The single most important factor for success in email marketing is trust; (authentication runs a very close second)

Like some cringe-worthy trust exercise on a training day, all the players need to be trustworthy, and to trust others, in a safe balance. Otherwise we all fall down.

There’s a chain of trust running through all the important people and tech involved with ActiveCampaign deliverability – (except the skanky spammers – no one should trust them!) 

Especially between you as the writer and sender, and ActiveCampaign as the dispatcher of your emails.

Because if ActiveCampaign doesn’t trust you, your emails will not get to the inbox reliably.

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Follow these steps to learn how to be ActiveCampaign’s favourite email sender

Kay Peacey on how trust from ActiveCampaign helps your deliverability – 5 mins

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Learn why ActiveCampaign gets great deliverability at the inbox

Let’s recap what ActiveCampaign does as an important deliverability player in your Get to the inbox game:

ActiveCampaign’s role in deliverability is to dispatch your emails to Mailbox Providers. They launch your emails off on their journey to the inbox.

The Mailbox Providers who catch the emails from ActiveCampaign have a very hard job to do – they have to filter out  unwanted spam (lots and lots of it) from much-wanted emails and then deliver only the good stuff. 

This is great, because none of us wants spam emails delivered to our inbox!

This filtering of emails that the Mailbox Prividers do would take forever if they did it by opening and looking at every email. And no-one wants to wait even 10 mins for an email to arrive, so the Mailbox Providers take a very sensible shortcut.

Mailbox Providers look to see who dispatched the emails

And if the email was sent out via a trusted dispatcher, that email gets a golden ticket for delivery to the inbox.

Think of it like when the door-staff at a venue see you’re with their best customer and biggest tipper, so you get ushered up front to go right on in.  Nice.

Emails dispatched from ActiveCampaign are trusted by Mailbox Providers.

This goes especially for the emails that are sent via the very best of ActiveCampaign’s sending servers. And when you get into ActiveCampaign’s good-books, they will dispatch your emails from their best servers. Winner!

Discover how ActiveCampaign uses ranked servers to help trusted email senders

To maintain its reputation with the Mailbox Providers as a trusted dispatcher of emails, ActiveCampaign has to scrutinise every single sender using their service, and figure out how much they can be trusted.

That’s you, my ActiveCampaign-using friend. You are being watched, by ActiveCampaign, all the time… in a good way.

ActiveCampaign needs to make sure you’re not a spammer, and that you don’t  mess up and accidentally behave like a spammer either- because if they send spam from their servers , it tanks the reputation of that ActiveCampaign server with the Mailbox Providers.

So ActiveCampaign is really careful to not let spammers send via their servers. 

The more confident ActiveCampaign are that you’re not a spammer, and that you won’t make them look bad, the better they treat you, and your emails.

How ActiveCampaign helps trusted senders get emails delivered

Within ActiveCampaign there is a sort of ranking of servers (the tech things that actually dispatches your emails). A hierarchy, all the way from the brass bottom to the shiny gold top tier.

ActiveCampaign only allow their very best and most trusted senders onto their best, shiny golden top tier servers. 

(Think of it like getting into the VIP area at the club, or the best table, right in the window of the restaurant, with comfy seats and exemplary service.)

Getting onto the best servers means that emails you send using ActiveCampaign are significantly less likely to get filtered out, left un-delivered, or flagged as spam – because those awesomely good ActiveCampaign servers are very, very trusted by the Mailbox Providers.

When ActiveCampaign trusts you, they put you on the best servers, and your emails get delivered, opened, read and acted on more reliably.

Your mission is to get on those best servers, by getting into ActiveCampaign’s good books, and staying there.

Understand how to build trust fast when you start using ActiveCampaign

There’s a quarantine period for new accounts, where ActiveCampaign keeps an even closer eye on your sending, looking for any hint of #skankyspammer. 

You can see why, right? At this point AC has no idea who you are and what you will send. The probationary servers protect existing ActiveCampaign users by preserving ActiveCampaign’s sender reputation on their best servers.

