Mastering Email Deliverability for Successful Holiday Campaigns
For marketers, no time is more crucial than the holiday season to connect with consumers through personalized offers and messages. This year, personalization is more powerful than ever, with Optimove Insights data showing a 227 percent increase in email engagement due to tailored content. A remarkable 36 percent of consumers say they open marketing emails specifically for their personalized relevance, highlighting how essential it’s become to align messaging with customer preferences and values.
To make the most of this opportunity, however, emails must reach the inbox and deliver the right balance of relevance, engagement and frequency — without overwhelming subscribers. Mastering email deliverability with a focus on these factors is key for a successful holiday campaign. Here’s what you need to know.
Top Strategies for Optimizing Deliverability and Engagement
To ensure your holiday campaigns reach their full potential, start with these top strategies for optimizing email deliverability and driving engagement:
- Craft engaging, relevant content. Internet service providers (ISPs) prioritize emails with strong user engagement. To boost interaction, tailor your content to your audience’s interests with personalized subject lines, relevant visuals, and segmentation. Engaging content not only improves open and click rates but also signals to ISPs that your emails are wanted, keeping you in the inbox.
- Control send frequency and cadence. Consistent, gradual email sending is key to avoiding ISP flags. Sudden spikes in volume or high-frequency sends can prompt complaints or spam classification. To stay in good standing with ISPs, increase your send volume slowly as the holiday season progresses and respect your audience’s preferred frequency.
- Act quickly on deferrals and alerts. A deferral is an ISP's way of indicating potential issues with your sender reputation. If deferral rates spike or you receive deliverability alerts, act immediately — especially during time-sensitive campaigns like Black Friday. Regularly clean your list to reduce risks, monitor engagement metrics, and respond to alerts to protect your inbox placement.
- Authenticate your domain with DMARC. Implementing DMARC authentication (domain-based message authentication, reporting, and conformance) helps secure your emails and builds ISP trust by preventing unauthorized senders from impersonating your brand. Proper authentication not only reduces phishing risks but also ensures your emails are treated as trustworthy by ISPs, leading to better inbox placement.
- Maintain list hygiene. A clean, engaged list is essential to email deliverability. Regularly remove inactive or invalid email addresses, as high bounce or complaint rates can damage your sender reputation and lead to blacklisting. Schedule list hygiene checks on a monthly or quarterly basis to maintain a healthy, engaged audience.
Additional Tips to Maximize Deliverability and Engagement
Beyond the core strategies, these additional tips can further enhance your email deliverability and engagement, helping you make the most of your holiday campaigns.
- Implement double opt-in. This extra step confirms genuine interest and reduces spam complaints, ensuring higher quality in your subscriber list.
- Monitor “Days Since Last Opened.” Use this metric to gauge engagement and adjust your sending strategies, focusing on active users and suppressing inactive ones.
- Review bounce and block logs regularly. Regularly monitor bounce and block logs to catch and address deliverability issues early.
- Use personalization tags. Adding personalization makes each email feel more relevant, increasing the likelihood of inbox placement.
- Respond promptly to deliverability alerts. Acting quickly on alerts can prevent larger issues down the line, protecting your sender reputation and campaign success.
Email Deliverability for the Win
To succeed with holiday campaigns, focus on deliverability by creating relevant content, managing send frequency, maintaining list hygiene, and adhering to standards. Combined with personalized elements and prompt responses to alerts, these strategies will maximize your reach and engagement, helping you make the most of the holiday season.
Dana Carr is the director of email marketing at Optimove, a customer-led marketing platform.
Dana Carr is Optimove’s director of email marketing. Dana has over 20 years of experience managing the email marketing strategies of many recognizable global B2C and B2B brands. As the Director of Email Marketing, Dana is bridging the gap for Optimove’s customers by providing a data-driven marketing plan and timely implementation grounded in best practices, targeted content, and visually engaging design.
