When you think about email deliverability, what comes to mind? Subject lines, inbox delivery rates, spam complaints, black lists, Web sites, email content… Wait a minute - Web sites? Okay, so we know that there are many factors that affect email deliverability success, but Web sites?

Yes, the relationship with your contacts can begin (and end) with your Web site.

The "email contact cycle" usually goes something like this:

1) Send visitors to your Web site landing pages via search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns and/or search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

2) Grow your email subscriber list using the Web site’s opt-in forms.

3) At some point an email marketing campaign sends contacts back to your Web site.

4) The Web site entices email visitors to convert.

In a perfect world the sign-up form would be the only page visitors see. But in reality that’s not the case, because while the goal of the opt-in form is exactly that - to get visitors to join our contact list - the rest of Web site has its own agenda. One of the most important goals of your Web site is to build trust so that visitors themselves believe they can trust you with their email addresses.

Prior to opting in, most visitors will browse the Web site to learn more about the company. If they find dead links, typos, outdated pages, etc., they will be given the impression that the company itself is not on the ball. This can cause potential contacts to be less likely to opt-in for fear that the company is not trustworthy. It’s what I call the "your Web site represents your company, your campaigns, your work ethics, your trust, and you" theory.

But what about those people who do still opt-in? Remember that some, if not most, of them have warily started their relationship with you. These are the people you want to look out for because they will opt-out much faster should more "trust-breaking" issues occur, such as receiving email messages that link to Web pages that are incomplete, broken, or are simply the wrong landing page. Other deal-breakers include sending them the wrong information based on opt-in selection, or having dead links leading from the landing page.

The easiest way to gain visitor trust is to consistently ensure that:

a) All links on the Web site properly deliver visitors to the correct, relevant landing page.

b) There are no typos, dead links, or other errors on any page on your Web site.

c) The landing page design is appealing.

d) All email communications you send contain relevant, error-free content.

So why do I mention this? I believe we all agree that sending out email messages filled with typos and dead-links and the occasional irrelevant subject matter will decrease your email deliverability due to an increase in unsubscribes and even spam complaints. If your Web site has typos, is broken or appears incomplete in any way and at any point, just like an email it will look unprofessional to its users. This will decrease the likelihood of gaining additional email contacts.

When there has been a history of less-than-perfect email communications and the Web site is in a less-than-professional state, your contacts will begin to believe they can no longer trust you and this increases the probability of opting out from your contact list one way or another. A far too common example is when links in a series of email messages go to a wrong page or even a dead page. This will cause people to choose to hit the spam button rather than take the risk and use the unsubscribe handler, because they fear that it too will deliver them to a wrong or dead page. This is what I like to refer to as the "last straw mentality".

So, how do you determine if your Web site is obstructing email deliverability? The most effective way is to analyze the pages visited and exited from by visitors who entered the Web site through an opt-in campaign, as well as email contacts who did not convert on the Web site. Further, by using Lyris HQ’s Web analytics and email marketing tools in conjunction with each other, you can earn your contacts' trust back by informing them that you have remedied past hiccups, reassuring them that they can trust you.

So remember, your Web site is essential to the deliverability success of any marketing campaign regardless of whether or not the campaign leads people directly to your Web site.

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About the Author

Chris Benkert is a training manager at Lyris. He is responsible for creating and delivering training and collateral for Lyris HQ search marketing, Web analytics, and Lyris HQ Agency Edition classes.

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