Email deliverability before Q4: How to land your emails in the inbox
Are you ready for Q4?
Unsure about how mail clients actually work? It's not as complex as it sounds. But it's absolutely critical to understand — especially now, as Q4 approaches and inboxes start overflowing.
The primary job of mail clients is to ensure a great experience for their users. Just like you want to ensure a great experience for your subscribers. A good experience doesn't happen when you're bombarded with emails you never open or have no connection to. That's why mail clients work hard to keep all the noise out — including emails that are never interacted with.
To make sure your emails land in the inbox, and not in the spam or promotions folder, when it matters most, we've put together 6 concrete tips for your deliverability strategy.
TIP 01
Understand the engine room: the two levels of engagement
When Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail evaluate your campaigns, they look primarily at engagement. But they do so on two levels:
The individual level: your relationship with each individual subscriber. Does this person typically open, click, or delete your emails without even looking at them?
The general level: the pattern across your entire list. Is the overall engagement weak or strong?
If both are weak, it becomes significantly harder for your emails to land in the inbox — no matter how well-designed or well-written the email itself is.
TIP 02
Make it easy to unsubscribe
This is one of the most important distinctions you can make in your deliverability strategy. An unsubscribe does not harm you with email clients. A spam complaint, on the other hand, does.
Unsubscribe
A clean signal: ”I don't want to hear from you anymore.” It does not negatively affect your sender reputation.
Spam Complaint
A completely different signal: ”this sender is not trustworthy.” It can severely damage how many of your future emails reach the inbox.
That is why you should make it easy to unsubscribe. A clear unsubscribe link at the bottom of your email prevents people from taking the far more damaging route: the spam button. Are you hiding your link a little too well?
A clear unsubscribe link is not a sign of weakness. It is a safety valve that protects your sender reputation.
TIP 03
The CTA button: an indirect deliverability hack
Your call to action may not be the first thing you think of when it comes to deliverability. But the chain of events works like this:
It's a long chain of effects, but it starts with whether people actually click. Try reviewing your template with clickability as your sole focus:
Is your CTA button placed too far down?
Could your hero image itself function as a clickable CTA?
Is it completely clear to the subscriber what the next step is?
Plain text emails feel personal
Many believe that a plain text email in itself tricks spam filters. It doesn't. Modern filters primarily look at sender reputation and engagement, not whether there is HTML behind it.
But the point lies elsewhere. A plain text email often feels far more personal. It resembles a message from a real person rather than a large, polished campaign. And that can boost your engagement: opens, clicks, and especially replies.
Use plain text strategically, for example in re-engagement flows or founder emails. Do it to build a stronger relationship, not as a technical hack.
Hi [Name],
I'd love to know: is there anything we can do better for you?
Feel free to reply directly to this email.
Best,
Patrick
Same sender, two completely different signals. The one on the right invites genuine dialogue and replies.
Tip 05
Clean up your lists: a sluggish list kills performance
Do you have subscribers who haven't opened or clicked your emails in a very long time? They drag down your overall metrics and signal to mail clients that your content isn't relevant.
To improve your deliverability — especially if it's already under pressure — you should remove inactive contacts. A smaller, more engaged list beats a large, sluggish list every single time.
Put them on pause
Exclude from critical sends
Build a sunset flow
Tip 06
Get them to reply: responses are worth their weight in gold
If you really want to boost your positive signals to mail clients, you need to get your subscribers to reply to your emails. A reply simulates a genuine, real conversation between two people — and that's exactly the type of signal mail clients prioritise above all else.
It doesn't take much. Just a concrete, easy-to-answer question in an email you were going to send anyway:
Are there any specific products you'd like to see us stock?
Are there any flavours or variants you'd like us to expand with?
What made you shop with us for the first time?
If you could change one thing about our webshop, what would it be?
In addition to a strong deliverability signal, you gain valuable feedback from your customers that you can use for product development and future content. Win-win.
Want help getting your deliverability in order?
We'll review your list, flows and template, and point out where there's the most to gain before your big campaigns go live.
