Mail Delivery - Admin

2024-09-096 min read clubs_support

Below topic also in a Long Read, possibly to be forwarded to IT responsible or interested members - Clubs Efficient Email Communication

Previously, the Mail Set-up within Klubs is also important in this context:
- Klubs Mail Set-up

Within Klubs, e-mail is the form of communication to members.

For sending the mails from Klubs we work with a transactional mail system. This separate service guarantees high delivery and then also provides the information around tracking and tracing.

Mail deliverability, also known as mail deliverability, refers to the ability of an e-mail message to be successfully delivered to the recipient's inbox, rather than in the spam folder or not arriving at all. This process involves several factors at different actors

  • Club
    • email list quality
    • mail set-up
    • formatting of the mail (personalization)
    • Mail interaction
  • Sender - Clubs
    • mail formatting
    • reputation of the sender
    • settings at the sending mailsever
  • Receiver
    • spam settings
    • end user
    • mail handling server

Background info

Here are a few links around this issue:

Club

Quality of the email list

Given member lists, the mailing list should be fairly reliable in terms of mail requirements. Regularly check the mail addresses of your members and certainly of your prospect lists.

  • Limit Role Based mail addresses such as info@, support@, admin@.
    Ask your members for a recognizable mail address, preferably with name and first name.

Mail set-up

Spam filters also pay attention to the mail set-up, then the from and reply-to mail address.

  • Do not use Role Based mail addresses here and certainly not no-reply@.

Formatting the mail

Many identical mails are to be avoided. Personalization is therefore appropriate.

  • Personalization of emails with shortcodes (#firstname), especially the subject

And especially to be avoided is the use of the Klubs mail feature for SPAM sensitive mails and subjects:

  • Things to do with money or making money;
  • Do not include ** asterisks or € EURO characters;
  • Don't make the subject line too long

For the content of the mail are to be avoided:

  • "Click here" or "Look here soon."
  • Things to do with money or making money;

With the Klubs mail editor you have many possibilities:

  • Make sure hyperlinks point to trustworthy websites
  • Don't put the entire URL in the email, but link it in a piece of text
  • To be avoided !!!!! or ????, words in CAPITAL LETTERS, or different fonts
  • Images: optimal 600 px wide, and small files (loading mail on 4G)
  • Do not use complicated html code for formatting

Mail Interaction

For Mail Server Reputation (see also below), what happens to emails that are received is important.

If there is a lot of interaction with emails by recipients, think opening the email and clicking through on links, then this increases the reputation of the email server. Conversely, the reputation goes down when there is little interaction. The reputation also lowers when recipients of the e-mail mark it as SPAM.

This makes paying attention to the mailing list when sending a newsletter very important. You want as active a file as possible; the addressees should really be interested in the emails you send. That ensures as much interaction as possible and thus a positive effect on reputation.

Therefore, from that point of view, sending a newsletter with the same content multiple times is highly undesirable.

  • Mail formatting that results in high interaction
  • Avoid repetitive emails

Sender - Clubs

Formatting the mail

Essential is that someone can unsubscribe from a newsletter. If you hide the ability to unsubscribe a bit, SPAM filters often catch on. 

By default, Klubs provides an Unsubscribe option.

Reputation of the sender

This is about the online reliability that the e-mail server has, from which e-mails are sent. Receiving e-mail systems (Google, Microsoft Hotmail/Outlook, Telenet, ...) track the reputation of e-mail servers. When the reputation is high, e-mail is simply delivered to the inbox. If it is low, e-mail may end up in the SPAM box.

It may even cause an email server to be blacklisted and thus not delivered at all.

The reputation of a sending email server is built up and thus changes over time. 

To build reputation, the key is to incrementally increase the volume of emails sent from a server.

Within Klubs, we work with an external, reliable, mail handler, and continue to continually protect this reputation.

Settings at the sending mailsever

Only at a specific club shipping address, such as president@yourclub.be

The components involved

  • SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
    This standard specifies who is allowed to send emails on your behalf;
  • DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail)
    Provides an authenticity stamp on your e-mail;
  • DMARC: (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance)
    Tells you what to do when you receive anomalous emails;

Receiver

Spam settings

Mail not arriving has a lot to do with spam settings at the recipient.

Outlook, Hotmail, almost all Microsoft mail accounts, have a very high spam sensitivity. In addition, the problem of checking with company accounts or Providers with specific Anti-Spam filters.

Here is some background info around various mail delivery issues:

End User

For resolution of Mail Delivery issues some suggestions for the end user:

  • Safe Sender
    sets the default klubs mail address (see received mail) as safe sender
  • Klubs in Contacts
    put the default klubs mail address (see received mail) in your contacts as safe sender
  • Check Spam mailbox
    designates the mail, in the Spam mailbox, as Safe Sender

Mail handling server

In exceptional cases, it is necessary to white-list the sender mail address with the server of the received. If you deem this necessary, contact us to speak with your Domain Name Manager

Here the following standards are then considered:

DMARC: (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance)
Tells you what to do when you receive anomalous emails.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
This standard specifies who is allowed to send emails on your behalf;

DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail)
Provides an authentication stamp on your e-mail;

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