Mailgun Sinch, which powers conversations between businesses and their customers through its Customer Communications Cloud, has published the State of Email Deliverability 2023 report.

According to findings, despite only 8% of all email traffic delivered to the intended inbox, businesses are still failing to prioritise their email deliverability. Almost half (44.4%) of those surveyed were not confident in their knowledge of deliverability, let alone how to achieve it. This gap often leads to dissatisfied customers, weaker brand loyalty, and missed revenue. 

Kate Nowrouzi, VP of deliverability & product strategy at Mailgun by Sinch, said: “Email has an exceptionally high average ROI of about $36 per dollar spent, but it’s impossible to drive revenue if your messages aren’t making it to the inbox — and depending on the subject matter, undelivered emails can be detrimental to your brand reputation and customer experience.

“Deliverability is integral to the success of an email program, and once brands prioritize it and implement the right solutions to improve inbox placement, they’ll see significant improvements in customer satisfaction, engagement, reputation and revenue.”

The report found that two out of five (40%) of those surveyed who understand and prioritise deliverability saw increased customer satisfaction as the greatest benefit, while another 18% lauded increased revenue. 

Source: Mailgun by Sinch, State of Email Deliverability 2023

Astonishingly, the survey found that more than one in five (21%) of respondents recorded an email deliverability rate below 85% for marketing emails. And only less than a third  (27%) of people have a deliverable rate of 95% or higher. 

Other takeaways from the survey include: 

• Staying out of the spam folder was the top email deliverability challenge. This was followed closely by receiving more emails and staying off email blocklists.  
• Yet most companies aren’t monitoring — and therefore, can’t improve — their inbox placement. Only 16.4% of respondents monitor inbox placement with seed testing, which is the best measurement for understanding whether emails land in the inbox or the spam folder.
• Email lists are often neglected, which is a leading cause of deliverability issues. 
• Half of the respondents (50.1%) aren’t using tools to automatically verify and validate email addresses before adding them to contact lists. 
• Even more (52.1%) aren’t using a double opt-in process for contact acquisition, an important best practice for deliverability that also supports privacy law compliance.
• More than a third of senders (38.7%) rarely or never conduct contact list hygiene at all.

So, why is this important? 

Focusing on deliverability is an excellent way to increase ROI from email channels. A 2023 Forrester Consulting Total Economic ImpactTM study on Mailgun by Sinch found that a composite organisation would see a 264% ROI after three years. The report highlights that email deliverability is incremental in driving revenue during that period. 

“Email sending has grown more complex, and the onus is on businesses to ensure emails are actually making it to their customers,” Nowrouzi continued. “When businesses are ready to maximize impact in the inbox, there are a number of solutions on the market which make achieving high deliverability both accessible and cost-effective — it’s all about finding the right partner for your business needs.”

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Tags: communication, customers, email marketing