What are the common causes of low email engagement in B2B content marketing?

Low email engagement in B2B content marketing can stem from several factors, including poor sender reputation due to technical issues (like misconfigured SPF/DKIM/DMARC), outdated or unengaged email lists, irrelevant content that doesn't resonate with the professional audience, or emails being caught by corporate spam filters. It's often a combination of these elements.

How can I determine if my B2B emails are going to spam folders instead of the inbox?

To identify if your emails are going to spam, first check your email authentication records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) for proper configuration. Second, analyze your email reports by recipient domain to see if specific corporate domains have significantly lower open or click rates. Third, consider sending test emails to trusted contacts at various companies to get direct feedback on where your emails are landing (inbox, spam, or quarantine).

What strategies can improve the relevance of my B2B content marketing emails?

Improving content relevance involves segmenting your audience based on their specific needs and professional roles, creating educational content that directly addresses their pain points, and personalizing messages beyond just using names. Regularly clean your lists to ensure you're reaching active and interested recipients, and use A/B testing to refine your content and calls to action.

Should I consider using a new sending domain if my engagement is consistently low?

Using a new sending domain is an extreme measure and often not the best first step. It can look like filter evasion and may not solve underlying issues related to content or list quality. Focus on diagnosing and fixing existing problems with your current domain's reputation and deliverability first. A new domain also requires a warm-up period, which can delay your sending efforts.

What are effective ways to re-engage inactive B2B email subscribers?

To re-engage stale B2B subscribers, try a targeted re-engagement campaign with compelling offers or exclusive content. Use interactive elements or surveys to ask about their current interests. If they still don't engage after multiple attempts, consider segmenting them into a less frequent communication path or removing them entirely to protect your sender reputation.

How to troubleshoot low email engagement for B2B content marketing? - Troubleshooting - Email deliverability - Knowledge base

Dealing with low email engagement in B2B content marketing can be a frustrating challenge. Unlike B2C marketing, where engagement metrics might be more straightforward, B2B email engagement often involves navigating complex corporate filters and appealing to a highly discerning audience. It's common to see high open rates that, upon closer inspection, turn out to be mostly bot activity, leaving genuine human clicks and conversions disappointingly low. This scenario often leaves marketers questioning whether the issue is technical, content-related, or both.

Many businesses, especially those just beginning or increasing their top-of-funnel content creation efforts, find themselves in this situation. My team and I recently faced a similar dilemma. We suspected a domain problem, but the path to diagnosis wasn't immediately clear. It’s easy to feel lost when your efforts aren't yielding the expected results, and the nuances of B2B email deliverability can make troubleshooting feel like poking a black box.

Effective troubleshooting requires a systematic approach, combining a deep dive into your technical setup with a critical evaluation of your audience and content strategy. It's about figuring out if your emails are simply not reaching the inbox or if, once there, they're failing to capture your recipients' attention. This guide will walk you through key areas to investigate to boost your B2B email engagement.

Technical foundations of deliverability

The foundation of good email deliverability lies in proper technical configuration. Before diving into content, ensure your email authentication protocols are correctly set up. This includes Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC). Misconfigurations here can lead to emails being blocked or sent straight to spam, regardless of how relevant your content is. A great first step is to use a tool to check the technical correctness of your email, which can flag any authentication issues. You can learn more about these protocols in our guide to DMARC, SPF, and DKIM.

Your domain and IP reputation also play a crucial role. If you've been sending inconsistently or to low-quality lists, your domain's reputation might be suffering, causing corporate filters to scrutinize your mail more heavily. It's vital to have a clear understanding of your current understanding your email domain reputation, as being listed on a blocklist (or blacklist) can severely impact your deliverability. While some corporate filters might not share direct feedback, consistent poor delivery to certain domains could indicate underlying reputation issues. Trying to diagnose this through friends and family behind corporate filters can be a good starting point.

Even if your email service provider (ESP) has a good overall reputation, your specific sending practices can still negatively impact your individual domain's standing. Consider the following immediate checks to ensure your email streams are not being flagged as spam by corporate domains.

Immediate technical checks

SPF alignment: Ensure your SPF record is correctly configured and aligned with your sending domains to prevent spoofing and improve trust.
DMARC policy: Implement a DMARC policy, even if starting with p=none, to gain visibility into your email authentication results.
BIMI record: Consider adding a Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) record to display your brand logo, enhancing trust and recognition.
Domain blacklisting: Regularly check if your sending domain or IP is listed on any major blocklists (or blacklists). What happens when your domain is blocklisted can be quite detrimental.

Audience relevance and list hygiene

Even with perfect technical setup, irrelevant content sent to the wrong audience will result in low engagement. B2B lists can become stale quickly, as contacts change jobs or companies. An email address that was relevant two years ago, when someone downloaded a whitepaper, might now belong to an individual with different responsibilities or no longer with the company. Continuing to send to these old addresses not only wastes resources but can also harm your sender reputation, increasing the likelihood of hitting spam traps. Consider strategies to re-engage stale email subscribers before deciding to remove them.

The content itself must be highly relevant and valuable to your B2B recipients. Unlike B2C, where promotions and discounts are common, B2B emails typically require educational content that addresses specific pain points or offers solutions. If your leads are not opening emails, it could be that your content isn't hitting the mark or your headlines are not compelling enough. Understanding why leads ignore B2B emails is crucial. Ensure your messages resonate with their professional needs and challenges. Content syndication, while useful for lead generation, doesn't always guarantee high-intent, engaged subscribers for direct email marketing unless properly nurtured.

