One Simple Way to Instantly Fix Major Deliverability Issues (That Has Nothing to Do With Segmentation)

This weekend, I took a nice little walk to check the mailbox.

It was one of those perfect Georgia mornings.

Birds chirping. Leaves rustling. Sun peeking through the trees.

My aunt had texted to say she mailed a gift for my sons, so I figured I’d go grab it while the house was still quiet.

Our mailbox unit is one of those community setups. A wall of metal doors at the end of the block.

When a package comes, USPS locks it in a bigger compartment and leaves the key in your slot.

Sure enough, there it was. A little silver key, waiting in our mailbox.

I reached in, grabbed it…

And the key was snapped in half.

Like, clean break.

The other half? Still jammed in the lock of the package door.

So now the gift is just sitting there, behind a door I physically can’t open.

No backup key. No way to pry it loose.

When I called the post office for help, they basically shrugged and said, “You probably broke it.”

Then told me to wait for a carrier to deal with it.

No solution. No timeline.

I was ready to take a blowtorch to the whole damn mailbox.

That’s what email deliverability issues feel like.

Pure unadulterated rage.

Everything looks like it’s working.

But your open rates are in the gutter and revenue is flatlined.

And of course, Gmail and Yahoo are not going to magically give you the key to solve your problem.

Good deliverability isn’t rocket science.

If you want to avoid deliverability problems 90% of the time, just do this:

• Send to engaged segments of who are opening, clicking and buying
  

• Clean your list a few times a year to remove spam traps.
  

• Don’t send lame promo emails 24/7
  

If you stick to that, most inbox providers will usually play nice.

But sometimes… even when you THINK you’re doing everything right, it still breaks.

Yeah…so your welcome emails are going straight to SPAM.

I recently worked with a supplement brand who knew their email marketing wasn’t doing well, but they couldn’t put their finger on the problem.

They were sending somewhat regular campaigns, had all the flows set up, and reasonable spam complaint rates.

So everything looked OK.

But when I signed up for their list myself, the first welcome email went straight to spam.

Which is a bloody red flag.

Luckily, they actually had Google Postmaster Tools set up.

(If you don’t have this set up, please stop reading this and go set it up right now. I’ll wait.)

Now, most people who do use Postmaster Tools only check two reports:

• Spam rate
  

• Domain reputation
  

In this case, the spam rate? Totally fine.

But the domain reputation? Low.

That’s where most people stop. They throw up their hands and start guessing.

Maybe we need more complex segmentation.

Maybe our copy isn’t resonating.

Maybe we didn’t make the proper sacrifice to the Gmail gods this week.

But one of my friends, who is an AKSHUAL deliverability expert, taught me to check one more report in Postmaster Tools:

Check Your DMARC success rate.

It’s hidden in a tab most people ignore.

But it’s where the real issues hide.

And sure enough, that line was a mess.

It was bouncing all over like the stock market  instead of holding at 100%.

That told me Gmail couldn’t fully verify who was sending the emails.

So they just threw them in spam.

How I fixed it without touching a segment

Luckily, the fix for this was fast and simple.

We found all the platforms that were sending emails with their domain. The culprits were their review and customer service platforms.

And then we authenticated them inside each platform, Which took maybe 20 minutes.

Within 72 hours:

• Their DMARC line hit 100%

• Two weeks later their domain reputation went from Low to High

• Open rates and click rates shot up

• Welcome series arrived in the inbox

Tl;dr how to fix deliverability if you’ve tried everything else

• Set up Google Postmaster Tools
  

• Check your domain reputation
  

• Look at the DMARC line — it should be flat at 100%
  

• Audit every tool sending email from your domain
  

• Authenticate them all
  

This takes less than 15 minutes.

And it could unlock your entire program.

Unlike my stupid freakin’ mail box.

Well I hope you folks enjoyed yourselves. I’ll catch you later on down the trail.

Got a topic you want me to cook up a recipe for? Drop me an email or a DM.

- Ben

P.S.

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