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Pro Email Copywriting Tips To Stay Out Of The Spam Folder (And Get More Email Opens)

Pro Email Copywriting Tips To Stay Out Of The Spam Folder (And Get More Email Opens)

by | Last updated Jun 22, 2021 | Published on Jun 28, 2021 | Email Marketing

You don’t have to be a professional copywriter to stay out of the spam folder (although it does help), but there are some things that are particularly important to pay attention to help you stay out of the SPAM folder. 

In the previous post we discussed email list hygiene and how your list could be sending you to the spam folder. But, this post is all about you, and I’ll be sharing some of my email copywriting tips that can improve your email open rates and get you in front of your audience.

Don’t want to be in the spam folder? Just ask

It’s becoming common practice to ask your subscribers or customers to ‘whitelist’ you in their inbox to avoid going to the spam folder. You don’t ask, you don’t get! The best places for you to position this are not always your emails themselves, but can be: 

  1. On ‘Thank You’ landing pages after someone has subscribed or signed up
  2. Messages at checkout 
  3. On social media

You can also use the ‘P.S.’ section of your first couple of emails in your sequence to remind your audience to whitelist you. The message, no matter where you add it, should be clear and simple, something along the lines of: 

“Thank you for your purchase/subscribing. An email is on the way to you now so keep an eye out in case it lands in your spam or junk folder. If it does, move it to your inbox and add us to your approved senders list so you don’t miss out on anything!”

And just like that, you’ve asked your audience to do it for you. This also has benefits for your reputation and credibility because the more people that do this, the more reputable you become to their email provider! 

Pro Tip: Ask your subscribers to move your emails from the “promotions” tab to the “primary” tab in Gmail so that you know they will be front and center when you send them. 

Gmail Promotions and Primary Tab email copywriting tips

Your subject line matters most

Your email’s subject line alone can mean the difference between an email open and the spam folder. In fact, 69% of email recipients reported an email as spam due to the subject line alone. So, with a lot riding on your subject line, how can you stack the odds in your favor?

Avoid spam trigger words

Certain words in your copy or subject line may make it more likely your email will be flagged as spam. This happens because these trigger words are used most often in phishing or spam emails so filters automatically classify you along with them.  

Some examples of these include:

  • For free
  • Get paid
  • Amazing offer
  • Save now
  • Limited time only
  • Work from home
  • Nigerian prince has money for you 

Also, even if you don’t use trigger words, incorrect punctuation and capitalization makes you look unprofessional and suspicious. A subject line that looks like this: “TH1S iS n0t sPaM!” won’t increase the chances of your email being opened.

Pro Tip: Here’s a more comprehensive list of spam trigger words for you to look at. Just be aware that this list is constantly evolving so make sure you stay up to date if you see a dip in rates. 

Using emojis can help (sometimes) 

You would think that using emojis would be a spam trigger, but it’s actually the opposite. Many companies have A/B tested emojis versus no emojis in their email marketing and found that emojis came out on top with their audiences. 

Emojis, when used sparingly, can make your email stand out in the inbox, easily convey emotions, and draw the attention of the person reading. 

Pro Caveat: Emoji success heavily depends on your audience, as well as your own branding. Is it in keeping with your brand voice to use an emoji? Will your audience understand, or even appreciate them? The answer to both of these questions needs to be yes for it to work as a strategy for you. 

Clickbait is dead

By now pretty much everyone should know what clickbait is, where you have an enticing subject line but the email content does not deliver. The long and the short of this is, don’t do it. Clickbait loses the trust of your audience, and the point of your email and nurture sequences is to build trust not break it! Plus, audiences are starting to become desensitized to clickbait which means it’s not going to be effective anyway!

Poor spelling and grammar can make you look like a bot

Automated bots, hackers, they all have one thing in common. Their spelling, grammar, and formatting is a dead giveaway. The problem with this is, the more mistakes and wonky your email is, the more likely you’ll be labeled a spammer or be hit with complaint reports as well.