Segmentation is key to tailoring your messages. Group your audience based on their role, industry, previous engagement, or stage in the buyer's journey. A nurturing customers in B2B context means providing content that guides them through their decision-making process, rather than generic blasts. Below is a comparison of good vs. bad list and content practices.

Good practices

Audience sourcing: Focus on leads who explicitly opted in or showed high intent through recent content conversions.
Content relevance: Deliver content that directly addresses specific business challenges or professional interests of your segments.
List hygiene: Regularly clean your email lists, removing inactive subscribers and hard bounces promptly.
Segmentation: Segment your audience based on behavior, industry, and previous interactions to personalize content.

Bad practices

Stale lists: Sending to addresses from years ago that may no longer be relevant or active.
Generic content: Broad, untargeted emails that don't address specific recipient needs or pain points.
Ignoring unsubscribes: Failing to honor unsubscribe requests, which can lead to spam complaints and blocklisting.
Over-reliance on automation: Sending automated emails without considering recipient context or recent interactions.

Optimizing content and engagement tactics

Once your technical foundations are solid and your audience is well-defined, focus on the elements that drive engagement within the email itself. Your subject line is the first point of contact and crucial for enticing recipients to open. Craft compelling, benefit-driven subject lines that clearly communicate the value of the content inside. Similarly, optimize your preheader text to complement the subject line and provide more context, grabbing attention even before the email is fully opened.

Personalization goes beyond just using a recipient's first name. It involves tailoring the content, offers, and calls to action based on their past interactions, expressed interests, or known professional needs. A/B testing different subject lines, call-to-action buttons, email layouts, and content types can provide invaluable insights into what resonates best with your B2B audience. Consider incorporating interactive elements or a simple gamified click to get basic engagement signals, which can help in re-warming dormant segments. For more on improving clicks, check our guide on how to increase email click-through rates.

The frequency of your sends also matters. While you don't want to spam, being too precious with your emails (sending too infrequently) can prevent you from building consistent engagement and warming your audience effectively. Find a balanced frequency that keeps your brand top-of-mind without causing email fatigue. This often requires ongoing testing and listening to subscriber feedback, both implicit (opens, clicks) and explicit (surveys, preferences).

Monitoring and continuous improvement

Monitoring goes beyond just overall open rates. When dealing with low B2B engagement, it's crucial to break down your reports by recipient domain. If you notice significantly lower engagement or higher spam placement at specific domains, like those hosted by

microsoft.com or specific enterprise security solutions (e.g., Proofpoint), you can then focus your troubleshooting on those particular filters. This granular data helps pinpoint whether your issue is widespread or isolated to certain corporate environments. Understanding good B2B email marketing metrics means looking beyond the surface.

The tools available for B2B inbox placement testing are less robust than those for B2C, making direct observation more critical. Supplementing your ESP's analytics with feedback from trusted contacts within your target corporate domains can provide valuable insights into where your emails are landing: inbox, spam, or quarantine. This direct feedback is often the most reliable way to gauge real-world deliverability in complex B2B environments.

Low engagement can be a sign that your emails are going to spam. For a comprehensive guide on identifying and fixing this, refer to our article on why your emails are going to spam. Remember, improving engagement and deliverability is an ongoing process. Consistent sending, regular list hygiene, and continuous A/B testing of your content are essential. Don't be afraid to iterate and adapt based on the data and feedback you receive.

By addressing both the technical aspects of email deliverability and the strategic elements of audience and content relevance, you can systematically troubleshoot and improve your low email engagement for B2B content marketing. A holistic approach that combines technical vigilance with a deep understanding of your recipients will lead to better inbox placement and, ultimately, more meaningful interactions with your valuable content. For a broader look at diagnosing and improving deliverability, explore our guide on how to improve email deliverability and open rates.

Views from the trenches

Best practices

Use a double opt-in process for all new subscribers to confirm their interest.

Segment your audience precisely based on their role, industry, and engagement history.

Regularly clean your email lists by removing inactive or stale addresses.

Test different subject lines and content types to discover what resonates best.

Common pitfalls

Sending to very old lists or purchased contacts without re-engagement.

Ignoring email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) or having misconfigurations.

Producing generic content that lacks specific value for a B2B audience.

Infrequent sending that prevents consistent audience warming and reputation building.

Expert tips

Implement a feedback loop from internal contacts at target companies to gauge inbox placement.

Consider a simple, low-stakes 'gamified' click in an email to test genuine engagement.

If your ESP's compliance desk is unresponsive, understand that some deliverability issues may be systemic.

Focus on the actual click-throughs and conversions, as bot opens can inflate metrics.

Marketer view

Marketer from Email Geeks says the audience might not have asked for the mail and may not want it, leading to corporate filters working as intended.

2024-07-28 - Email Geeks

Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks says that old addresses, such as those from three years ago, might not be valid targets anymore, and marketers should review recipient profiles to determine if it's a delivery or an audience problem.

2024-07-29 - Email Geeks

Key takeaways for B2B email engagement

Troubleshooting low email engagement in B2B content marketing is rarely a single-point fix. It requires a layered approach, starting with ensuring your technical email setup is flawless, then scrutinizing your audience and content for relevance, and finally, optimizing your engagement tactics. Remember that B2B email environments are uniquely challenging, often with robust corporate filters that can be difficult to penetrate. Don't be discouraged by initial low engagement; it's a common hurdle.

By methodically checking your authentication records, cleaning your lists, segmenting your audience effectively, and crafting highly relevant and engaging content, you can systematically improve your deliverability and engagement rates. Continuous monitoring of detailed metrics and gathering direct feedback from recipients will guide your efforts, turning those bot opens into genuine, valuable interactions.