With the number of emails sent and received per day forecast to reach 392 billion by 2026, making sure your emails land in your audience's inbox is crucial, especially for cold emails that often face stricter spam filters. Regularly testing and monitoring email deliverability helps optimize your campaigns and improve their success rates. 

This guide will cover the best tools for testing cold email deliverability, helping you overcome common challenges and ensure your emails reach their intended recipients.

Introduction to Email Deliverability Testing

Email deliverability refers to the successful delivery of an email to the recipient's inbox, avoiding spam or junk folders. Good email deliverability is crucial for effective email marketing, ensuring your audience receives, reads, and acts upon your messages. 

It measures the success rate of your emails reaching the intended audience and involves factors like verification, sender reputation, content quality, and recipient engagement.

Testing your email deliverability is a crucial step in ensuring the success of your email marketing campaigns. By understanding the factors that affect email deliverability, you can optimize your email content, sender reputation, and other elements to improve the chances of your messages being delivered to your target audience's inboxes.

In this section, we'll explore the importance of email deliverability testing and the key metrics you should monitor to assess the performance of your email campaigns. We'll also dive into the various tools and techniques you can use to test and improve your email deliverability.

Why Email Deliverability Matters

Good email deliverability is crucial because it maximizes the reach of your email campaigns, builds trust with subscribers, increases conversion rates, and enhances the return on investment (ROI) of your email marketing efforts. 

When your emails consistently reach the inbox, you can effectively communicate with your audience, drive engagement, and achieve your marketing goals.

Impact on Campaign Success

Email deliverability directly impacts the success of your campaigns. If your emails are not being delivered, your audience won't see your message, leading to low open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. 

Poor deliverability can also damage your sender reputation, making it even harder to reach the inbox in the future.

Factors Affecting Deliverability

Several key factors influence email deliverability:

  • Sender Reputation: A strong sender reputation signals to email providers that your emails are trustworthy, increasing the likelihood of inbox placement.

  • Email Authentication: Implementing protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC helps verify the authenticity of your emails and boosts deliverability.

  • Email List Quality: Maintaining a clean, up-to-date email list with engaged subscribers reduces spam complaints and improves deliverability.

  • Email Content Quality: 78% of people will mark an email as spam because it looks like spam. Providing relevant, valuable content helps build trust with email providers and subscribers, positively impacting deliverability.

By focusing on these factors, you can improve your email deliverability and ensure your messages reach the intended recipients.

FactorImpact on Deliverability
Sender ReputationA strong sender reputation signals to email providers that your emails are legitimate and trustworthy, increasing the likelihood of reaching the inbox.
Email AuthenticationImplementing email verification protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC helps prove the authenticity of your emails and boosts deliverability.
Email List QualityMaintaining a clean, up-to-date email list with engaged subscribers reduces the risk of spam complaints and improves deliverability.
Email Content QualityProviding relevant, valuable, and non-spammy content helps you build trust with email providers and subscribers, positively impacting deliverability.

How to Check If an Email Is Deliverable

Ensuring your emails reach the intended inboxes is key to the success of your marketing campaigns. To assess email deliverability, it's important to monitor key metrics such as inbox placement rates, spam placement rates, and overall delivery rates. 

These metrics provide insights into how your emails are being received and processed by email service providers and internet service providers.

Key Metrics to Monitor

  1. Inbox Placement Rate: Tracks the percentage of your emails that are successfully delivered to subscribers' primary inboxes.

  2. Spam Placement Rate: Indicates the percentage of your emails that are filtered as spam and sent to junk folders.

  3. Overall Delivery Rate: Provides a comprehensive view of your email deliverability, accounting for both inbox and spam placement.

Monitoring these key metrics helps you identify any issues with your email deliverability and take appropriate actions to improve it.

Tools and Techniques

Using email deliverability tools can help you test and monitor the performance of your emails. These tools analyze factors such as sender reputation, email authentication, and content quality to provide a comprehensive assessment of your email deliverability. They can help you identify common issues like spam triggers, authentication problems, and blacklisting.

Additionally, employing techniques like email list cleaning, optimizing your email content, and implementing proper email authentication protocols can significantly improve your overall email deliverability. 

