Does sending emails with multiple languages negatively affect deliverability?

Not inherently. The main deliverability concerns arise from improper technical setup, such as incorrect character encoding, or poor content strategy, such as low engagement rates due to irrelevant or poorly localized content. If handled correctly, multilingual emails can boost engagement and improve sender reputation.

Why is UTF-8 encoding important for multilingual emails?

UTF-8 is crucial for displaying characters correctly across all languages and email clients. Without it, characters can appear garbled, leading to a poor user experience and potentially triggering spam filters due to unusual content formatting.

Do I need to use the `lang` attribute in my HTML for different languages?

While not directly a deliverability factor, using HTML lang attributes (e.g., lang="es" ) improves accessibility for screen readers and helps email clients render content appropriately, contributing to a better user experience and indirectly supporting positive engagement metrics.

What is the difference between translation and localization for emails?

Localization involves adapting content to fit cultural contexts, idioms, and regional preferences, not just direct translation. This helps your message resonate more effectively with recipients, increasing engagement and reducing the chances of being marked as irrelevant or spam.

Is it better to send one email with multiple languages or separate emails?

It's best to segment your audience by their preferred language. Sending separate emails in each language allows for greater personalization and ensures recipients receive content most relevant to them. This can lead to higher engagement rates and a stronger sender reputation.

What are the deliverability implications of sending emails with multiple languages? - Content - Email deliverability - Knowledge base

Expanding email outreach to include multiple languages is a strategic move for reaching diverse audiences. However, it also introduces unique considerations for email deliverability. The goal is always to land your messages in the inbox, regardless of the language they are written in.

I often see marketers wonder if simply translating content is enough, or if technical aspects of multilingual emails could inadvertently trigger spam filters. While sending emails with more than one language isn't inherently a deliverability problem, several factors need careful attention to ensure your messages reach their intended recipients without issues.

This guide will walk you through the key deliverability implications of sending multi-language emails, from technical setup to content strategy and sender reputation management.

Technical considerations and character encoding

When you send emails in multiple languages, the technical setup is critical. Incorrect character encoding or HTML language attributes can lead to display issues, which in turn can affect how recipients engage with your emails.

The most important technical aspect is using the correct character set. UTF-8 is the universally recommended encoding for emails, especially when dealing with non-ASCII characters found in many languages. Using UTF-8 ensures that characters are rendered correctly across different email clients and devices, preventing garbled text that can frustrate recipients and negatively impact engagement.

HTML language attributes, specifically the lang attribute, are also vital for accessibility and proper rendering. While not directly affecting whether an email lands in the inbox, it helps screen readers and email clients interpret the content correctly. For mixed-language emails, setting the primary language on the <body> tag and then specific language attributes on individual content blocks is a good practice.

Example of HTML language attributes and UTF-8 encodinghtml

<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
  <div lang="en">
    <p>English content here.</p>
  </div>
  <div lang="es">
    <p>Contenido en español aquí.</p>
  </div>
</body>
</html>

Remember, the underlying technical quality of your email, including things like proper email code quality and size, always plays a role. Ensuring all your technical ducks are in a row minimizes potential misinterpretations by spam filters and mail servers.

Content strategy and spam filters

Content strategy for multilingual emails goes beyond simple translation. It involves localization, which means adapting your message to resonate with the cultural nuances and preferences of each language group. This approach significantly impacts engagement, which in turn influences deliverability.

Spam filters analyze email content for indicators of spam, such as suspicious phrasing, excessive capitalization, or certain keyword patterns. While legitimate multilingual content won't inherently trigger these filters, poorly translated or culturally insensitive messages can lead to lower engagement rates, higher complaint rates, and increased unsubscribe rates. These negative metrics signal to mailbox providers that your content is not valued by recipients, which can hurt your sender reputation and lead to messages being sent to the spam folder or even being blocked.

I always advocate for audience segmentation based on language preference. Sending a single email with multiple languages might seem efficient, but it can lead to a less personalized experience. Recipients are more likely to engage with content that is entirely in their preferred language. This is supported by studies that show native language emails boosting engagement. Higher engagement (opens, clicks, replies) positively impacts your sender reputation.

Also, consider the domain reputation implications if your audience is primarily non-US and you are sending from a US domain. There are specific considerations for sending to non-US domain versions that can affect your overall deliverability.

