What are the best guides for e-commerce email deliverability?
Michael Ko
Co-founder & CEO, Suped
Published 28 Jun 2025
Updated 18 Aug 2025
5 min read
For e-commerce businesses, email marketing isn't just a communication channel, it's a critical revenue driver. From abandoned cart reminders to promotional campaigns and transactional updates, emails are the lifeline connecting you to your customers. But all those carefully crafted messages and strategic campaigns are wasted if they don't land in the inbox.
The challenge is that email deliverability for e-commerce can be complex. You're dealing with potentially large volumes of mail, diverse audience segments, and the ever-evolving rules of mailbox providers. Finding reliable, comprehensive guides that specifically address the nuances of e-commerce email deliverability can be tricky, as many resources offer general advice.
This article aims to cut through the noise, highlighting some of the best guides and essential practices that can help e-commerce marketers ensure their emails consistently reach the inbox, engage customers, and drive sales. I'll cover key areas you need to focus on and point you to valuable resources that delve deeper into these topics.
Foundation of deliverability for e-commerce
A cornerstone of good email deliverability, especially for e-commerce, is robust email authentication. This includes setting up Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC).
These protocols tell mailbox providers that your emails are legitimate and prevent bad actors from spoofing your domain, which can severely damage your sender reputation. For a comprehensive overview, I often recommend the Spamhaus email deliverability guide, which provides an excellent 101 on foundational deliverability concepts.
Properly configured authentication is non-negotiable for e-commerce brands, as it directly impacts whether your transactional emails and marketing campaigns reach the inbox. It's a foundational step that sets the stage for all other deliverability efforts.
Configuring DMARC for e-commerce
DMARC is crucial for protecting your brand from spoofing and phishing attacks while also providing valuable feedback on your email authentication. A `p=none` policy allows you to monitor your sending without impacting delivery, and gradually move to `quarantine` or `reject`.
Beyond technical setup, the quality of your email list and the relevance of your content are paramount for e-commerce. Sending to an engaged audience means higher open and click-through rates, which signals positive behavior to mailbox providers. This helps build a strong sender reputation.
E-commerce brands thrive on personalization and segmentation. Dividing your audience based on purchase history, browsing behavior, or demographics allows you to send highly relevant messages. For example, an abandoned cart email is far more effective if it directly addresses the items left behind. This approach minimizes spam complaints and enhances overall engagement.
Additionally, regularly cleaning your list of inactive subscribers and invalid addresses prevents bounces and reduces the likelihood of hitting spam traps. Guides often emphasize that a smaller, engaged list is far better for deliverability than a large, unmaintained one. For general tips on improving email deliverability, the SparkPost deliverability hub offers practical advice that applies well to e-commerce.
List acquisition
Good practice: Use double opt-in to ensure subscribers genuinely want your emails. This verifies their address and intent.
Poor practice: Purchasing email lists or scraping addresses leads to high bounce rates and spam complaints.
Email content
Good practice: Personalize messages, segment audiences, and provide clear value or offers.
Poor practice: Using excessive caps, exclamation marks, or spammy keywords in subject lines.
Sending frequency
Good practice: Maintain a consistent sending schedule that your subscribers expect and engage with.
Poor practice: Sending too often or too rarely, which can lead to fatigue or forgotten consent.
List hygiene
Good practice: Regularly remove inactive subscribers and hard bounces from your lists.
Poor practice: Ignoring high bounce rates or a sudden increase in spam complaints.
Monitoring and troubleshooting
Even with the best practices, deliverability issues can arise. Effective monitoring and troubleshooting are essential for e-commerce brands to quickly identify and resolve problems. Key metrics to watch include open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and complaint rates.
Being listed on an email blacklist (or blocklist) can severely impact your ability to reach inboxes. Regularly checking various blocklists is crucial for e-commerce marketers to ensure their sending IPs and domains are clean. Tools for blocklist monitoring can provide early warnings, allowing you to take action before significant damage occurs. Understanding how email blocklists actually work is also important for proactive management.
Many mailbox providers, like Google and Yahoo, offer postmaster tools that provide insights into your sending reputation, spam rates, and DMARC failures. Leveraging these free tools is essential for any e-commerce business committed to good deliverability. I find the Omnisend email deliverability guide to be a solid resource on common delivery issues and how to overcome them.
If you do find yourself on a blacklist (or blocklist), or experience a sudden drop in inbox placement, swift action is key. This involves identifying the root cause, cleaning your lists, improving content, and if necessary, requesting delisting. The faster you act, the quicker your deliverability can recover.
Issue
Impact on e-commerce
Solution
High bounce rates
Leads to poor sender reputation, especially for transactional emails.
Regularly clean your email list and use a verification service.
Spam complaints
Directly impacts inbox placement and can lead to IP/domain blocklisting.
Segment your audience, personalize content, and make unsubscribing easy.
Blacklisted IP/domain
Emails will be blocked by major mailbox providers, severely halting sales.
Address underlying issues and request delisting from the blocklist (also called blacklist).
Low engagement
Signals to mailbox providers that your emails are not valued, leading to spam folder delivery.
Re-engage inactive subscribers or remove them, and improve content relevance.
Sustaining deliverability success
Achieving and maintaining excellent e-commerce email deliverability requires a multi-faceted approach. It's not just about setting up a few records, but about continuously nurturing your sender reputation through consistent best practices.
This involves adhering to technical standards, engaging your audience with relevant content, and diligently monitoring your performance. The landscape of email deliverability is always shifting, with mailbox providers constantly refining their filtering algorithms, which is why a commitment to ongoing learning and adaptation is so important.
By focusing on these areas and utilizing the best guides available, e-commerce businesses can significantly boost their inbox placement, leading to higher engagement, increased sales, and a healthier bottom line. Remember, every email that lands in the inbox is an opportunity to connect with your customer and grow your business.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Implement email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for all sending domains.
Regularly clean your email lists to remove inactive subscribers and invalid addresses, reducing bounces.
Segment your audience and personalize email content to increase engagement and reduce spam complaints.
Monitor your email deliverability metrics and sender reputation using postmaster tools.
Make it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe, which can prevent spam complaints and improve engagement signals.
Common pitfalls
Sending emails to purchased or scraped lists, leading to high bounce rates and spam trap hits.
Ignoring DMARC reports, missing critical insights into authentication failures and potential spoofing.
Failing to warm up new sending IPs or domains before sending large volumes, causing initial deliverability issues.
Using generic, non-personalized content that leads to low engagement and higher unsubscribe rates.
Not regularly checking for IP or domain blacklisting (also called blocklisting), resulting in blocked emails.
Expert tips
Prioritize email list quality over quantity, as an engaged, smaller list outperforms a large, unmaintained one for deliverability.
Actively encourage subscribers to add your sending address to their contacts to improve inbox placement.
Monitor engagement for different segments and adjust sending frequency to optimize deliverability and avoid fatigue.
Leverage user-generated content and customer reviews in emails to build trust and increase engagement.
Understand that deliverability is an ongoing process, requiring continuous monitoring and adaptation to new rules.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says they often refer to SparkPost's deliverability resources as they offer comprehensive advice on how to improve email deliverability and achieve better inboxing.
2022-06-10 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says the Spamhaus deliverability guide is a fantastic resource for understanding the fundamentals of email deliverability.
Google and 
Yahoo, offer postmaster tools that provide insights into your sending reputation, spam rates, and DMARC failures. Leveraging these free tools is essential for any e-commerce business committed to good deliverability. I find the Omnisend email deliverability guide to be a solid resource on common delivery issues and how to overcome them.