So, if you’re not a natural writer and often make mistakes, use an email builder that allows you to format your emails properly and create templates to save time and effort in the future.

Pro Tip: Use a tool like Grammarly which can help with spelling and grammar across a variety of platforms and even offers suggestions to improve your writing and tone if it’s not your forte.

Test and compare what works best for your audience

While I can give you a lot of email copywriting tips, and make this a much longer blog post, the truth is, you also have to figure out what works best specifically for your business and your audience. That’s where A/B testing comes in.

Normally this involves having different subject lines to improve open rates, or different layouts and content in the body of the email to see which one makes more sales. It’s then a matter of tweaking what works, and what doesn’t, to get the best results.

Email copywriting really is an art form and takes practice, patience, and often a lot of testing, particularly when it comes to email opens and staying out of the spam folder, but hopefully, this post has given you an excellent place to start.

If you need email copywriting tips specifically for your business or help optimizing your email campaigns, drop me a message and see how we can work together. As a MailChimp Expert and Klaviyo Master with over 8 years of experience and countless happy clients, this is what I do! 

Ready to get started?

David Sandel, Founder

David Sandel, Founder

Low Gravity Solutions

LGS provides full-service automated digital marketing for seven-figure businesses, including strategy, technology management, copy, and design. Your passion is your business. Ours is marketing and automation.

Email List Hygiene: Is Your Audience Causing Your Emails To Go Into The Spam Folder?

Email List Hygiene: Is Your Audience Causing Your Emails To Go Into The Spam Folder?

by | Last updated Jun 21, 2021 | Published on Jun 21, 2021 | Email Marketing

In my last article, I shared how to make sure your domain is set up properly so that your contacts’ email providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, AOL etc.) recognize your email as valid and safe. But, it’s not just your DNS settings and emails that can get you sent to the spam folder, it also has to do with the quality of your list. 

In the case of email list hygiene, bigger lists are not always better! Having a huge contact list that gets you sent to the spam folder is much more damaging to your brand than a very small, engaged list. After all, it’s not about size, it’s what you do with it. 

What makes for poor email list hygiene? 

Audiences with: 

  • A lot of old/out-of-date email addresses
  • High abuse/spam complaints
  • High bounce rates
  • High unsubscribe rates
  • Lack of engagement like low open rates and click rates
  • Blacklisted emails/IPs

Will get noticed by reputable email providers for all the wrong reasons. This can get your account removed, paused, or simply just won’t let your emails through, rendering your email marketing efforts pointless. To avoid this, you need to improve the quality of your email list. Here’s how: 

Start With Permission 

There’s nothing worse than having unsolicited emails in your inbox, and it turns people off if they suddenly start hearing from you if they haven’t given you permission to email them. In fact, a survey by Cisco in 2019 found that 32% of people would switch companies over data sharing or privacy concerns. 

This means that anytime someone ends up on your email list, they should have decided to be there. Not only is it now a law for EU citizens under GDPR, and Californian consumers under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) but consent (or lack of) plays a huge role in abuse complaints.  

Pro Tip: Both MailChimp and Klaviyo use a double opt-in method so that you have proof that they gave their permission for you to email them. It also helps your mailing list to be free of inactive or fraudulent emails. 

Turn On MailChimp Double Opt-In 

To make sure your double opt-in is active in MailChimp

  1. lick on ‘Audience’ from the tab on the left side of the screen, then > ‘All contacts’.
  2. Once on that screen, click the ‘Settings’ drop-down menu in the navbar in the middle of the screen and select ‘Audience name and campaign defaults’.
  3. Scroll down a bit to “Form settings” and select ‘Enable double opt-in’.
MailChimp Double Opt In Settings

Turn On Klaviyo Double Opt-In

  1. Navigate to the list you want to enable double opt-in
  2. Go to ‘Settings’
  3. Scroll down to ‘Opt-In Process’ > Confirm you’ve got double opt-in selected
  4. Scroll down further to save and update your settings.  
Klaviyo Double Opt In Settings

Pay Attention To Your Bounce Rate

Even though ISPs and email providers don’t publicly publish their bounce limits, what we do know is that high bounce rates are a factor that can flag and cause you to go into the SPAM folder. 

