How to improve your email deliverability with these 5 Tips

So you’ve done your homework: you’ve crafted the perfect copy, you’ve personalized the emails, you’ve sent out all emails, and yet, your emails are not reaching your prospects’ inboxes. 

And that’s exactly what email deliverability is: effectively landing in the destined inboxes of your leads. 

In B2B email marketing, improving email deliverability isn’t just about great copy, it’s about how sender score, bounce rate, and spam filters interact to decide whether you land in the inbox or disappear into junk.

When this keeps failing, it is a bummer because your entire strategy can go down the drain if your prospects do not even receive your emails. 

But let’s go back to the “homework” keyword. There’s a high chance that your emails are not being delivered precisely because the actual homework is not completely done. 

What do we mean by this? 

There are several factors that affect email deliverability. And it’s a chain of reactions that pre-determines the success of your email deliverability. 

For instance, let’s say that an email you sent ends up in the spam folder instead of the inbox of your target lead. 

Because it landed in their spam folder, the email will:

• Be overlooked

• Not be opened

• Be deleted eventually 

These all will lead to a low engagement rate and open rate of your emails. 

Which will lead to your emails getting marked as spam automatically. 

And that will lead to:

• A failed campaign

• Low domain authority of your email 

• Low chances of any future campaigns working out if they get sent from the same email or domain 

Now, how can you stop this negative “chain of events” from snowballing and successfully landing in your contact’s inboxes? 

Keep on reading to find out.

4 factors that can negatively affect your email deliverability

As you may already know, every single email that you send has to go through the provider's ISP (internet service provider) gateway. If the ISP thinks that your email is spam, it will immediately block your emails from being sent. 

Factor 1. Low sender score and damaged reputation 

Your sender score directly influences inbox placement, email providers use it as a trust metric to decide whether your next campaign reaches the inbox or gets filtered.

Email providers will rate your IP address and consider the following: 

• The number of unknown subscribers or inactive subscribers (in cases when you send emails to people who haven’t subscribed to receive any emails from you, you increase the chance of having a low sender score and reputation) 

• The number of spam reports that you have collected from people who receive your emails 

• And let’s not forget that if your domain is part of any sort of industry blocklist, it will lead to a very low score

Factor 2. High bounce rates

We have two questions for you:

1. Are you sending emails to people you don’t know or who haven’t subscribed to receive emails from you? 

2. Are you sending emails to email lists you haven’t qualified in advance to ensure the emails exist? 

If you answer one or even two of them with a “Yes,” then there you have your answer. 

Either activity will lead to a high bounce rate, which, in turn, will lead to a low score on all fronts (the snowball effect mentioned above).

💡 Pro Tip:

• Use AI-powered tools to ensure that all your email lists are qualified and that you eliminate your bounce rate in no time.

Factor 3. Your email content looks spammy 

Don’t get us wrong. You can be on the right here and send genuine discounts and even free-to-use services. However, specific phrases such as “% off%, “free” “discount” may be automatically labeled as spam.

💡 Pro Tip:

• We suggest reviewing the content of your emails in detail before sending them. Ask someone from your team who hasn’t been involved in the email campaign so they can review it with fresh eyes and give objective feedback on how the email sounds.

4. Negative email actions

Ask yourself this: What do you hope the sender does after seeing your email?

The Good

It’s natural that you want them to, first of all, open the email. Then, read it. Then click on any CTAs you’ve included, and ultimately come into contact with you in any shape or form by either replying or requesting a demo (or any other action that you’ve incentivised them to do). 

However, in some cases, you will get these negative reactions:

The Bad 

The person will open the email (in the best-case scenario - hey, a win is a win).

Then they will not like its contents or think it is spammy and report it as spam. 

The Ugly

In worst-case scenarios, they will not even open the email before deleting it and(or) reporting it as spam. 

5 tips to improve your email deliverability

Now that you know the main factors that can affect your email deliverability negatively, it’s time to take action and ensure that email deliverability is the least of your problems. 

Here’s how to do that: 

Step 1. Warm up your email accounts

Before you even press send after setting up your email campaigns, you will need to warm up your email accounts. Consider this as establishing a good “relationship” with your IP credibility score.

💡 Pro Tip:

• Start sending out emails in small batches before pressing “Send to all” your contacts.

Step 2. Sent emails from the same sender’s name 

We suggest that, in order to be consistent and ensure that the recipients recognise you and know who is behind the email, make sure you send the emails using the same sender’s name each time. 

This will ensure that they will not go ahead and mark it as spam if they know and trust the name you’re sending from consistently. 

💡 Pro Tip:

• Use real people’s identities. The sender has to be from your team and be linked to their social profiles to establish trust.

Step 3. Split your email list into different segments

When you segment your email list and have separate lists for each pain point you’re trying to solve, you’ll set your emails up for success and ultimately improve email deliverability. 

This way, the emails you send and the copy for each segment can be super targetted and offer only the relevant content to the lists expecting to receive such content and updates from you.

Step 4. Keep your email lists clean 

We suggest that you periodically clean up your email lists to ensure that you improve your email deliverability; if some subscribers have been inactive for some time or even asked to be removed, do so to avoid getting marked as spam or getting reported. 

Cleaning your CRM data also prevents duplicates and outdated contacts from triggering bounces, CRM enrichment goes hand in hand with improving deliverability.

You can do this manually if you do not have super long email lists. However, if that’s not the case, we recommend using AI tools like Gneesy to ensure that your CRMs and email lists are kept clean. 

Step 5. Avoid using purchased email lists

And by avoid, we mean: never use them if you want to improve your email deliverability. 

Purchased email lists may seem like an easy way to cut corners and get leads fast. However, those lists very often contain: 

• Outdated emails

• Unverified emails

• People who are not even close to being called your “target audience” or “ICP” 

That is why we always recommend building such lists from scratch: to ensure that the emails are verified and up to date and to target your target audience that will be genuinely interested in the products or services that you’re trying to sell. 

This keeps spam reports minimal, protects your sender score, and helps future campaigns land in the inbox instead of spam.

And yes, building any lists from scratch can seem daunting, but you do not have to do everything manually. 

There are tools out there like Enginy that can help you automate the entire process, enriching all your lists with verified and up-to-date contact information.

These solutions often double as data enrichment platforms, ensuring that every prospect profile is complete before campaigns begin.

Final thoughts

We hope that the steps above and all the tips we gave will help you identify a clear roadmap for the next actionable steps you need to take to improve your email deliverability. 

So, as you tackle each problem, cleaning lists, enriching CRM data, optimizing content, and managing bounce rate, you’ll see your sender score rise, inbox placement stabilize, and overall email campaign success improve quickly.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why is my email deliverability low?

It could be due to a poor sender reputation, missing email authentication (such as SPF, DKIM, or DMARC), spammy content, or outdated and unengaged lists. High bounce rates, too many complaints, and sending from new domains without warming up can also hurt deliverability.

What are the main keys to good email deliverability?

Set up proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), maintain a clean and engaged mailing list, avoid common spam triggers, and monitor your sender reputation. Consistent sending patterns and careful list growth also help keep inbox placement stable.

How to improve delivery rate?

Focus on building a strong sender reputation, segmenting and cleaning your list regularly, personalizing emails with relevant context, and following best practices for content, frequency, and warming up. Keep an eye on bounces and complaints, and pause or adjust campaigns quickly if signals start trending negative.