Email marketing & newsletters: definition and differences between sent and delivered?

You know better than anyone: the success of an emailing campaign relies not only on the quality of the content but also on indicators like hard bounce and soft bounce, as well as the sent and delivered status. Understanding these differences will help you optimize the effectiveness of your newsletter strategies. To do this, let’s get to the heart of the matter to understand what these two states correspond to and the ways to improve the deliverability of your newsletters.

Definition of sent status in emailing: what is it?

When an email is marked as sent, it means that it has been transmitted from the sender’s server to the recipient’s server. In other words, the email has left your sending platform to reach the recipient’s mail server. However, being marked as sent does not guarantee that your message actually reaches the recipient’s inbox. In reality, only the user targeted by your newsletter or emailing campaign can verify if the email appears in their inbox.

This state does not take into account any obstacles encountered along the way, such as spam filters, email address errors, or strict security settings, which can impact the effective deliverability of the email.

Definition of delivered status in emailing: what is it?

Now, let’s talk about the delivered status. When an email is considered delivered, it indicates that your message has overcome all obstacles and has successfully reached the recipient’s inbox.

This status implies that your email has been able to bypass spam filters, address errors, or any other technical issues, thus ensuring that your content is accessible for reading by the recipient.

What explains the difference between sent and delivered?

Several factors can explain the disparity between the number of emails sent and those actually delivered from your emailing or marketing automation platforms. Among these elements, we find:

• Spam filters: The filtering algorithms of email providers can block your email if they identify characteristics similar to spam (subject containing capital letters or terms associated with spam, content displaying mostly images and no text, etc.).
• Address errors: Incorrect or outdated addresses can prevent your emails from being properly received, thus affecting deliverability.
• Security settings: Some security settings of mail servers can automatically reject emails from unknown or unauthenticated sources.

How to improve the deliverability of my newsletters?

By understanding the difference between sent and delivered, and by adopting best practices to improve deliverability, you will significantly increase the reach and impact of your emailing campaigns. How? It’s simple, to optimize the deliverability of your newsletters and emailing, we recommend you to:

• Regularly clean your subscriber list: Remove inactive or incorrect addresses to avoid bounces and maintain a quality contact list.
• Use authentication tools: Implement protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to strengthen the legitimacy of your emails and prevent them from being marked as spam.
• Follow email best practices: Avoid using suspicious keywords, personalize your messages, and avoid overly large attachments.

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