Soft bounces should be ignored for the time being because these can be temporary issues like a technical connection problem, email size issues, full inboxes, and other things that tend to resolve themselves. But hard bounces are what I’m talking about. This is when the email is completely undeliverable because the address cannot be identified. 

The most common reasons for hard email bounces include: 

  • Spelling errors in emails
  • Non-existent emails (email accounts that have been closed or fake accounts that were submitted by bots) 
  • Expired email addresses (e.g. very common in B2B if an employee moves on and their email is closed) 

Go through your last email campaigns and take a look at the hard bounce statistics and remove any email addresses that you find. If you’re looking to benchmark what your bounce rate should be, as of April 2021, the average bounce rate across all industries was around 10.28%, however you should be aiming for as small a bounce rate as possible.

Pro Tip: MailChimp and Klaviyo automatically remove hard bounces for you, so you shouldn’t have to do this manually.

Scrub old lists before you upload to your platform 

If you have a large list from another platform like a CRM, changing email platforms, or you haven’t integrated yet and you have an excel spreadsheet, consider using a list scrubber like ZeroBounce to make sure the emails are still valid before uploading. This saves you time and effort later when your emails don’t seem to be going through!

ZeroBounce Email Verification

Pro Tip: Make sure to maintain your current list and scrub it every 2 – 3 months, or more frequently if you send a lot of emails. This makes sure your campaigns are likely to get the most engagement.

Don’t purchase email lists 

Purchasing email lists was a big craze years ago, particularly before we had legalities in place to protect people’s right to consent to marketing and privacy. But, aside from the dubious practices that most firms use to mine these emails, there’s a more pressing problem with paid lists. 

Most paid lists aren’t your target customer, and these people aren’t interested in your products. They’ve never heard from you before, and even if they are active emails (which a lot of them are not), they aren’t going to buy from you. So why waste time having them on the list and hurting your list health and stats? It’s pretty much a waste of money. 

Reduce Complaints

Complaints are raised when users report your email as spam. This is one of the biggest issues because it’s coming straight from the consumer which is directly affecting your brand.

Types of things that commonly result in complaint reports, and things you should avoid are:  

  • Misleading subject titles (clickbait)
  • Changing the “From” information when you resend campaigns
  • Using spam trigger words
  • Not having consent
  • Old audiences/lists
  • Hiding opt-out/unsubscribe buttons

Ultimately, proper email list hygiene is about ongoing maintenance. It’s something that you’ll have to do regularly rather than just once. So before you start sending out more campaigns, go through and improve your current audience lists today.

If you need a hand with your contact lists, or to boost engagement with your email campaigns, drop me a message. As a MailChimp Expert and Klaviyo Master I’ve got over 8 years of experience helping countless businesses with their eCommerce email marketing and making sure their emails hit the inbox. 

Ready to get started?

David Sandel, Founder

David Sandel, Founder

Low Gravity Solutions

LGS provides full-service automated digital marketing for seven-figure businesses, including strategy, technology management, copy, and design. Your passion is your business. Ours is marketing and automation.

Setting Up Your DMARC, SPF, and DKIM In MailChimp & Klaviyo to Avoid the Spam Folder

Setting Up Your DMARC, SPF, and DKIM In MailChimp & Klaviyo to Avoid the Spam Folder

by | Last updated Jun 15, 2021 | Published on Jun 14, 2021 | Email Marketing

Making sure your domain is set up properly is the first step to avoiding your emails ending up in the spam folder. The three things you really need to be concerned with if you’re planning on using MailChimp or Klaviyo are your SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and then you can publish your DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance). 