Regularly testing your emails and making necessary adjustments ensures that your messages reach the intended recipients and achieve your marketing goals.

By closely monitoring these metrics and using the right tools and techniques, you can enhance your email deliverability and ensure your marketing campaigns are successful.

How to Test If an Email Is Spam

162 billion spam emails are sent every day. Spam filters used by email service providers and internet service providers evaluate various aspects of an email, including sender reputation, content, and recipient engagement, to determine if an email should be delivered to the inbox or flagged as spam. 

Understanding Spam Filters

Spam filters analyze several factors to identify potential spam messages. These factors include:

  • Sender reputation: Filters look at the sender's email history and domain to assess the likelihood of the message being spam.

  • Email content: Spam filters scan the email's subject line, body, and attachments for keywords, links, and other characteristics associated with spam.

  • Recipient engagement: Filters consider how recipients have interacted with previous emails from the sender, such as opening, clicking, or marking messages as spam.

Top Tools for Email Deliverability Testing

Maintaining a healthy email deliverability rate is crucial for the success of your cold email campaigns. Fortunately, there are several powerful tools available to help you analyze and optimize your email deliverability. 

Let's take a closer look at some of the top options on the market:

1. QuickMail

QuickMail is an advanced email outreach tool, but its Deliverability AI feature sets it apart in ensuring high deliverability rates. This feature automatically swaps email accounts with low deliverability scores in a campaign with ones that have high scores within the same Smart Sending Group, ensuring your campaigns are sent only from emails with good deliverability.

quickmail smart sending group deliverability ai

QuickMail also offers features like email list cleaning, IP warming, and automated spam testing, along with insights into sender reputation and protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. 

Pros:

  • Emphasis on sender reputation and email authentication

  • Automated list cleaning and IP warming

  • Deliverability AI for high deliverability in campaigns

  • Free auto-warmer feature

  • Detailed email outreach and automation tool

2. SpamTester.ai

SpamTester.ai is a free, comprehensive email deliverability test that provides a unique test email address to send your templates. It evaluates text and content quality, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC record accuracy, blocklist status, and broken links, offering real-time monitoring and detailed reports to help you identify and resolve issues that could cause your emails to land in spam.

Using SpamTester.ai, you can quickly review key factors affecting deliverability, run spam tests, and improve your email templates to avoid spam triggers. Its detailed insights and recommendations enable you to optimize your email campaigns for better performance and higher success rates.

Pros:

  • Comprehensive deliverability testing

  • Real-time monitoring and detailed reporting

  • Easy to use

  • Free

Cons:

  • May require technical expertise for advanced features

3. Mail-Tester

Mail-Tester is a tool that combines email verification and deliverability analysis to ensure your emails reach their intended recipients. It checks for common issues like spam triggers, authentication problems, and blacklisting. 

Mail-Tester provides a comprehensive email analysis, including checks for DKIM, DMARC, and SPF configuration, content quality, and potential spam triggers. It also monitors your email address for any reputation issues or blacklisting. The tool offers a 99% accurate email checker and verification to help maintain a clean and effective email list.

Pros:

  • Free to use with 100 free credits for new accounts

  • Simple interface

  • Combines email verification and deliverability analysis

  • Thorough email analysis with 99% accuracy

Cons:

  • Limited to basic deliverability testing

4. SpamCheck - Best Online Tool

SpamCheck is a free online tool that analyzes email content and provides a deliverability score on a scale of 0 to 5. By simply pasting your email content directly onto the website, you can get detailed feedback and suggestions to improve your email’s chances of reaching the inbox.

SpamCheck offers real-time updates, checking the quality of links, images, and HTML. It also provides a straightforward API for developers to integrate spam score testing into email systems or applications seamlessly.

Pros:

  • Free to use

  • Easy paste-and-check functionality

  • Provides actionable insights for improving deliverability

  • Real-time updates

  • API for seamless integration

Cons:

  • Limited to content analysis

  • No features for deliverability or outreach

5. GlockApps

GlockApps is a comprehensive email deliverability test platform that simulates where your emails will land—in the inbox, spam folder, or bounce due to invalid addresses. It runs authentication checks for protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to verify your legitimacy as a sender.

GlockApps offers automated spam testing, uptime monitoring, and a template editor that highlights issues in your email content. It provides detailed reports on inbox placement, spam placement, and non-delivery rates. By simulating email delivery to major providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook, you can see if your messages will reach the primary inbox or be filtered into spam.

Pros:

  • Extensive spam testing capabilities

  • Real-time monitoring and alerts

  • Customizable reporting

  • Comprehensive suite of deliverability tools

  • Simulates delivery to major email providers

Cons:

  • Free tool only has 2 Spam Check credits

  • More expensive than some other tools

What is Email Delivery Score? 

Email delivery score is a crucial metric that measures the likelihood of an email reaching the recipient's inbox. This score considers factors like sender reputation, email content, and user engagement to determine overall deliverability. 

A higher score, typically ranging from 0 to 100, indicates a greater chance of successful delivery. Key elements influencing this score include:

Sender ReputationInfluenced by IP address, domain, and previous sending history.
Email ContentQuality and relevance of the subject line, body, and any attachments or images.
User EngagementRecipient interactions, such as open rates, click-through rates, and spam complaints.

How to Improve Your Score

To enhance your email delivery score and ensure your messages reach the intended recipients, focus on these strategies:

  • Build a Strong Sender Reputation: Authenticate your email domain, maintain a clean email list, and avoid spam-like practices.

  • Implement Email Authentication Protocols: Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to verify the legitimacy of your emails.

  • Craft Engaging and Relevant Content: Use compelling subject lines, personalize your emails, and provide value to your subscribers.

  • Monitor User Engagement Metrics: Track open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates to identify areas for improvement.

  • Regularly Test and Optimize Your Campaigns: Use email deliverability testing tools to identify and address any issues affecting your score.

By focusing on these strategies, you can improve your email delivery score, ensuring your messages reach their intended recipients and driving better campaign success and ROI.

How to Confirm Email Delivery

In addition to utilizing email deliverability testing tools, you can confirm the successful delivery of your emails by tracking key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates. 

Monitoring these metrics can provide valuable insights into the performance of your email campaigns and help you identify any potential delivery issues.

Tools and Techniques

To confirm email delivery, consider leveraging the following tools and techniques:

quickmail-analytics-advanced-stats

  • Email Tracking Software: Utilize tools that offer detailed reporting on email open and click-through rates, as well as bounce and unsubscribe rates. These insights help you understand the overall success of your email campaigns. QuickMail, for instance, provides advanced analytics to track these metrics effectively.

  • Inbox Placement Monitoring: Monitor your emails' placement in recipients' inboxes to ensure they are not being routed to spam or promotional folders, which can impact engagement and deliverability.

  • Email Authentication Protocols: Implement email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to enhance your sender reputation and improve the chances of your emails reaching the intended inboxes.

Best Practices

To ensure successful email delivery, it's recommended to follow these best practices:

  1. Regularly clean and maintain your email list: Remove inactive, unengaged, or invalid email addresses to maintain a healthy list and improve deliverability.

  2. Personalize your email content: Tailor your messages to the individual recipient's interests and preferences to increase engagement and reduce the risk of being marked as spam. For example, emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.

  3. Monitor user engagement: Pay close attention to open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates to identify any potential deliverability issues and optimize your email strategy accordingly.

  4. Consider using email warming services: Gradually increase your email sending volume and build a positive sender reputation by utilizing email warming services, which can help improve your overall deliverability.

By implementing these tools, techniques, and best practices, you can effectively confirm the delivery of your emails and ensure the success of your email marketing campaigns.

Optimizing Your Email Deliverability With QuickMail

Within email marketing, ensuring your messages reach your audience’s inbox is paramount, especially for cold emails that face stricter spam filters. Testing and monitoring email deliverability regularly can significantly optimize your campaigns and improve their success rates. 

Tools like QuickMail, SpamTester.ai, Mail-Tester, SpamCheck, and GlockApps offer comprehensive solutions to identify and resolve deliverability issues, ensuring your emails reach their intended recipients.

To enhance your email marketing efforts, consistently monitor your campaigns, implement best practices, and leverage the right tools. Start optimizing your email deliverability with advanced features like QuickMail’s Deliverability AI.

Try QuickMail for free today to take your email deliverability and outreach to the next level.