By Lauren Meyer
Delivery Rates are between 0% to 100%; once you finish the equation, turn your answer to a percentage by multiplying by 100.
Tips for interpreting Delivery Rates:
Delivery rates are meant to show the percentage (or fraction) of emails that were delivered successfully to recipients. Delivery rates do not measure recipient engagement in any way.
In general, the HIGHER the delivery rate, the better. A high delivery rate is indicative of a healthy list collection process and positive sender reputation.
However, high delivery rates do not necessarily mean your emails were delivered to the inbox. In fact, some in the industry feel the delivery rate should actually be called a “not bounced” rate instead because that’s about as much as they tell you: the message has been accepted into the receiving network’s servers. The ultimate fate of the email (i.e., hitting the inbox or spam folder) will be determined after further analysis of sender reputation and email content.
It is not uncommon for Welcome programs to experience lower delivery rates than other types of emails, but generally speaking, senders should aim to keep delivery rates above 98%.
A low delivery rate is indicative of issues with list collection, list management, and/or sender reputation, so it is important to monitor delivery rates over time to spot when they are in decline more easily.
When a problematic trend is identified, senders should take time to:
- review all list collection sources for changes in volume or quality
- look for evidence of bot sign-up abuse
- ensure hard bounces are being suppressed
See our other articles for examples of metrics that can affect sender reputation.
In summary, you can use delivery rates to help identify issues with:
- List collection and maintenance
- Sender reputation
Related Links:
Curious what some email veterans think about the importance of Delivery Rates? Check out Email Deliverability Unfiltered: Overrated Metrics, 9 Experts Weigh in on Email Metrics that Matter.
Interested in learning other metrics you should be tracking alongside Delivery Rates? Check out The Ultimate Guide to Measuring Email Marketing Success: 12 Key Metrics.