Study: Engagement knocks down spam placement

According to new ReturnPath data the more engaged a consumer is with a brand/their mailing list, the less likely an email is to be placed or marked as spam. What this means is that the more often a subscriber opens an email from a brand, the more likely the next message is to arrive in the inbox rather than a spam or even promotional folder.

So, emailers, it’s time not only to up the relevance but to test those subject lines for engagement.

“For several years now, major mailbox providers like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo have been placing an increased focus on subscriber engagement as part of the spam filtering process,” said Tom Sather, senior director of research at Return Path.

Some interesting findings from the Return Path report include:

â–ª Email read rates increased to 24%, a 2% YoY increase
â–ª Spam complaints increased from 0.17% to 0.39%
â–ª Deleted without reading rate increased to 16%, a 4% YoY increase

“This study demonstrates that keeping subscribers actively engaged with your email program is a major factor in email deliverability,” said Sather. “But at the same time, we know that fewer than one-third of marketers are tracking critical engagement metrics like read rate, forward rate, and complaints.”

More data from the Return Path Hidden Metrics of Email Deliverability report can be accessed here.