How to improve email deliverability with GetResponse

Improving email deliverability is crucial for the success of any email marketing campaign. Even the most compelling content and offers can fall flat if your emails never reach your subscribers’ inboxes. GetResponse, a comprehensive email marketing software and online campaign management solution, offers powerful tools to help boost your email deliverability. This tutorial will guide you through practical steps to optimize your GetResponse account and campaigns to ensure your messages land where they belong: your audience’s inbox. Understanding and implementing these best practices will not only increase your open rates but also positively impact your brand reputation and overall digital marketing success.

What you will build

In this tutorial, you will learn how to systematically improve your email deliverability using GetResponse. You won’t just send emails—you will set up your account and campaigns to avoid spam filters and ghosted emails. These enhancements will enable you to develop a trusted sender identity, segment your audience for targeted messaging, and maintain high engagement levels that signal to email providers that your content is valuable and wanted.

By following these steps, you will:

• Configure authentication protocols in GetResponse for better sender reputation, including SPF and DKIM records that validate your emails and help avoid spoofing.
• Set up and optimize your email lists and segments to engage the right audience, improving relevance and reducing unsubscribe rates.
• Create well-structured campaigns with deliverability best practices integrated, such as balanced HTML-to-text ratios and personalized content.

By the end, your GetResponse account will be tuned for higher open rates and fewer bounces, improving your overall digital marketing performance. These improvements will lay a strong foundation for sustainable email marketing that supports long-term business growth.

Prerequisites

• A GetResponse account, which you can create or log into via the Official GetResponse site. Ensure your subscription plan supports the features you plan to use, especially automation and segmentation tools.
• Access to your domain’s DNS settings for adding authentication records (SPF, DKIM). This is typically managed through your domain registrar or hosting provider.
• A mailing list imported or ready to be created in GetResponse. Make sure your contacts have given explicit consent to receive your emails to comply with regulations such as GDPR and CAN-SPAM.
• Basic understanding of email marketing terminology (list segmentation, bounce rate, etc.), which will help you navigate the platform and make informed decisions.
• A verified sender email address or domain in your GetResponse account. This verification is necessary to build trust with email providers.
• Desktop or mobile device with internet access for account setup and monitoring.
• Optional: Access to Google Postmaster Tools or similar email reputation monitoring services, which can provide additional insights into your domain’s email performance.