Localization is key, as simply translating content may not be enough to avoid cultural misunderstandings or even unintended offense, as highlighted by email localization best practices.

Impact on sender reputation

Your sender reputation is paramount to email deliverability. Every email you send contributes to how mailbox providers view your domain and IP address. Sending multilingual emails can either enhance or harm this reputation, depending on your approach.

When recipients receive emails in their preferred language, they are more likely to open, click, and engage with them. This positive engagement signals to mailbox providers that your emails are valuable and relevant, thus improving your sender reputation. Conversely, if your multilingual efforts lead to higher spam complaints or unsubscribe rates, your reputation will suffer, increasing the likelihood of future emails landing in the spam folder or being rejected outright.

Monitoring your sender reputation metrics is crucial. Keep an eye on your open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and complaint rates for each language segment. If you notice a particular language segment underperforming, it could indicate issues with content relevance, list quality, or even a localized blocklist (blacklist) entry.

High bounce rates, especially, can indicate that your email lists for certain languages are not well-maintained or contain invalid addresses. Sending to invalid addresses can quickly degrade your sender reputation, making it harder to reach the inbox for all your campaigns, regardless of language.

While open rates can vary for specific languages and countries due to cultural or regional factors, consistent low engagement across a language segment could signal deeper deliverability issues that need addressing.

Best practices for ensuring deliverability

The importance of localization

Cultural relevance: Direct translations may miss cultural nuances, leading to misunderstandings or reduced impact.
Engagement rates: Localized content resonates better with recipients, increasing opens and clicks.
Compliance: Certain regions may have specific legal or privacy requirements that need to be addressed in localized content.

Testing is an often-overlooked but crucial step when sending multilingual emails. Different email clients and devices may render content differently, especially with varying character sets or complex HTML structures.

Before launching a full-scale multilingual campaign, send test emails to various accounts, particularly those commonly used by your target audience in different regions. Check for:

Rendering issues: Ensure all characters and formatting appear correctly.
Spam folder placement: Confirm emails are not being flagged as spam. You can use an email deliverability tester for this.
Link functionality: Verify all links work as expected and lead to the correct localized pages.

This testing phase helps catch potential deliverability pitfalls early, before they impact your entire campaign. It's a proactive step that can save you significant trouble down the line.

Views from the trenches

Best practices

Always use UTF-8 character encoding for all emails, especially those containing non-ASCII characters.

Segment your audience by language preference to send highly relevant, localized content.

Implement HTML lang attributes correctly at the document and element level for accessibility.

Thoroughly test multilingual emails across various email clients and regions.

Monitor engagement metrics for each language segment to catch and address deliverability issues early.

Common pitfalls

Using a simple translation without localizing content can lead to cultural misunderstandings and low engagement.

Failing to use UTF-8 can result in garbled text, making emails unreadable and increasing spam complaints.

Sending mixed-language emails to a broad list without segmentation can reduce personalization and engagement.

Ignoring bounce rates and complaint rates for specific language segments, allowing reputation to decline.

Overlooking the impact of server location on deliverability to different international markets.

Expert tips

Consider using different sending domains or subdomains for distinct language campaigns if volumes are high and audiences are geographically separated, to isolate reputation issues.

Leverage DMARC reports to identify issues with email authentication that might affect international deliverability.

Pay attention to the sender name and subject line localization, as these are the first elements recipients see.

Continuously clean and validate your email lists for each language to maintain low bounce rates.

Beyond language, consider regional holidays, time zones, and peak engagement times for each audience segment.

Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks says to use lang="en" for the HTML body and lang="es" for any Spanish content blocks for better accessibility and rendering, which is a good technical approach.

2023-01-15 - Email Geeks

Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks says not to expect direct delivery issues with mixed content but stressed the importance of checking character sets to ensure technical cleanliness.

2023-02-20 - Email Geeks

Ensuring multilingual email success

Sending emails in multiple languages is a powerful way to expand your reach and engage diverse audiences. While it doesn't inherently create deliverability problems, attention to detail in technical setup, content localization, and continuous monitoring is essential.

By correctly implementing UTF-8 encoding and HTML language attributes, localizing content rather than just translating, segmenting your audience, and diligently tracking your sender reputation, you can ensure your multilingual emails consistently land in the inbox. Focusing on a great recipient experience across all languages will naturally lead to better deliverability and stronger engagement for your email program.