Keeping Holiday Emails Out of Spam
A Guide to Boosting Deliverability & Engagement
As we dive into the holiday season, inbox competition reaches an all-time high. With a surge of festive promotions and holiday offers, the last thing you want is for your brand’s carefully crafted emails to be marked as spam. Ensuring your emails make it to the inbox, and that they’re opened and engaged with, is key to achieving your holiday campaign goals.
Here are some expert tips, drawing from best practices with tools like Klaviyo and HubSpot, to maximize email deliverability and keep your holiday messages front and center.
1. Segment Your Audience for Targeted Outreach
Why It Matters: When emails reach the wrong audience, recipients are more likely to mark them as spam, which damages your sender reputation.
How to Do It: Segment by previous purchase behavior, engagement level, and preferences. For example, create segments of highly engaged customers, holiday shoppers from past years, and new subscribers who opted in during the recent season.
Pro Tip: If a customer hasn’t engaged in six months or more, consider a separate re-engagement campaign before sending regular holiday promotions. This keeps your main holiday emails relevant and focused.
2. Keep Your Email List Clean
Why It Matters: An outdated list with inactive or invalid email addresses increases your bounce rate, leading to lower deliverability.
How to Do It: Schedule regular “list hygiene” checks, especially before major sends, to remove hard bounces and inactive contacts.
Pro Tip: Set up automated sunset workflows to gradually phase out unengaged subscribers, ensuring your list is always optimized.
3. Perfect Your Email Authentication
Why It Matters: Email authentication establishes trust with ISPs (Internet Service Providers), signaling that your emails are legitimate and reducing the chance they’ll be flagged as spam.
How to Do It: Ensure that SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are properly set up for your domain.
Pro Tip: If you’re not tech-savvy, work with your IT team or email provider to get these essential records configured. It’s a small step that makes a big difference in deliverability.
4. Craft Compelling, Non-Spammy Subject Lines
Why It Matters: Subject lines packed with “spammy” words like “Free,” “Discount,” and “Sale” can trigger spam filters.
How to Do It: Instead of directly mentioning “discount” or “sale,” focus on subject lines that evoke curiosity, exclusivity, or urgency without sounding spammy.
Pro Tip: Avoid all caps, excessive punctuation, and emojis in your subject lines. Shorter, curiosity-inducing phrases like “A Holiday Gift Just for You” often perform better and stay out of spam folders.
5. Optimize Send Times for Maximum Engagement
Why It Matters: Timing affects engagement rates, and low engagement can harm your sender reputation.
How to Do It: Use send-time optimization to identify when your audience is most likely to open emails. For holiday campaigns, consider early mornings, lunchtime, or late evenings when subscribers have time to browse.
Pro Tip: Run A/B tests for different times if you’re unsure. For holiday-specific messages, Sundays can work surprisingly well, as customers may have time to plan their shopping for the week.
6. Create a Responsive Email Design
Why It Matters: With more users opening emails on mobile devices, a non-responsive design can lead to poor user experience and higher unsubscribe rates.
How to Do It: Test your emails across various devices and screen sizes. Make sure buttons, images, and text look good on both desktop and mobile.
Pro Tip: Keep CTA buttons large and easy to click on smaller screens. Also, preview your email in dark mode, as many users now read emails with this setting enabled.
7. Use Personalization Strategically
Why It Matters: Personalization creates relevance, which boosts engagement and reduces the likelihood of spam complaints.
How to Do It: Use dynamic fields to personalize subject lines, greetings, and even specific product recommendations. Rather than generic offers, highlight products or categories based on past purchases or browsing behavior.
Pro Tip: Start with simple personalizations like the recipient’s name or past purchase category, and gradually increase complexity as your list data allows.
8. Monitor and Adjust Based on Engagement Metrics
Why It Matters: High bounce rates, low open rates, and low click-through rates can signal spam filters to flag your emails.
How to Do It: Keep an eye on open rates, click-throughs, and unsubscribes, especially during the holidays, and make adjustments as needed.
Pro Tip: If open rates are unusually low, consider sending a “lighter” version of the email or a plain-text reminder to re-engage unresponsive segments.
9. Send from a Consistent Domain and Email Address
Why It Matters: Consistency builds trust with ISPs and subscribers, making it less likely for your emails to be marked as spam.
How to Do It: Stick with one or two trusted email addresses for holiday communications. Avoid frequent changes, which can confuse ISPs and lower deliverability.
Pro Tip: Avoid using free email domains (like Gmail or Yahoo) for bulk sends. A custom domain is more reliable for building and maintaining a strong sender reputation.
10. Test, Test, Test—Then Test Again
Why It Matters: Email testing ensures your message renders correctly across all devices and filters out potential issues before hitting send.
How to Do It: Preview emails and spot-check for issues. Use Litmus or Email on Acid for additional render testing if possible.
Pro Tip: Test subject lines, preview text, and from-name combinations as part of your final checklist. This comprehensive approach prevents last-minute hiccups and keeps your emails looking professional.
By following these steps, you can ensure your holiday emails stay out of spam folders and connect with customers just as you planned. Implementing these tactics not only increases deliverability but also enhances the overall customer experience, boosting your holiday success rate and setting a strong foundation for ongoing engagement in the new year.