With a Royal Mail report recently revealing that 47% of UK consumers make purchases as a direct consequence of the marketing emails in their inboxes, it’s never been more important to make sure that email marketing lands in the right places.
After all, the ability to place marketing materials directly in consumer inboxes is the number one selling point for this method of interaction, and it’s the sole reason why email marketing continues to go from strength to strength.
Unfortunately, as many as 17% of emails don’t make it into people’s inboxes because of deliverability issues like spam folders. Inbox placement testing is the best tool that companies can use to avoid this. The question is, what is inbox placement testing, and why does it matter?
What is inbox placement testing?
An inbox placement test allows companies to test where their emails will land before they click send. To be effective, inbox placement testing should test marketing materials against as many different email providers as possible, to ensure a true representation of how they each handle the email in question. With this information, it’s possible to alter emails until they pass the ‘test’ and find their way directly into consumer inboxes when launch time rolls around.
What does an inbox placement test involve?
With estimates stating that there are as many as 200 active email service providers (ESPs), effective inbox placement testing requires more than a small in-house team. Instead, companies should seek help from a reliable white-label email provider who can send test emails to as many ESPs as possible. This is going to provide the broadest understanding of how often your marketing email will land directly in a consumer’s inbox.
In most cases, an inbox placement test will involve a range of steps, which will include –
- Sending a piece of email marketing to test accounts that are set up across a range of ESPs
- Analysing which providers placed emails in spam folders, or failed to receive emails altogether
- Implementing a comprehensive report of test findings, highlighting both problem areas and direct deliveries
- A chance to make improvements to email marketing before launching
Why is inbox testing important?
Email marketing can provide substantial returns on investment, but if emails are landing directly in spam folders, then it’s all too easy to lose money. In a basic sense, inbox testing is important because it makes sure that any money spent on email marketing has the best possible chance of generating returns.
Spam folders that deem a brand’s email content immediately unfit for use can also cause significant damage to your sender reputation. By offering a way to bypass the spam folder, inbox testing is a testament to the quality of your email marketing, and therefore of your brand in general.
At Instiller, we’ve seen first-hand how invaluable inbox testing can be for taking the content and returns of your email marketing to the next level. See the results of inbox testing for yourself by booking your free trial with Instiller today!