Top 12 Email Deliverability Tools to Supercharge Your Inbox Placement

Email deliverability is the measure of how successful you are at getting your emails into your subscribers' inboxes. It's the hidden force behind the success of your email marketing campaigns. If your deliverability is poor, your meticulously crafted emails might never see the light of day, ending up in spam folders or blocked altogether. This directly impacts open rates, engagement, and ultimately, the ROI of your marketing efforts.

Several roadblocks can hinder good email deliverability. Overly aggressive spam filters mistakenly flag legitimate emails, blacklists can prevent you from reaching certain providers, and a poor sender reputation (caused by complaints, high bounce rates, etc.) makes email providers distrust you.

The good news is that you're not powerless in this battle. Specialized email deliverability tools exist to provide deep insights into your email health and provide powerful features to tackle these challenges. In this blog, we'll introduce you to the top tools that will help you optimize your email deliverability and ensure your messages land where they belong – your intended recipients' inboxes.

Increased Open Rates: Improve visibility and campaign engagement.

Poor deliverability means many subscribers will never even see your emails, let alone open them. When emails land in spam folders or don't get delivered at all, your open rates plummet. Good deliverability ensures your hard-crafted subject lines, pre-header text, and email content have a fighting chance. This increased visibility translates directly to better campaign engagement as more potential customers interact with your offers, content, and calls to action.

Better ROI: Avoid wasted marketing spend on emails that never reach their target.

Email marketing can be resource-intensive. You invest time and money in content creation, list building, and potentially the cost of an email marketing platform. When deliverability suffers, a significant portion of this investment is wasted on emails that never reach their intended audience. Optimizing deliverability means more of your budget is spent on reaching people who can potentially become customers, leading to a much better return on your email marketing efforts.

Strong Sender Reputation: Foster a positive reputation with email providers, ensuring future emails are welcomed.

Email providers like Gmail, Outlook, and others track your sending behavior. High bounce rates, spam complaints, and low open rates damage your sender reputation. Over time, this makes providers more likely to flag your emails as suspicious, leading to increased filtering. A strong sender reputation built through good deliverability practices signifies you're a trustworthy sender, ensuring your emails are reliably placed in inboxes and increasing the success of future campaigns.

Reduced Bounce Rates: Protect your email health and avoid blacklisting.

Bounces happen when you send emails to invalid or inactive addresses. There are two types: 'hard' bounces (permanent failures) and 'soft' bounces (temporary issues). Excessive hard bounces are a huge red flag to email providers, indicating poor list hygiene. Deliverability tools help you clean your lists and minimize bounces. This protects your overall email health and helps you avoid blacklists – databases of known spammers that will block your emails altogether.

Top Email Deliverability Tools

GlockApps

• • Key Strengths: In-depth spam filter testing, detailed reports, catches potential deliverability issues before they cause harm.
  • Ideal Use Case: Any size business serious about optimizing deliverability and needing insight into spam filter behavior.
  • Pricing: Subscription tiers based on test volume.
  • Link: https://glockapps.com/

Litmus

• • Key Strengths: Comprehensive suite of email testing tools, including spam filter checks, email previews on various devices, and accessibility testing.
  • Ideal Use Case: Teams needing detailed insights on rendering and deliverability across multiple email providers.
  • Pricing: Subscription plans geared towards agencies and larger enterprises.
  • Link: https://litmus.com/

Mailtrap

• • Key Strengths: Offers a safe sandbox environment for testing emails before sending, includes spam checks and debugging tools.
  • Ideal Use Case: Developers and teams needing a testing ground for email code and design.
  • Pricing: Free plan (limited features). Paid plans based on shared inboxes and testing volume.
  • Link: https://mailtrap.io/

Warmup Inbox

• • Key Strengths: Specializes in email warm-up and reputation building, gradually increases sending volume from new email accounts or domains.
  • Ideal Use Case: Businesses establishing new email addresses or recovering from poor sender reputation.
  • Pricing: Subscription plans based on the number of inboxes warmed up.
  • Link: https://warmupinbox.com/

MxToolbox

• • Key Strengths: Offers a suite of network diagnostic tools, including blacklist checking, DNS health, and DMARC Monitoring
  • Ideal Use Case: Technical users and teams proactively monitoring domain health and potential blacklisting issues.
  • Pricing Free plan (limited checks), paid options with higher limits and more features.
  • Link: https://mxtoolbox.com/

DMARC Analyzer

• • Key Strengths: Focuses specifically on DMARC (email authentication protocol) analysis, setup guidance, and reporting.
  • Ideal Use Case: Businesses wanting to enhance their email security posture and use DMARC for protection.
  • Pricing: Offers various free and paid plans.
  • Link: https://dmarcanalyzer.com/

Popular All-Around

• Mailchimp: A widely-used platform with basic deliverability insights and recommendations within its campaign reports. Best for those already using Mailchimp for marketing.
• Sendinblue: Offers deliverability reporting, but strength lies in its combination of email marketing and SMS features. Good if you want an integrated solution.
• MailerLite: User-friendly platform with some deliverability guidance. May suit smaller businesses prioritizing ease-of-use.

