Summary
Undelivered emails lead to a wide range of organizational costs. Resources spent on campaign planning and email design are wasted when emails land in spam folders. Unaddressed bounces result in blocks and compounding undeliverability. Missed connections with potential customers lead to lost revenue. Reduced campaign ROI results from wasted resources and ineffective campaigns. Maintaining clean email lists requires time, effort, and potentially the cost of list cleaning services. Failure to deliver emails diminishes brand awareness and weakens brand recognition. Implementing re-engagement campaigns increases marketing spend and effort. Higher customer acquisition costs result from potential customers not receiving onboarding emails. A high percentage of undelivered emails damages sender reputation, impacting future deliverability. Undelivered transactional emails lead to lost revenue from uncompleted purchases. Creating and sending emails that never reach the inbox wastes the time and resources of the marketing team. Inaccurate data undermines email program effectiveness. Monitoring deliverability requires specialized tools, and customers reporting missing emails increases support costs. Financial losses occur even with slight decreases in inboxing rates.
Key findings
- Revenue Loss: Undelivered emails result in lost revenue from missed opportunities, abandoned carts, and reduced customer acquisition.
- Brand Damage: Failure to deliver emails reduces brand awareness and weakens brand recognition.
- Resource Waste: Significant resources are wasted on planning, designing, and sending emails that are never received.
- Reputation Impact: High bounce rates and undelivered emails damage sender reputation, affecting future deliverability.
- Increased Operational Costs: Maintaining email lists, running re-engagement campaigns, and resolving deliverability issues add to operational costs.
Key considerations
- Email List Hygiene: Implement regular email list cleaning practices to remove invalid addresses and reduce bounce rates.
- Sender Reputation Management: Monitor and maintain a positive sender reputation by adhering to best practices.
- Deliverability Optimization: Invest in deliverability tools and expertise to optimize email delivery and inbox placement.
- Accurate Data: Ensure that email data is accurate and up-to-date to minimize wasted resources.
- Re-Engagement Strategies: Develop effective re-engagement strategies to reach unresponsive subscribers while protecting sender reputation.
- Deliverability Monitoring: Continuously monitor deliverability metrics to identify and address issues quickly.
What email marketers say
10 marketer opinions
Undelivered emails incur a multitude of organizational costs, impacting revenue, ROI, brand awareness, and operational efficiency. Unaddressed bounces lead to blocks and compounding undeliverability. Missed connections with potential customers translate to lost revenue. Reduced campaign ROI stems from wasted resources. Maintaining clean email lists demands time, effort, and potential service costs. Lack of email delivery weakens brand recognition. Re-engagement campaigns increase marketing spend. Higher customer acquisition costs arise from missed onboarding. Damaged sender reputation hurts future deliverability. Lost transactional email revenue impacts purchases, and wasted team time decreases productivity.
Key opinions
- Revenue Impact: Undelivered emails result in lost revenue through missed opportunities, abandoned carts, and reduced customer acquisition.
- ROI Reduction: Wasted resources on undelivered emails lower the return on investment for email marketing campaigns.
- Brand Awareness: Failure to deliver emails diminishes brand awareness and weakens brand recognition over time.
- Operational Costs: Maintaining clean email lists, running re-engagement campaigns, and addressing deliverability issues add to operational costs.
- Reputation Damage: High bounce rates and undelivered emails damage sender reputation, affecting future deliverability.
Key considerations
- Email List Hygiene: Regularly clean email lists to remove invalid addresses and reduce bounce rates.
- Deliverability Monitoring: Monitor deliverability metrics to identify and address issues proactively.
- Re-engagement Strategies: Implement re-engagement campaigns to reach unresponsive subscribers, but avoid over-mailing.
- Sender Reputation: Protect sender reputation by adhering to best practices for email sending and authentication.
- Cost Analysis: Evaluate the costs associated with undelivered emails to justify investments in deliverability solutions.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Gmass shares that if many emails are undelivered, re-engagement campaigns are needed to try and reach unresponsive subscribers, increasing marketing spend and effort.
20 Jan 2024 - Gmass
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum shares that a high percentage of undelivered emails will damage sender reputation which impacts future deliverability.
23 Jan 2024 - Email Marketing Forum
What the experts say
3 expert opinions
Undelivered emails, including those trapped in spam folders or resulting from inaccurate data, significantly diminish email program effectiveness and lead to wasted resources and lost opportunities. Email marketers lose money when messages fail to reach the inbox, with even small drops in inboxing rates accumulating substantial costs related to bounces and other delivery problems. The effort invested in campaign planning, crafting messages, and design is nullified if emails are not delivered.
Key opinions
- Wasted Investment: Resources spent on campaign planning and email design are wasted if emails end up in the spam folder.
- Data Quality Impact: Inaccurate or incomplete data undermines email program effectiveness, leading to wasted resources and lost engagement.
- Financial Losses: Poor inboxing rates, even by a few percentage points, can result in significant financial losses for email marketers due to bounces and other delivery issues.
Key considerations
- Inbox Placement: Focus on strategies to ensure emails reach the inbox, not just any delivery.
- Data Accuracy: Prioritize data quality and maintain accurate and complete email lists.
- Deliverability Optimization: Continuously monitor and optimize deliverability to minimize financial losses from delivery problems.
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that email marketers are losing money because their messages aren’t making it to the inbox. Even if inboxing rates are only a few percentage points lower than they should be, there are associated costs that add up quickly, this could be from bounces or other delivery issues.
29 Sep 2024 - Word to the Wise
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that inaccurate or incomplete data severely diminishes the effectiveness of email programs, leading to wasted resources, and missed opportunities to engage with subscribers. This includes costs of bad data such as hard bounces.
22 Dec 2023 - Word to the Wise
What the documentation says
4 technical articles
Undelivered emails lead to a cascade of organizational costs. High bounce rates damage sender reputation, causing email providers to filter messages as spam. Sending emails to invalid addresses wastes server resources and bandwidth, increasing operational costs. Monitoring deliverability, identifying issues, and troubleshooting requires specialized tools and expertise, adding to overhead. Furthermore, undelivered emails increase support costs as customers report missing emails, requiring investigation and resolution.
Key findings
- Reputation Damage: High bounce rates from undelivered emails negatively impact sender reputation, leading to spam filtering.
- Resource Waste: Sending emails to invalid addresses wastes server resources and bandwidth, increasing operational costs.
- Operational Overhead: Monitoring and troubleshooting deliverability issues require specialized tools and expertise, adding to operational overhead.
- Support Costs: Undelivered emails lead to increased support costs due to customer inquiries about missing emails.
Key considerations
- Reputation Management: Implement strategies to maintain a positive sender reputation and avoid spam filtering.
- Resource Optimization: Ensure email addresses are valid to prevent resource wastage and operational cost increases.
- Deliverability Infrastructure: Invest in tools and expertise to monitor and troubleshoot deliverability issues effectively.
- Support Preparedness: Prepare support teams to handle inquiries related to missing emails efficiently.
Technical article
Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that sending emails to invalid or non-existent addresses wastes server resources and bandwidth, increasing operational costs.
17 Jul 2022 - Google Workspace Admin Help
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft Docs explains that a high bounce rate due to undelivered emails can negatively impact a sender's reputation, leading email providers to filter messages as spam.
30 Jan 2025 - Microsoft Docs
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