Everything You Need to Know About Improving Email Deliverability in Eloqua

Despite having a growing mix of marketing channels, email continues to be the most trustworthy communication channel.

According to research, email marketing continues to deliver unmatched ROI, almost $36 for every $1 spent^[i].

Another research suggests, 306 billion emails are sent every single day⁽ⁱⁱ⁾!

Now, the question is, how many of them are spam? The answer is – In 2021, spam emails account for 45.1% of email traffic⁽ⁱⁱ⁾.

Getting your email a spot in your audience’s inbox is a top priority, but getting it is tricky.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) manage email deliverability and provide spam-blocking measures to keep spammers out of their customers’ inboxes. ISPs soft or hard bounce those emails. Deliverability is highly affected by such bounces.

Email deliverability is the probability of reaching the subscriber’s inbox. That’s why you need a robust marketing automation platform with compliance settings to ensure your emails get to the right people and don’t end up in spam.

Eloqua users are already ahead of the game when it comes to planning and executing marketing campaigns. Although, users may still have issues with email deliverability.

In this read, we will decode how ISPs affect email deliverability in Eloqua and smart ways to eliminate the issues and improve email deliverability in Eloqua.

Let’s get started!

How Eloqua Can Equip You to Combat ISPs Impact on Email Deliverability?

To keep spam emails and malicious senders at bay, ISPs employ several methods, such as ISPs block all the senders after they receive spam complaints or hard bounce mails. Blocking emails remains for two days and one week. In some cases, the block is indefinite, too.

However, they manage tons of emails every day, which can also have an impact on your Eloqua email deliverability.

Eloqua provides tools and services to help improve your deliverability rates. Let’s take a look at what they are and how to take advantage of them:

1. Eloqua Email Sending Limits

ISPs establish sending limits to restrict how many emails you may send in a particular amount of time. The limit of your sending emails in Eloqua depends on the frequency of sending emails. If your sending limit is exceeded in Eloqua, ISPs will automatically soft bounce all your emails, until the reset.

If you are sending emails once a week, then you might have a greater sending limit. Similarly, if you send emails daily, your sending limit will be less. Sender reputation also plays a key role in email sending limits. If there is a spike in sending volume, your email will get a soft bounce, no matter how good your reputation is.

Pro-Tip – Soft bounces can be avoided by gradually increasing your Eloqua send volume. If you are running a massive Eloqua campaign to your global list, you must get your send volume up at least 30 days before the campaign date. This is possible through Eloqua email throttling.

2. Eloqua ISP Seed List

Eloqua doesn’t permit you to detect if an email is going to spam with Dashboards or Insights. But there’s a way around it if you don’t want to use a third-party email analytics report – Eloqua ISP Seed List!

This Seed List is a collection of an array of email addresses of contacts or prospects. You can use it to:

• Verify how your emails work with different ISP
• Test HTML and text versions of your email

For instance, the contacts or prospects in a seed list could have email accounts with multiple ISPs to allow testing for deliverability to each ISP.

Also, you can even develop an Eloqua program that uses match rules, which in turn, will set ISP on a separate contact or custom object record field so that it’s possible for you to see the way various ISPs are dealing with your emails.

3. Oracle University

Oracle University offers multiple instructor-led courses to help you ace email deliverability. They are:

• Best Practices: Email Deliverability
• Eloqua 10: Custom Subscription Management
• QuickCast: IP Warming Basics

4. Oracle Deliverability Operations Support Team

This support team is a global team of experts dedicated to providing support for various deliverability issues. Each expert extends their global and local expertise in email deliverability and enables Oracle University customers to identify deliverability issues, assist in understanding the reasons behind the issues, and provide actionable recommendations to address the issues.

Smart Ways to Ace Your Eloqua Email Deliverability

It’s important to get your emails in the inbox rather than just getting them delivered. Brands think differently about email deliverability. There is a higher chance of customer engagement if your email gets delivered to the right address.

“High deliverability can be tough, but it’s very doable” – Andrew Maffettone.

We have listed some smart tips to improve Eloqua email deliverability.

Focus on the quality of the email list, not the quantity, for this, you must:

• Analyze your prospect email list regularly to ensure email addresses are current and valid.
• Segment lists so that the target audience receives only the type and frequency of emails they specified.
• Segment active and inactive recipients.
• Generate and track reports to get insight into bounces, complaints, and unsubscribes.
• Perform IP Warming when launching new campaigns.
• Avoid buying lists as they usually include spam traps.

To steer clear of spam, here are some tips to keep in mind:

Develop a good domain reputation by –

• Understanding your Sender Score and monitoring it regularly.
• Authenticating your IP address.
• Gaining customer permission and control issues to avoid complaints.
• Avoiding spam trigger words like – free, guarantee, make money, $$$, and so on.
• Avoiding scraping websites for email addresses, because it is illegal in many countries, due to the CAN-SPAM Act.

Email marketing allows you to stay connected with your audience. And while emphasis is often put on conversion, email marketing is also about, education, brand recognition, and most importantly — relationship building. A starting point for that is, your email marketing campaigns reaching your recipients’ inboxes. With Eloqua and these aforementioned ways in your corner, you can ensure that your email deliverability rates soar high.

To know more about optimizing Eloqua, drop us at [email protected] and we’ll take it from there!

Statistics References

⁽ⁱ⁾The Radiant Group
⁽ⁱⁱ⁾Litmus
⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾Greg Staunton