Traditional email deliverability reporting is like an x-ray: it shows where the break occurred but doesn’t prevent it. If issues keep recurring, simply diagnosing the breaks isn’t enough—you need to uncover the causes. Shifting to proactive health and risk metrics, aligned with strategic KPIs, is a game-changer, helping you prevent deliverability issues before they impact your sender reputation or business performance.
The Limits of Traditional Deliverability Reporting
“An x-ray can tell you what broke, but it can’t stop you from falling”
Deliverability reports, like x-rays, are diagnostic—they reveal issues like spam complaints, low domain reputation, and high bounce rates. While valuable for understanding past performance and trends, this type of reporting is reactive. Relying solely on traditional metrics to guide your program can lead to the same cycle of repeated issues, without addressing the root causes.
Measuring the Health of Your Email Strategy
"Deliverability Health: Metrics that prevent and optimise, not just diagnose"
To go beyond reactive reporting, marketers need metrics that monitor the ongoing health and risk factors of their email strategy. Think of these metrics as your program’s Health Monitor, showing where improvements are needed before deliverability issues arise. Here are key metrics that I use to track the pulse and vital signs of your email program:
- Percentage of Active vs. Inactive Contacts: What portion of the list is actively engaging?
- Email Frequency to Active vs. Inactive Contacts: How many emails are sent monthly to active vs inactive subscribers? This metric gauges targeting and automation over full-list sends?
- Active Message Volume Percentage: What share of your monthly volume goes to active recipients? Aim for 50% or higher, which indicates strong list quality and intelligent targeting.
- Inactive Contact Segmentation: Among inactive contacts, what percentage are previous customers with proven value vs. "zombie" addresses that have never engaged? This metric helps measure list quality and customer data lifecycle management.
- New Subscriber Engagement: What percentage of new subscribers engage? This helps identify issues with sign-up validation and welcome programme effectiveness
Reports Guide, Strategy Decides
“Good metrics are the compass, but strategy is the map that shows each next step”
While proactive metrics help identify risks and track progress, reporting alone won’t drive change. Lasting health in your email program depends on strategic actions, including:
- Validating and confirming new subscribers to ensure quality.
- Maintaining list hygiene through effective data lifecycle practices.
- Sending relevant, engaging emails to the right recipients at the right time, utilizing automation, segmentation, and personalization.
Health metrics and strategic direction must work in tandem—one without the other is incomplete.
Prevent, Don’t Just Diagnose
Traditional deliverability reporting tells you what happened, but success comes from prevention. By adopting Deliverability Health Monitoring and aligning it with a preventative strategy, you can address potential issues before they start, building a stronger, healthier email program.
Takeaway message: “Reports may diagnose the problem, but effective strategy keeps it from happening again"