In this post, I’ll be discussing what exactly each of these things are, why you need to set them up, and how to do it in MailChimp and Klaviyo.

Full disclosure on this post: it’s fairly technical, and while I do walk you through step by step, if you’re not comfortable getting set up, LGS can do it for you.

Click here to get help with your SPF, DMARC, or DKIM in MailChimp & Klaviyo

Sender Policy Framework (SPF)

Why you should care about SPF:

SPF records tell a receiving email server that your domain is legit and that it’s okay to accept your email to their inbox. Without setting this up, your domain can be spoofed (someone can pretend to send emails as you) and damage your brand and reputation. 

It’s like going to an invitation-only event and not having one or any other kind of identification. Then the bouncer looks at you, laughs, and tells you to step aside and go home.

Setting up SPF in MailChimp

MailChimp have removed SPF, and instead use two layers of DKIM which I will talk about a little further down.

How to set up SPF in Klaviyo

In Klaviyo, setting up an SPF record means creating a dedicated domain for sending out your email. The steps below outline how to do this in Klaviyo.

1. In Klaviyo > Go to your account name > open the Account page

2. Go to Settings > “Domains and Hosting” > Click on ‘Get Started’ under Dedicated Sending Domain 

Klaviyo dedicated sending domain

3. Input your domain and subdomain name > click “Continue” and a new pop-up will have a list of all the DNS records needed to create/edit your DNS. 

Klaviyo set dedicated sending domain

4. Go to your DNS hosting provider > Create new DNS records that match the ones given to you by Klaviyo

Note: In Klaviyo you need to set up your DKIM during this process before you can verify your domain, so I’ll move onto that now. 

Siteground DNS Records

Siteground DNS Records

Bluehost TXT record

Bluehost TXT record

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)

What is DKIM?

Your DKIM is like stamping a unique signature on your email to verify who you are. Just like a fingerprint. It does this by creating two authentication keys: a private one in your SMTP (Sender Mail Transfer Protocol), and the other in a public DNS zone.

So, when you send out an email, it’s sent with your email domain’s private key. Once your receiver gets your mail, they verify the authenticity of your key by comparing it to the one on the public server. Once it’s verified, with no falsifying or tampering, you’re allowed to go to the inbox. 

If you don’t set up your DKIM, much like SPF, someone can pretend to be you and spoof your account. 

How to set up DKIM in MailChimp

  1. In MailChimp go to ‘Website’ > ‘Domains’ > Click authenticate

This will give you the domain information you need in a pop-up window. Including the CNAME records you will need to create. 

    MailChimp Domain Authentication 2021

    2. Open your DNS records for your domain on your hosting > Create a new CNAME record > Add the MailChimp values provided 

    3. Now, go back to the Domains page of your MailChimp account and click “Authenticate Domain” It may take up to 24 hours to propagate through the internet, but in my experience, it’s fairly immediate. 

    MailChimp Authenticated Domains

    Need more help? If you are stuck on authenticating your domain in MailChimp for BlueHost and SiteGround, I’ve got walkthrough guides here:

     

    How to set up DKIM in Klaviyo

    The DKIM set up for Klaviyo follows the same process as its SPF and you’ll need to copy the DNS information you’re given from Klaviyo into your domain hosting. 

    Once you’ve done this, go back to Klaviyo and click ‘Continue to Verify Domain’ > Once verified, click ‘Apply Domain’.

    Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC)

    What is it?

    A DMARC protocol (or sometimes called a report) is essentially a way to improve your email’s reputation by saying ‘I have set up SPF and/or DKIM’. Publishing your DMARC establishes a set of rules on how to handle emails that pass or fail either or both of the SPF and DKIM protocols. 

    For example, emails that fail the verification protocol can be sent to spam or rejected outright. What makes DMARC important is that it provides a more secure way of sending and receiving emails. Plus, it helps to protect your domain against spoofing, and phishing by hackers. 