Step-by-step tutorial

1. Authenticate your sending domain
   • Log into your GetResponse account and navigate to Menu > Integrations & API > Domains. Here you can manage the domains you send emails from.
   • If your domain is not already listed, click Add domain and enter your domain name following the prompts.
   • GetResponse will provide you with specific TXT records to add to your domain’s DNS settings for SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail). SPF specifies which mail servers are authorized to send emails on your behalf, while DKIM adds a digital signature to prove your emails are authentic.
   • Log into your DNS provider (such as GoDaddy, Cloudflare, or others), locate your domain’s DNS management area, and add these TXT records exactly as specified by GetResponse. Any deviation or typos can cause the authentication to fail.
   • Wait for DNS propagation, which may take from a few minutes to up to 48 hours depending on your provider.
   • Return to GetResponse and use the Verify option to check that the TXT records are active. When verified, your domain will be authenticated, improving your email deliverability and decreasing the likelihood of being flagged as spam.
2. Verify your sender email address
   • Go to Menu > My Account > Sender Emails.
   • Add the email address you will use to send your campaigns, ensuring it belongs to the authenticated domain you set up earlier.
   • Once added, GetResponse will send a verification email to that address. Open the email and click the verification link to confirm ownership.
   • This step is essential because unverified sender addresses can trigger email clients and spam filters to block or mark your messages as suspicious.
   • After verification, always select and send campaigns only from these verified sender addresses to maintain a consistent and trusted sending reputation.
3. Clean and segment your mailing list
   • Navigate to the Contacts section of your GetResponse account and review your existing mailing lists.
   • Use GetResponse’s bounce management and engagement tracking tools to identify hard bounces (permanently invalid emails) and soft bounces (temporary issues). Remove or archive contacts with multiple hard bounces to keep your list clean.
   • Additionally, look for contacts who have been inactive, meaning they haven’t opened or clicked your emails for more than six months, as keeping these can harm your sender reputation.
   • Segment your list based on factors such as subscriber engagement levels, geography, behavior, purchase history, or interests, leveraging GetResponse’s intuitive segmentation feature. For example, create groups for highly engaged users separately from those who may need re-engagement campaigns.
   • Sending targeted campaigns to smaller, more relevant groups helps increase open rates, decreases complaints, and improves overall deliverability by signaling that your emails are wanted.
   • Make it a routine practice to clean and segment your lists to keep deliverability optimized over time.
4. Create engaging, plain-text friendly emails
   • Go to the Email Marketing tab and start a new campaign. Choose a responsive and mobile-friendly template to ensure your email looks great on all devices.
   • While using the drag-and-drop editor or HTML editor, ensure to include a plain text version of your email. GetResponse makes this easy by providing options to automatically generate plain text or letting you customize it. This is important because some email clients and spam filters prefer or require a plain text alternative.
   • Craft clear, concise, and compelling subject lines that accurately reflect your email content. Avoid ALL CAPS or excessive punctuation, which can trigger spam filters and annoy recipients.
   • Personalize your emails using GetResponse’s personalization tags (such as first name or location) to create a more engaging experience.
   • Use images sparingly and always provide descriptive alt text. Heavy image use can significantly increase the likelihood your email triggers spam filters, and alt text improves accessibility for recipients using screen readers.
   • Make sure your emails include a clear call-to-action (CTA) and relevant links to guide the recipient’s next step.
5. Set up automated workflows with deliverability best practices
   • From the GetResponse dashboard, navigate to Automation and create a new workflow tailored to your audience’s journey.
   • Start with a welcome email workflow for new subscribers that includes a double opt-in confirmation when possible. This reduces the chance of spam traps and reinforces subscriber engagement from the outset.
   • In your workflows, include conditional splits to differentiate between highly engaged subscribers and less active ones. For example, send exclusive offers or content to active subscribers, and less frequent, educational content to unengaged users to avoid fatigue.
   • Incorporate pauses or delays to avoid overwhelming contacts with too many emails in a short period.
   • Schedule emails to be sent according to subscriber time zones and when they are most likely to engage, improving open rates and reducing spam complaint risk. GetResponse analytics can help identify optimal times based on past campaign data.
   • Regularly review and optimize workflows based on engagement metrics for continued deliverability improvements.
6. Configure unsubscribe options and preference centers
   • Within your campaign settings, enable custom unsubscribe links that allow subscribers not only to unsubscribe but also to manage their email preferences.
   • Use GetResponse’s built-in tools to design a preference center. This empowers subscribers to select their preferred topics or email frequency, keeping them engaged rather than lost due to passive unsubscribes or spam complaints.
   • Make sure to respect unsubscribe requests immediately. Delays in processing these requests can result in spam complaints and damage your sender score. GetResponse handles this automatically, but it’s important to configure settings properly.
   • Consider including reminders or links to update preferences rather than full unsubscribes in your emails to retain subscribers longer.
7. Monitor deliverability metrics and feedback
   • Regularly review GetResponse’s campaign analytics dashboard to monitor key metrics such as bounce rates, open rates, click-through rates, and spam complaint rates.
   • Use the Spam Test feature before sending each campaign to detect potential triggers and adjust your content accordingly.
   • Pay close attention to trends in engagement and bounce data. If you see rising bounce rates or declining open rates, investigate and take corrective action such as cleaning your list or reviewing your sending frequency.
   • Maintain good sender reputation by continuously updating and segmenting your list based on this data. Subscribers with high engagement improve your reputation, while ignoring these signals can cause long-term deliverability problems.
   • Optionally, connect your domain to external reputation monitoring services like Google Postmaster Tools for additional insights into your email sending health.

Common mistakes

• Failing to authenticate your sending domain, which causes emails to be flagged as suspicious or rejected outright by recipient servers. This step is a critical foundation often overlooked by beginners.
• Sending bulk emails to unsegmented or outdated lists, resulting in high bounce and spam complaint rates. This practice diminishes your sender reputation and deliverability.
• Using misleading or overly promotional subject lines that trigger spam filters. Always keep subject lines honest, clear, and relevant.
• Neglecting to include a clear unsubscribe option, leading to subscriber frustration and complaints that harm your sender score.
• Ignoring engagement metrics and not cleaning lists regularly, which results in continuously sending to inactive or invalid contacts.
• Overloading emails with images and little text, causing deliverability issues and poor user experience, as many spam filters penalize image-heavy emails.
• Not testing emails with built-in spam tests before final sends. This step helps catch issues before they impact your campaign performance.
• Sending emails at inappropriate times or too frequently without considering subscriber time zones or preferences, leading to unsubscribes and complaints.

Next steps

Once you have completed these steps, keep optimizing your GetResponse campaigns by regularly reviewing your email analytics and subscriber feedback. Use these insights to continuously refine your content, segmentation, and timing, thereby improving both engagement and deliverability. Don’t hesitate to experiment with A/B testing features within GetResponse to see what resonates best with your audience.

For a broader understanding of digital marketing strategies that complement your improved email deliverability, consider exploring additional resources at techzog.com. This will help you integrate GetResponse more effectively into your overall marketing plan, including social media, PPC, and content marketing tactics that drive traffic and conversions.

Remember, maintaining a strong sender reputation is an ongoing process that requires attention and care. Stay proactive with GetResponse’s tools, adhere to email marketing best practices, and always keep your audience’s best interests at heart. By doing so, you will maximize the value of your email marketing campaigns and foster long-lasting customer relationships that benefit your business.

More GetResponse guides

• How to automate email sequences using GetResponse
• How to create email campaigns with GetResponse