Advanced Spam Testing

• GlockApps: Robust spam testing, simulates how major email providers filter your emails. Ideal if you consistently send different types of content and need in-depth analysis.
• Mailtrap: Primarily a testing sandbox, but includes spam checks and helps catch basic issues. Great for developers and debugging during email creation.
• Litmus: A comprehensive testing suite, offers detailed spam checks alongside previews across different email clients/devices. A heavy-hitter for those needing maximum insight.

Warm-up & Reputation Management

• Warmup Inbox: Service focusing on automated email warm-up to build a positive sending reputation for new domains/addresses. Useful if you're starting from scratch or recovering from issues.
• Folderly: AI-powered platform analyzing deliverability performance, providing recommendations, and offering some reputation monitoring. Can be complex but powerful for data-driven teams.

Domain/IP Monitoring

• MxToolbox: Suite of network tools. Its blacklist checker and DNS diagnostics help with proactive domain health monitoring, indirectly impacting deliverability.
• DMARC Analyzer: Specializes in DMARC setup and reporting. DMARC is an email authentication protocol that enhances security and helps prevent domain spoofing, improving your trustworthiness in the eyes of email providers.

Important Note:

• Pricing: Many tools have tiers based on usage needs. This is crucial for aligning with a business's budget and scale.
• Overlap: Some tools have overlapping features. For example, Litmus offers some reputation insights, while Folderly includes spam testing features.

Key Features to Look for in an Email Deliverability Tool

Spam Filter Testing: Preview emails across various providers, pinpoint issues.

• • Why it Matters: Email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, etc., use complex spam filters to determine whether emails land in inboxes or get blocked. These filters analyze subject lines, content, code, and more.
  • What to Look For: Tools that simulate how different email providers view your emails are invaluable. They'll flag potential red flags for spam filters (excessive sales language, broken HTML, etc.) allowing you to address issues before you hit send.

Email Authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC): Help validate you as a legitimate sender.

• • Why it Matters: These protocols help email providers confirm that the emails actually came from your domain and weren't sent by someone pretending to be you. Proper authentication improves trust and reduces the chance of being flagged as spam.
  • What to Look For: Some deliverability tools offer setup guidance for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. Others may even monitor them to ensure they're configured correctly and alert you to any problems.

List Cleaning: Remove old, invalid addresses.

• • Why it Matters: High bounce rates indicate poor list quality and harm your reputation. Inactive addresses often turn into spam traps (set up by providers to catch spammers).
  • What to Look For: Tools that directly integrate with your email list or CRM are helpful. Look for features to identify invalid addresses, inactive subscribers, and those likely to complain, so you can proactively clean your list.

Deliverability Reporting: Insights on bounces, open rates, spam complaints.

• • Why it Matters: These metrics are a health check for your email sending practices. Spikes in bounces or spam complaints signal a problem needing investigation.
  • What to Look For: Robust reporting with clear visualizations is key. Look for breakdowns of bounce types (hard vs. soft) and the ability to pinpoint which campaigns or email types lead to issues.

Reputation Monitoring: Track your sender reputation over time.

• • Why it Matters: Your past behavior impacts how providers treat your emails. A history of good deliverability makes them more welcoming; a poor reputation leads to increased scrutiny.
  • What to Look For: Some tools offer a "reputation score" and track your IP/domain against known blacklists. Ideally, a tool proactively alerts you to potential reputation drops, allowing you to address the root cause.

Additional Tips for Boosting Email Deliverability

Use Double Opt-In: Ensure recipient interest.

• • What it is: Double opt-in means that after someone signs up to your list, they receive a confirmation email with a link they need to click to verify their subscription.
  • Why it matters: This extra step ensures only genuinely interested people end up on your list. It reduces spam complaints and accidental signups, protecting your sender reputation.

Personalize Content: Demonstrate value to avoid spam complaints.

• • What it is: Personalization goes beyond using someone's name. It means tailoring content to their interests, pain points, or where they are in the customer journey.
  • Why it matters: Relevancy is key! Highly personalized emails feel valuable to the recipient, making them more likely to open, engage, and less likely to mark it as spam.

Segment Your List: Tailor messaging to different audience groups.

• • What it is: Segmenting means dividing your list into smaller groups based on criteria like demographics, behavior, or purchase history.
  • Why it matters: Segmentation allows you to send more targeted messages. Sending an offer for an introductory product to existing customers is a mismatch — this increases complaints and unsubscribes, hurting deliverability.

Monitor Engagement: Remove inactive subscribers.

• • What it is: Tracking who opens, clicks, and interacts with your emails over time highlights inactive subscribers who have lost interest.
  • Why it matters: Repeatedly emailing disengaged people inflates bounce rates and signals to email providers that your content isn't valued. Creating a re-engagement campaign, or periodically pruning inactive subscribers, is essential for good email health.