    How to publish a DMARC record

    DMARC works with SPF and DKIM records, so it’s a requirement to have these both set up first in your DNS hosting provider to publish it. 

    Note: DMARC is set up in your DNS and not in MailChimp and Klaviyo so you only have to do this once from your DNS platform. 

    1. Go to your DNS management platform > Select the domain (website name) that needs a DMARC record
    2. Add a new TXT record with the following: 
      • Name –  _DMARC
      • TTL – leave as default
      • Value – “v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS ON THE SAME DOMAIN; adkim=r; aspf=r”
      • Save
    3. You can leave it there or use a free DMARC checker to make sure it’s been set up correctly like DMARCIAN. 
      Siteground DMARC record

      Pro Tip: For the techies in the room, you can modify how DMARC handles emails that fail the verification and authentication process and even how strict you want the SPF and DKIM records to be.

      Ultimately, spending the time to get your domain set up properly can save a lot of heartache when it comes to sending campaigns and wondering why none of them are being delivered. So, if you haven’t set them up yet, I highly recommend doing that as a priority first. 

      If you want to set up your DMARC properly to avoid the spam folder, you have to start with your SPF and DKIM in MailChimp or Klaviyo. If you don’t have the confidence with changing DNS records, or you need a hand from a MailChimp Expert and Klaviyo Master with over 8 years of experience, get in touch below!

      Click here to get help with your SPF, DMARC, or DKIM in MailChimp & Klaviyo
      Should You Resend Unopened Emails in Mailchimp? (+ How To Do It)

      Should You Resend Unopened Emails in Mailchimp? (+ How To Do It)

      by | Last updated Jun 12, 2021 | Published on May 3, 2021 | Email Marketing, Mailchimp

      With over 3.064 billion emails sent per day in 2020, it’s easy for yours to be left unopened. But the big question for your email marketing strategy is – should you really resend it?

      Retargeting unopened emails means only resending the email to recipients who didn’t open the original one. After all, maybe some of your audience were busy, and didn’t see it the first time?

      But the truth is, there’s a time and a place for retargeting unopened emails, and it’s not always for the better. 

      Is resending worth it? 

      The short answer is no. 

      Even though MailChimp statistics showed open rates for the original campaign increased by 8.7% when it was re-sent, It’s not worth it for content like newsletters.

      The hard truth is that sometimes people aren’t interested in that particular content, and if you keep resending it, you’re going to drive them to unsubscribe and decrease your customer base. 

      The impact from retargeting isn’t worth the effort or potential risk for things that aren’t going to directly convert or benefit your business. Plus, open rates need to be analyzed as part of a wider marketing strategy, not just taken in isolation. 

      But, there’s a caveat to this. 

      There are certain scenarios where retargeting unopened emails can be beneficial. 

      When should you resend?

      Not everything is black and white. For extremely important announcements and notifications where you absolutely need as many contacts as possible to see your email, it can be helpful. For example: 

      • Business changes like during COVID-19 when closures or updates for your physical store were happening much quicker than you could update your website.
      • New services or local initiatives/events.
      • Big news that would affect the customer e.g. you’ve rebranded, created a partnership etc. 

      But this is pretty much it. For these occasions, here’s how you do it: 

      Resending unopened emails in MailChimp

      Replicate campaign for MailChimp resendingOn Desktop 

      Go to ‘Campaigns’ > Select the campaign you want to resend > Hit the arrow next to ‘View Report’ and Select ‘Replicate’.

      This will then create a complete copy, so you’ll need to edit who it is being sent to. 

      Pro Tip: I suggest always changing the name of the campaign, so it’s easy to identify at a glance, but it’s completely up to you and your organization.

      To do this:

      Go to the ‘To’ field and under ‘Segment or Tag’ select ‘Group or new segment’ in the dropdown.

