Marketers are being urged to follow recommendations outlined in a new white paper, just published, in order to maintain the effectiveness of email marketing as a key revenue generator. 

Responding to an increasingly challenging email broadcasting landscape, including rising volumes of spam, the paper – published by the UK DMA Email Marketing Council (EMC) – redefines ‘email deliverability’ and outlines recommendations to ensure messages reach the inbox.

Guy Hanson (business development director, Database Group Interactive), co-author of the report and a member of the UK DMA EMC, said: "With an estimated 130 billion spam messages broadcast every day and ISPs reacting to the barrage, the deliverability challenge has never been greater. ISP acceptance rates provide no guarantee that the subscriber actually sees the message, while sender reputation monitors, spam filter vendors and blacklist operators all play key roles in determining whether the email ends up in the inbox or not.

"Companies that fail to understand these issues risk jeopardising their email marketing strategy as well as the company’s bottom line."

Fellow EMC member and co-author, Simon Bowker (managing director, eCircle), added:"Understanding good delivery is more than just a technical issue; marketers need to be aware of its effect on email revenue and ROI. While complicated, good deliverability is not difficult to achieve, our guide aims to provide simple, clear and practical steps that anyone can follow to improve their inbox placement."

The white paper outlines the change in definition of deliverability to include an inbox placement measurement, as opposed to simple ISP acceptance rates, and makes ten recommendations to assist marketers in achieving inbox placement. It also identifies the key players among the many businesses that provide filtering services so that marketers can understand how their products and services are used to manage the spam threat.

To view a copy of the whitepaper, go to: www.dma.org.uk/email-deliverability