successful deliveries.
• Investigate anomalies where engagement is recorded but no delivery occurred.
• Cross-reference delivery data with engagement to ensure accurate insights.

Focusing on successful deliveries ensures that your emails are reaching recipients, which is fundamental before considering engagement metrics.

But what we saw is that they would continue those bounces, sometimes even different types of bounces, but they never got anything successfully delivered. So that was a key metric that seems really simple when you think about it, it's like, oh, if it didn't bounce, or if it bounced and it didn't deliver, but you don't really put that together when you're looking at your data.

Takeaway:

• Verify that emails are actually delivered to recipients.
• Address delivery failures before analyzing engagement metrics.
• Ensure deliverability to maximize the impact of your email campaigns.

Email deliverability involves both art and science, requiring a balance of data analysis and strategic decision-making.

That lends itself to the discussion that we've had a number of times is, you know, is deliverability an art or a science? You know, how much interpretation is there, how much hard data is there? And I think the term that we coined on one of the previous engagements I was on was the dark arts of deliverability.

Takeaway:

• Understand that email deliverability requires both data analysis and strategic intuition.
• Recognize the need for continuous learning and adaptation in deliverability practices.
• Balance best practices with tailored approaches for your specific audience.

Analyzing both error codes and bounce messages helps you make informed decisions on email list management and improves deliverability.

One of those best common practices is just as Nick said, making sure that you're looking not just at, you know, 5 XX or 4 XX or that you're looking just at the text of the bounce message but that you're looking at both together because a lot of times if you look at just one or just the other on an island, it doesn't give you that context...

Takeaway:

• Review both error codes and bounce messages for accurate diagnosis.
• Understand that relying on one without the other may lead to misinterpretation.
• Improve deliverability by making informed decisions based on comprehensive data.

Understanding the impact of Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) is crucial for adapting engagement tracking and improving email deliverability.

Sunset policies are so much more difficult now though, with things like MPP. Can you trust the engagement? That's why it was actually something from, you know, going back to previous podcast... You need to look at engagement outside of just the email, like, what are these users doing? Are they making purchases with your brand? Are they doing something on the website?

Takeaway:

• Acknowledge that Apple MPP impacts open rate reliability.
• Focus on alternative engagement metrics such as clicks, website visits, and conversions.
• Broaden your engagement tracking beyond email opens to improve deliverability.

Balancing list pruning to improve deliverability while maintaining business goals is key to successful email marketing strategies.

There's absolutely a balance there. How do you know if you haven't done enough? Spamhaus will tell you. How do you know if you've done too much? That's where it becomes a little more of a science or art, if you will. We try to balance it looking at incremental increases there.

Takeaway:

• Prune your email list gradually to maintain valuable subscribers.
• Use feedback from blocklists to adjust your pruning strategies.
• Align list management efforts with business goals for optimal results.

Inconsistent bounce codes from different ISPs can complicate email deliverability efforts, making it vital to understand and navigate these inconsistencies.

Whenever you're doing this investigation and research into different, you know, failures, whether they're permanent and, you know, hard bounces or soft bounces, it gets really confusing to me whenever you see things done by one mailbox provider, that is done differently by another mailbox provider, so it gets challenging from time to time... That's why bounce classification or bounce handling, how your ESP is doing it is extremely important.

Takeaway:

• Acknowledge that ISPs handle bounce codes differently; stay informed about these differences.
• Work closely with your ESP to understand their bounce handling practices.
• Regularly analyze bounce messages to adapt your email strategies effectively.

Correctly interpreting SMTP error codes is crucial for managing email deliverability and ensuring your messages reach your audience.

Generally when we look at what we call a bounce again, you know, everybody's a little different, but the general consensus is that's sort of a permanent bounce. So you attempt to deliver to Brad at gmail.com and you get a bounce back from Gmail that says, you know, this doesn't exist or can't deliver or whatever, 500 error code, generally that's gonna let us know, okay, stop trying to deliver to this.

Takeaway:

• 500-level error codes indicate permanent failures; remove these addresses from your list.
• 400-level error codes are temporary; consider retrying these addresses later.
• Analyze both error codes and the accompanying messages to make informed decisions.

Understanding the role of Spamhaus is essential for maintaining email deliverability and ensuring that your emails reach your recipients inboxes.

We've seen a lot of impact from, you know, our friends at Spamhaus, they've been quite a hot topic in the deliverability space over the past few months, so we've seen a lot of activity from them, a lot of discussion around that.

Takeaway:

• Recognize that Spamhaus is a trusted authority in email blocking; changes they make can have significant industry impact.
• Monitor your email practices to avoid Spamhaus listings by maintaining good sending behavior.
• Stay informed about Spamhaus updates and industry discussions to proactively manage deliverability issues.