If your email metrics are declining — lower open rates, rising spam complaints, or emails flagged by Gmail — your deliverability needs attention. The good news is that most deliverability problems have straightforward technical fixes. This guide covers the most common causes of poor deliverability for ecommerce brands using Klaviyo, and the exact steps to resolve them.

The Three Authentication Records Every Ecommerce Brand Needs

Before anything else, make sure your domain has all three authentication records in place. Missing even one of these is enough to damage your sender reputation and land in spam.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

SPF tells inbox providers which mail servers are authorised to send email on behalf of your domain. In Klaviyo, go to Settings → Domains and follow the SPF setup instructions for your domain provider.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)

DKIM adds a cryptographic signature to your emails proving the message wasn't tampered with in transit. Klaviyo generates DKIM keys automatically — you just need to add them as DNS records on your domain.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance)

DMARC tells receiving servers what to do if an email fails SPF or DKIM. Start with p=none to monitor, then move to p=quarantine once you're confident all legitimate sends are authenticated.

In this last article regarding email deliverability, we will go over the importance of Google and the steps you must take if some of your metrics are indicating poor deliverability.

Importance of Gmail Users

Gmail is the largest email inbox provider in the world with over 1.8 billion active users, which means that a third of the email opens occur in Gmail. For this reason, it is crucial that your emails arrive in the inbox on Google. However, there is a catch—Gmail does not inform you about your spam complaints directly to your ESP provider, so you have to check on the Google Postmaster Tools.

Connecting Your Google Postmaster Tools

To connect your Google Postmaster Tools, you first need to add your root domain that you use to send emails by adding the TXT record—provided by Google Postmaster Tools—to your DNS settings on your domain provider. If you’re using Klaviyo, you can add a branded sending domain easily without verifying it. Furthermore, if you’re working together with an agency or a team, you’re also able to add users to the domains so they can access the analytics provided and streamline the process.

Google Postmaster Tools provide you with the following 4 reports you should monitor:

• Spam Rate
  This is the percentage of emails that are marked as spam, NOT the total amount of emails that land in the spam folder. This means that you might have a low spam rate, but your emails end up in the spam folder regardless. Aim to keep the spam rate below 0.1% and never above 0.3% for any day.

• Domain Reputation
  This graph tells you how likely it is that your message is going to be filtered to the spam folder. Strive to get this metric as high as possible.

• Feedback Loop
  This tool is important for high volume senders. It informs you about higher spam complaints for specific campaigns, so you can find out what campaigns perform better than others.

• Authentication
  This report lets you know the status of your DNS Records by showing you the percentage of emails that passed SPF, DKIM, and DMARC checks.

With these 4 tools, you’re able to track the health of your domain and emails. Make a habit of regularly monitoring these reports to ensure your efforts reap the best results.

Steps to Fight Low Performance

Now that you have the tools to analyze and track the key metrics for email deliverability, what should you do if your emails are not performing as intended?

Follow these steps to address common issues with underperforming metrics:

Low Open Rate, High Bounce Rate, and High Unsubscribe Rate:

• Don’t send emails to recipients who did not explicitly confirm they wish to receive your content

• Remove unengaged customers from your list

• Segment your audience and reduce output sent to less engaged customers

• Use double opt-in to ensure your contacts have entered valid information and bots are filtered out

Low Click Rate and High Spam Complaint Rate:

• Make sure to properly position your CTA so that it is clearly visible and naturally draws the eye

• Set up dedicated click tracking

• Relevancy is key—ensure the content you send is relevant to your audience. If necessary, create a new, more specific segment to target the most interested people

• Check that your emails are not at risk of being clipped by Gmail

  
  
  

This quick read enabled you to identify the importance of Google users, as well as improve your metrics if they're performing poorly. If you’ve got any questions or inquiries, feel free to contact us at:

Info@eledia.co