I for one would be mad as heck at ActiveCampaign if they just let total strangers in to sit at the top table on the best servers, with all the risk that they will send a ton of spam and ruin it for everyone else.

The most important thing new ActiveCampaign users need to know

During the first 30 – 60 days of any new ActiveCampaign account. your emails are sent from a probationary server.

This is just in case you might be one of the bad-guys who sends spam or unwelcome emails.

Mailbox Providers see that this email is coming from a probationary server, and will take a close look before letting it through to the inbox.

Once ActiveCampaign trusts you, they will move you onto better servers.

New ActiveCampaign accounts need to build trust by warming up their sending with care and attention in that first 30 – 60 days in order to get moved to better servers.

By the way, it’s not too late if you didn’t do this part – and it’s not your fault if you didn’t know you were meant to warm up your sending. Migrating to ActiveCampaign is a lot of work!

If you didn’t see this until after you moved in to ActiveCampaign and started sending emails, don’t panic – I’ve got you covered on how to maintain trust, or recover it, wherever you’re at in your time with ActiveCampaign – read on!

And by the way, if you’re totally new to ActiveCampaign right now, go straight to my free Accelerated ActiveCampaign training and actually DO it – I guarantee it will save you time and stress as you move in to using ActiveCampaign.

Get our FREE Accelerated ActiveCampaign training now

How to be a trusted sender and stay on the best ActiveCampaign servers

There are some core things that ActiveCampaign watches for to get a quick easy read on how trustworthy a sender is – and these are true whether you’re brand new to ActiveCampaign or have been using it for years.

Make sure you know how to avoid getting in ActiveCampaign’s bad books.

Avoid doing risky things in ActiveCampaign that harm deliverability

Here are some things that will harm your deliverability if you do them in ActiveCampaign:

• Importing paid-for contacts without explicit permission to email them
• Importing lots of contacts from un-verifiable sources
• Sending lots of emails that are mostly ignored or deleted
• Getting lots of “this is a spam email” reports
• Getting lots of unsubscribes that report negative reasons like “I never signed up for this”
• Breaking the the terms and conditions on how you’re allowed to use affiliate marketing in ActiveCampaign emails
• Hiding required unsubscribe links in any way, including with blank lines, white text, or any other workaround
• Using a postal address that isn’t a real postal address

Once you have gained the trust of ActiveCampaign, make sure you know how to guard it well. ActiveCampaign will bump accounts back onto the probationary servers if they are doing the risky things, so don’t be tempted. We support all ActiveCampaign Academy members to stay safely in ActiveCampaign’s best servers.

Learn more about our ActiveCampaign Academy membership
Fast, effective training & support for ActiveCampaign users everywhere

Your next step to great deliverability with ActiveCampaign

• You teach ActiveCampaign to trust you as a good-guy email sender.
• When ActiveCampaign trusts you, your emails get sent from their best servers.
• Getting sent from better servers means better delivery to the inbox for your emails.
• Better delivery to the inbox means more eyeballs on your emails, 
• More eyeballs on emails means more growth and sales from your email marketing

Winner.

Your next is to dive more into the details of how that all-important trust between the ActiveCampaign deliverability players is created and maintained.

Get fast effective help to boost your ActiveCampaign open rates

We have this fabulous course in our ActiveCampaign Academy. It will take you step by step through everything you need to get better engagement and deliverability with ActiveCampaign. Winner.

Here’s where to find out more about our deliverability training course – you can get it done in a day or take a more leisurely pace. It’s included in the Essential ActiveCampaign Academy level, because we totally believe that every ActiveCampaign user should do this course. Seriously.

Academy membership comes with access to more courses to do ActiveCampaign the easy way, plus a lovely member community to walk alongside, and direct, regular access to Kay Peacey for live and real time with your resident ActiveCampaign expert.

Learn more about our ActiveCampaign Academy membership
Fast, effective training & support for ActiveCampaign users everywhere