Email Deliverability Checklist To Ensure Inbox Placement Of Your Emails

🕐 May 24, 2020✍️ Sandeep Saxena🗂️ Email DeliverabilityUpdated October 24, 2025

Author : Sandeep Saxena

Most common mistake in email marketing and why is it important to follow all email deliverability best practices

Many times we are approached by clients who are up for a big product launch or a big event. They parked email marketing as something to be picked in final stage. Now when the big day is only a few weeks away they quickly sign up for an email marketing service and start testing out their campaigns, only to realise its not working and emails go to spam even for very small volume.

I always recommend my clients to keep their email marketing running continuously through out the year so that it can be easily scaled when required. Maintaining a healthy email platform, a healthy IP and domain reputation and an engaged audience is a continuous journey.

What is an email deliverability checklist

We have developed an email deliverability checklist which after studying and researching all email deliverability best practices in detail. The checklist is very through and covers every check you need to run on your test campaigns to ensure there are no issues in the campaign which can impact your inboxing.

Many of the technical checks are built-in to most of the ESP (email service provider) platforms now a days but you will still need to ensure you comply with all data management, content and design checks.

What is email deliverability and how is it different from email delivery : Email delivery and email deliverability are two different concepts. Email delivery is only about delivering the emails to the recipients weather inbox, spam or any other tab, while email deliverability is defined as percentage of your emails which are meaningfully delivered to the inbox of your recipients.

For any questions please feel free to approach us any time.

Email Deliverability Checklist | Email Looks (design, content, header, footer):

My subject line does not have any pushy words and no words like lottery, prize, fortune, etc
My email content does not have any spammy words (Reference)
I made sure correct image / text ratio in email
All images have ALT text.
Campaign has all valid links and does not use any URL which has been flagged as fraudulent
I have not used an URL shortener for the links. You can find the most abused URL shorteners at http://www.surbl.org/tld
My campaign has an unsubscribe link in the email footer.
My campaign has a physical address in the email footer.
I included links to my social media and privacy policy in the footer of my emails
My email has list-unsubscribe header in it
I have checked my content for total number of links and its within recommended range
From name, subject line and body content added to the campaign
Campaign has a plain text version
Campaign has same version in HTML and plain text
HTML is not broken
Email size is preferably between 15kb to 100 kb (recommended)
Campaign does not have any unsafe or binary attachments
Campaign is not image only
Email design is responsive on all devices
Campaign HTML does not have any unsupported tag
Campaign has minimal JavaScript
I made sure campaign does not have any iframe (instead use link to the content you want to embed)
I have not used any flash in my email and alternatively used only GIFs
I have not embedded any forms in my email which need java script to submit the information
I have not used any rich media content (HTML5) in my campaign
I have checked my grammar and spellings (reference)
My email is well written and does not give impression of a phishing email (reference)
I have not used big fonts and flashy colours and a lot of Exclamations !!!!! and $$$$$$
I have not used phishing phrases
I have made sure my reply-to and from email address are correct

Email Deliverability Checklist | Domain Reputation:

My domain’s reputation is good in google postmaster and domain is not blacklisted anywhere
My email list is not purchased.
I have my feedback loop processing in place
I have hard bounce processing in place
I do not have too high number of abandoned emails in my list
I do not have spam traps in my email list
I do not use free email addresses as a From email address
My sending domain has a valid website or at-least it has a simple landing page or redirected to parent domain
I maintain a consistent email volume
My SPF , DKIM, DMARC, rDNS are properly set and pass/align as required
I am not sending my campaigns using ‘via domain’ as provided by few ESPs
My domain is not very new and I have not purchased a dropped domain
I am not sending very high volume on a new domain
I do not change email sending domains too frequently
My domain’s whois record is public
My domain’s website has a privacy policy
My social media handles links given on my website and my social media has some traction
My domain was never used for any phishing attacks
My website is being indexed by Google and Bing
My domain has some authority/trust level on internet with active back-links

Email Deliverability Checklist | Engagement:

I have cleaned my email list and list quality is good
My email list is opted-in (preferably double opted-in)
I checked my subject lines for best practices (length, urgency, special characters, no all CAPS etc)
I occassionaly ask users to add/mark my email address in address book/safe sender list.
My email lists are segmented (does not send all emails to all subscribers).
I send campaigns at the right time (time zone + likeness to open at a particular time).

Email Deliverability Checklist | Mailboxes:

My domain has required email boxes (abuse@ postmaster@ fbl@) and a valid mail exchanger (MX) record for domain
I have mailboxes for my From, Reply-To, Return-Path email addresses
I have (preferably) same From and Reply-To email address