You’re looking for engagement and conversions, and the only way to get them is for your email marketing to land in the recipient’s inbox. This is where inbox placement and your inbox placement rate come in. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, including how to calculate your inbox placement rate and how to improve it.
Inbox placement rate, or IPR, refers to the percentage of successfully delivered emails that reach a recipient’s inbox rather than their spam (or promotions) folder. Inbox placement is one of the most important lead measures for the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign because it gives you a sense of how visible your emails are to the end user.
Think of it this way: your inbox placement rate is directly related to your email open rate. If your emails get caught by the spam filter, then there’s no chance that a recipient will open them. (We can all agree that the chances are slim that your target customer is sifting through their spam folder to ensure they’re not missing any marketing missives.)
What’s a good inbox placement rate? You’re looking for 90% or higher.
The inbox placement rate is the percentage of emails that make it to the inbox folder once successfully delivered. Delivery rate, on the other hand, is a broader metric that measures the percentage of sent emails that are accepted by the recipient’s email server. Delivery rate does not distinguish between emails that end up in the primary inbox, spam folder, or promotional tab.
Think of your email campaign strategy as an obstacle course. Obstacle one is email deliverability, obstacle two is inbox placement, and obstacle three is open rate. The better you do on the first two, the easier the third will be.
Inbox Placement Rate (IPR) = (Number of Emails in Inbox / Total Number of Emails Sent) x 100
Inbox placement is calculated by dividing the number of emails that land in the inbox by the total number of emails sent. This will give you a decimal/fraction that you then multiply by 100 to get the percentage.
For example, if you send a total of 100 emails and 95 make it to the recipients’ inboxes, your inbox delivery rate is 95% because (95/100) x 100 = 95.
Sender reputation: An internet service provider (ISP) or email provider uses several indicators to determine a sender's overall trustworthiness, including email authentication, spam complaints, and email engagement.
Email authentication protocols:Email authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC) verify that emails are coming from the domain they claim to be from. Email authentication protocols are important for preventing phishing and email security risks. If your emails fail authentication, they may be flagged as spam.
Email engagement: High email engagement leads to higher inbox placement. If you have low inbox placement, an email service provider may be more likely to consider your email marketing to be spam.
Email content: If it looks like spam, it’s going to get flagged as spam. (Not sure what that looks like? Think: excessive capitalization, misleading subject lines, etc.)
Good email marketing hygiene is the first step towards a solid inbox placement rate. Clear out old, outdated email addresses and inactive subscribers. As much as it hurts to pare down your email list (you worked hard to boost subscribers), it’s better to proactively prune out recipients who don’t engage with your content rather than risk them flagging your latest drip campaign as spam. Even if you create amazing emails, they still won’t be for everyone. That’s okay.
Implementing the double opt-in can be scary for an email marketer. “But what if they change their mind” you say. “If recipients know they’re on my email list, they’ll just hit unsubscribe.” Let them.
A smaller list full of high-quality, engaged email subscribers will outperform a large list of low-quality, uninterested recipients every time. And if you want a big high-quality list, we’ve got you covered. Check out the guide to building your email list the right way.
When you craft pithy, unforgettable subject lines and deliver clear and engaging content, your audience will respond. They’ll be likelier to open your emails and engage with your content—enviable click-through rate, here you come! Email service providers track this behavior, and when they see how engaged your audience is with your content, your email marketing will be routed to the primary inbox more often.
Real-talk: is your email marketing strategy built on a spam-level cadence? If so, you’ll want to make some adjustments to your drip campaign. Sending too many emails (or sending them too frequently) can lead to increased spam complaints, which in turn negatively affects your inbox placement rate.
This step will likely require some trial and error because you’re looking for a Goldilocks cadence—not too much that your audience is disengaging and emails are being marked as spam, and not so little that you’re missing out on conversions.
Use a consistent sender name and email address. Implement email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to ensure your emails are headed to the primary inbox. To put it bluntly: don’t act like spam, and you won’t get flagged like spam.
Email marketers have enough on their plates. Working with robust tools that can help you increase your inbox placement rate reduces headaches and increases the efficacy of your email program.
Twilio Sendgrid offers an industry-leading 96% average inboxing rate. Our email marketing service allows you to own your reputation with dedicated IPs and custom domains, benefit from our relationship with top Inbox Service Providers, and get expert deliverability support.
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