      Then select ‘campaign activity’ in the first box, ‘did not open’ in the second, and then the third box will give you a list of campaigns, as well as options like ‘did not open the last 5 campaigns’.

      resegmenting in MailChimp

      Once you’ve updated this, the email will only go to the subscribers who meet this criteria, instead of the entire list.

      Pro Tip: If you’re unsure if you’ve set the campaign correctly, save this and take a look at the number of recipients that have been updated in the ‘to’ field. If it has gone down you know you’ve updated the criteria.

      Resend emails mailchimp mobile app

      On Mobile

      It’s a lot easier to do this in the MailChimp mobile app as you just need to go to: 

      The email campaign of choice in the ‘Reports’ tab > Select ‘send to non-openers.’

      2 of the best resending strategies

      Resending your campaign to non-openers is not as simple as hitting resend and expecting better results. Here are two ways to make your approach more effective: 

      Timing is everything

      It’s important to get the timing right to make sure you don’t annoy your subscribers. Sending too soon is going to make you seem spammy, sending too long might no longer be relevant for them. 

      Here are the ‘best bits’ from MailChimps’ research on Strategic Timing for Resends: 

      • 1-3 days is the sweet spot – Resending your email within 24 hours of the original results in higher unsubscribes or abuse complaints, but waiting for 1 to 3 days results in more clicks. In our experience, it’s better to wait at least 2 days, but beyond 3 days, you’re much less likely to get a higher click rate anymore. 
      • Choose your day wisely – According to one study, Tuesday is the best time to send emails, followed by Wednesday and Thursday, which debunks the traditional ‘send at 9am on Monday approach’.
      • Afternoon for opening, evening for action – The same study shows that the afternoon is the time when recipients are most likely to open emails and evening is when they’re most likely to respond.

      Make subtle changes

      If they saw (and chose) to not open your email the first time, it’s unlikely they’re going to open it the second time around without some subtle changes. The easiest and quickest option is to change your subject line and preview text (which sounds a lot easier than it is!).

      My advice is to scrap what’s there and start fresh. Think about exactly what you want them to know in 10 words or less and avoid clickbait! Bonus points if you can tastefully use an emoji (assuming your audience is okay with emojis).

      Pro Tip: Avoid changing who the email is from when you resend. This is a tactic that can damage trust, delivery, and sees an increase in abuse reports according to MailChimp.  

      Ultimately, MailChimp retargeting is a strategy that should be used sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. But if you do, you have a short window, and you have to make it count if you want to see the best results!

      For help with your email marketing efforts so you can focus on your business, drop me a message. I lead Low Gravity Solutions as a MailChimp Expert and Klaviyo Master with over 8 years of experience and countless happy clients. 

      Learn more here: https://lowgravitysolutions.com/email-marketing/

      Ready to get started?

      David Sandel, Founder

      David Sandel, Founder

      Low Gravity Solutions

      LGS provides full-service automated digital marketing for seven-figure businesses, including strategy, technology management, copy, and design. Your passion is your business. Ours is marketing and automation.

      MailChimp Siteground Domain Authentication

      MailChimp Siteground Domain Authentication

      by | Last updated Jun 11, 2021 | Published on Apr 5, 2020 | Email Marketing, Mailchimp

      What is MailChimp Domain Authentication and Why Do I Care?

      MailChimp LogoMailChimp Domain Authentication is a trackable piece of embedded code in your MailChimp email header that most humans never see. It tells the internet provider of your MailChimp List subscriber’s internet service provider that you’re a legitimate sender, and not a Nigerian Prince trying to scam you out of millions of dollars. Basically, it helps your MailChimp email campaign or automation arrive in your subscribers’ inboxes and NOT their SPAM folders.

      Let’s look at this way… You create a MailChimp newsletter and send it to all your subscribers. It gets delivered to the outer gates of your contact’s email provider, and they ask for some ID. MailChimp says, “No problem, here’s my authentication.” The contact’s email provider then says, “Cool, the inbox is right this way.” — Without proper identification, the newsletter may or may not end up in the inbox. It could go to SPAM. And if you’re selling something or in the middle of an automation funnel, you definitely want that email going to their inbox.

