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What is email deliverability?

Email deliverability is the percentage of emails that are successfully delivered to the recipient's inbox, rather than being filtered into the spam folder, rejected, or bounced back to the sender. This metric is a crucial indicator of the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign.

You can calculate it using this formula:

Email deliverability (%) =
Emails delivered to inbox
Total number of emails sent
x 100

What affects your email deliverability rate?

There are several factors that can impact email deliverability rate, including:

  • Reputation checks

    A poor sending and/or domain reputation can result in your emails being marked as spam or rejected by email providers.

  • Email authentication

    Poorly, or unauthenticated, email domains mean that emails may be rejected on the basis that they could be spoofed, faked or altered.

  • Email volume and frequency

    Sending too many emails, having spikes in volume, or sending emails out to large recipient lists with no previous “warming up” of your sender reputation can seriously damage your chances of a high deliverability rate.

  • Email content

    Email content that is irrelevant, poorly designed, or contains triggering words or phrases can result in your emails being marked as spam or rejected by email providers.

  • Email engagement

    The level of engagement that recipients have with your emails, such as opening, clicking, and responding to your emails, can impact your sending reputation and the likelihood that your emails will reach the recipient's inbox.

  • Spam complaints

    Recipients marking your emails as spam can seriously affect your email campaigns. Based on industry standards, more than 1 spam complaint per 1,000 emails sent (a 0.1% spam complaint rate) could damage your sending reputation.

What is a good deliverability rate?

A good email deliverability rate varies depending on the specific circumstances and the nature of your email marketing campaign. However, generally speaking, a deliverability rate of between 83% and 89% is considered good.

And anything above 95% is excellent. A score below 80% means that there are some delivery problems that need to be resolved.

HubSpot's deliverability rate

Email Deliverability Report analyzed HubSpot's deliverability rate over time, and the findings are as follows:

Inbox 83.4%
Spam 13.1%
Lost 3.5%

A total of 76,222 emails were sent using HubSpot. Of these, 83.4% went to the inbox, 13.1% went to the junk mail folder, and 3.5% of the emails were lost.

How does HubSpot compare?

Based on Email Deliverability Report, HubSpot has a good score.

Inbox Spam Lost
HubSpot 83.4% 13.1% 3.5%
ActiveCampaign 86.2% 10.9% 2.9%
GetResponse 85.3% 11.4% 3.3%

Last updated: 01/02/2023

What impacts HubSpot's deliverability rate?

  • Not using email authentication protocols (such as SPF and DKIM).
  • Using a shared IP address.
  • Buying an email list.
  • Not warming up the domain.

How to improve your deliverability rate with HubSpot

Here are some tips to improve your HubSpot deliverability rate.

  • Build your mailing list organically

    Building a mailing list organically rather than buying one is a great way to ensure that your subscribers are engaged and interested in your content. Here are some strategies: utilize landing pages, leverage social media, partner with other businesses.

  • Ensure domain is authenticated correctly

    There are several methods to authenticate your domain, including SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance).

  • Switch to a dedicated IP

    Switching to a dedicated IP can help improve your email deliverability by giving you more control over your sending reputation. It's important to warm it up gradually by gradually increasing the volume of email you send from it. This helps establish your sending reputation with ISPs and reduces the likelihood that your emails will be marked as spam.

  • Send engaging content

    Ensure that your email content is relevant to your subscribers and provides value to them. This will help to reduce the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam. Also, determine the frequency of emails and send them only at the frequency your users have opted in to.

  • Make it easier to unsubscribe

    Making it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe from your emails can help improve your overall email deliverability by reducing the number of complaints and unsubscribes, which can negatively impact your sending reputation. Be sure to provide a clear and visible unsubscribe link with a simple unsubscribe process.

By following these best practices and selecting a tool with a strong deliverability rate, you can help improve your email deliverability rate and increase the effectiveness and return on your own investment of your email marketing efforts.

Conclusion: HubSpot deliverability rate

Based on our tests, HubSpot has proven to be a high-performing email marketing service in terms of deliverability.

It's important to monitor your email deliverability rate. It takes time to establish a good reputation, but just one poorly thought-out email campaign can quickly damage it. However, if this does happen, there are steps you can take to improve your deliverability rates.

If you are considering a change in email marketing services or are just starting out, our guides can help you make a decision on which provider to choose. However, it is important to conduct your own research and perform your own tests.