      What MailChimp Domain Authentication Looks Like to Your Contacts

      Another cool thing that happens when you authenticate your domain is the way it looks in your contacts’ inboxes. Instead of showing something like:

      David Sandel [email protected] via blahblah.mailchimp.com

      It will just show

      David Sandel <[email protected]>

      like any other normal email you receive from your friends and family.

      MailChimp Instructions for Domain Authentication

      MailChimp does an excellent job of explaining how to authenticate your domain, and it’s incredibly easy. Just follow these simple steps to find them:

      1. Sign-in to your MailChimp account, and then choose “Account” from the drop-down menu next to your name in the upper-righthand corner of the screen.

      2. Click on the “Settings” tab and choose “Verified Domains.”

      3. Click on “View Setup Instructions” for the domain you would like to authenticate.

      4. You should now be able to see the instructions.

      MailChimp Account

      MailChimp Account

      MailChimp Verified Domains

      MailChimp Verified Domains

      MailChimp Authentication Instructions

      MailChimp Authentication Instructions

      MailChimp Domain Authentication

      MailChimp Domain Authentication

      MailChimp Authentication with Siteground Web Hosting

      The reason I wrote this post is that I already had instructions available for Bluehost users, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t leave out Siteground, another massively popular hosting service. The steps are pretty simple and straightforward for every provider, but each provider may also require that you enter them differently.

      1. Login to your Siteground cpanel. Loof for the “Domains” section in the middle of the page, and click the link for the Advanced DNS Zone Editor.

      2. On the next screen, click the dropdown box and select the domain you want to authenticate with MailChimp. (If you only have one domain, this may already be selected for you.)

      3. Create the TXT record per the MailChimp instructions. Enter ‘yourdomain.com’ as the Host Record just like MailChimp says.

      4. Create the CNAME record exactly per the MailChimp instructions. 

      Siteground Advanced DNS

      Siteground Advanced DNS

      Siteground Choose Domain

      Siteground Choose Domain

      Siteground TXT Record

      Siteground TXT Record

      Siteground CNAME Record

      Verifying the MailChimp Authentication Worked

      Siteground and Mailchimp claim that changes in the DNS records may take 24-48 hours to propagate through the internet. In reality, I’ve had this process work as fast as immediately and as slow as 48 hours. The chance that you go back to MailChimp immediately and everything works is low, but not impossible. So if it doesn’t work right away, just try to be patient and check back whenever you have time.

      The steps to verify your authentication are basically the same as above in the MailChimp section. Navigate to the “Verified Domains” screen, click on “View Setup Instructions,” but this time, you’ll click on “Authenticate Domain” when the instructions pop up.

      Goodbye SPAM Folder; Hello Inbox

      At this point your domain should be authenticated and in good standing with any SPAM databases (provided you didn’t kill your score prior to this already). However, it doesn’t automatically mean that if your emails were already being delivered to someone’s SPAM folder, that they will now be going to their inbox. If that’s happening, you’re not likely to know about it, and you just have to hope they check someday and add you to their safe sender’s list.

      This is also not the only thing you should be doing to avoid your campaigns ending up in someone’s SPAM. Believe it or not, the words you use, subject lines, pictures, how you use links, and how often other people have marked you as SPAM or reported abuse also affects it. It’s kind of like a running score of how trustworthy you are, so make sure you’re following all the email marketing best practices. If you suspect your MailChimp campaign emails are already going to everyone’s SPAM and don’t know how to fix it, let’s get in touch and see if we can get you out of email prison. I’m an official MailChimp Expert, and I’d love to help you out.

      David Sandel

      David Sandel

      Low Gravity Solutions

      Low Gravity Solutions is a full service marketing agency specializing in growing your small business and solving your entrepreneurial problems. You don’t have time to do everything, so let us do it for you.

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