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<p>One of our <a href="https://convertkit.com/mission" target="_blank" rel="noopener">values</a> at ConvertKit is to work in public. We strive for transparency, which is why we share information that is typically kept private, such as our <a href="https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">finances</a>.</p>
<p>One commonly asked question by creators looking for a new email marketing platform is, <em>“How is your email deliverability?”</em></p>
<p>Here is our monthly deliverability report to answer that question:</p>
<p>If you missed previous Deliverability reports, you can check them out below:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://convertkit.com/december-2020-deliverability-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">December 2020</a></li>
<li><a href="https://convertkit.com/january-2021-deliverability-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">January 2021</a></li>
<li><a href="https://convertkit.com/february-2021-deliverability-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">February 2021</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>In March, ConvertKit sent over 1.3 billion messages (1,388,114,513 to be exact).</h2>
<p>When messages are sent, they can be <strong>delivered</strong> or they can <strong>bounce</strong>. For more details on how email deliverability operates, check out our blog post <a href="https://convertkit.com/sender-reputation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. But for a little TLDR- The more messages delivered, the better!</p>
<p>It is inevitable for <em>some</em> messages to bounce due to invalid addresses, full mailboxes, etc., but a good delivery rate indicates healthy deliverability for ConvertKit. We consider a system-wide delivery rate of 98% and above to be very healthy.</p>
<h2>In March, our system-wide delivery rate was <span style="color: #99cc00;">99.64%.</span></h2>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-33866 lazy" data-src="https://media.convertkit.com/post/6w8RHUDZ-MARCH-21-systemwide-delivery-rate-1.jpg?fm=pjpg" alt="March 2021 systemwide delivery rate" width="1500" height="1016" data-srcset="https://media.convertkit.com/post/6w8RHUDZ-MARCH-21-systemwide-delivery-rate-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=406&amp;w=600 600w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/6w8RHUDZ-MARCH-21-systemwide-delivery-rate-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=694&amp;w=1024 1024w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/6w8RHUDZ-MARCH-21-systemwide-delivery-rate-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=520&amp;w=768 768w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/6w8RHUDZ-MARCH-21-systemwide-delivery-rate-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=400&amp;w=590 590w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/6w8RHUDZ-MARCH-21-systemwide-delivery-rate-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=240&amp;w=354 354w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/6w8RHUDZ-MARCH-21-systemwide-delivery-rate-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=1040&amp;w=1536 1536w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/6w8RHUDZ-MARCH-21-systemwide-delivery-rate-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=1387&amp;w=2048 2048w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/6w8RHUDZ-MARCH-21-systemwide-delivery-rate-1.jpg?fm=pjpg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" /></p>
<p>This high delivery rate indicates a healthy reputation for ConvertKit, which gives our customers a solid foundation for their email deliverability. To get even more detailed about how well we’re performing, it helps to filter down by mailbox provider.</p>
<p>Here are the top 5 domains ConvertKit sends to in terms of volume:</p>
<p><strong>1. Gmail.com</strong><br />
Volume: 850 million messages<br />
Delivery rate: <span style="color: #99cc00;">99.92%</span></p>
<p><strong>2. Yahoo.com</strong><br />
Volume: 131 million messages<br />
Delivery rate: <span style="color: #99cc00;">99.89%</span></p>
<p><strong>3. Hotmail.com</strong><br />
Volume: 113 million messages<br />
Delivery rate: <span style="color: #99cc00;">99.48%</span></p>
<p><strong>4. AOL.com</strong><br />
Volume: 31 million messages<br />
Delivery rate: <span style="color: #99cc00;">99.96%</span></p>
<p><strong>5. Outlook.com</strong><br />
Volume: 14 million messages<br />
Delivery rate: <span style="color: #99cc00;">99.88%</span></p>
<h2>The average open rate of all emails sent through ConvertKit was <span style="color: #99cc00;">30%.</span></h2>
<p>Senders often ask how their open rates stack up to others. Truth is, open rates can vary greatly depending on your industry and audience type (B2B vs. freemail addresses, for example). However, here’s a general scale you can use to measure your performance:</p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-26174 lazy" data-src="https://media.convertkit.com/post/tp0dK1cd-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.18.23-PM.png?fm=png" alt="Open Rates" width="1238" height="674" data-srcset="https://media.convertkit.com/post/tp0dK1cd-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.18.23-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=327&amp;w=600 600w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/tp0dK1cd-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.18.23-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=557&amp;w=1024 1024w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/tp0dK1cd-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.18.23-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=418&amp;w=768 768w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/tp0dK1cd-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.18.23-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=321&amp;w=590 590w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/tp0dK1cd-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.18.23-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=212&amp;w=390 390w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/tp0dK1cd-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.18.23-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=836&amp;w=1536 1536w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/tp0dK1cd-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.18.23-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=1115&amp;w=2048 2048w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/tp0dK1cd-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.18.23-PM.png?fm=png 1238w" sizes="(max-width: 1238px) 100vw, 1238px" /></p>
<p>I talk more about open rates and why they aren’t always reliable in <a href="https://convertkit.com/sender-reputation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this article</a>.</p>
<h2>The average click rate across ConvertKit accounts was <span style="color: #99cc00;">5.79%.</span></h2>
<p>We calculate click rate by dividing the number of subscribers who clicked a link by the total number of subscribers who received the email.</p>
<p>Similarly, the average click-to-open rate was <strong>16.47%</strong>. This is calculated by dividing the number of subscribers who clicked a link by the number of subscribers who opened the email.</p>
<h2>Our system-wide complaint rate remained over 10x lower than industry standard</h2>
<p>A <strong>complaint</strong> is when a subscriber marks a message as spam. An elevated complaint rate is a signal that the sender’s quality of mail isn’t good. We have a team dedicated to ensuring that the mail sent from ConvertKit is wanted by the recipients.</p>
<p>In the email industry, a complaint rate less than 0.1% is seen as healthy. <strong>ConvertKit’s complaint rate in March was 0.007%</strong>, which speaks to the high quality of mail sent by our customers and the healthy reputation of our infrastructure.</p>
<blockquote class="blockquote-sm">
<h2>Deliverability tip of the month:</h2>
<p>It’s always a great idea to send yourself a test email before sending out your email to your full list. However, make sure you send the test to an email address that is different from the sending address!</p>
<p>It’s common for senders to test out their emails by sending themselves a preview email, but they often send the test to the same email address that is used to send the message. This can cause the test email to go to spam and cause unnecessary panic.</p>
<p>Why does the email go to spam when the sending domain is the same as the receiving domain? Well, your mailbox sees that it’s receiving an email from itself, but it knows it didn’t send the email. This causes your mailbox to be suspicious and think that it’s being spoofed. In order to get a better idea of how your email will actually perform, be sure to test with an email address that doesn’t share the same domain as the sending address. For example, Gmail addresses are great for testing!</p></blockquote>
<h2>Industry news and ConvertKit updates</h2>
<h3>The <em>Deliverability Defined</em> Podcast</h3>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-26175 lazy" data-src="https://media.convertkit.com/post/G8JSmbjJ-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.21.54-PM.png?fm=png" alt="deliverability defined podcast" width="1252" height="702" data-srcset="https://media.convertkit.com/post/G8JSmbjJ-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.21.54-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=336&amp;w=600 600w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/G8JSmbjJ-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.21.54-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=574&amp;w=1024 1024w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/G8JSmbjJ-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.21.54-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=431&amp;w=768 768w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/G8JSmbjJ-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.21.54-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=331&amp;w=590 590w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/G8JSmbjJ-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.21.54-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=219&amp;w=390 390w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/G8JSmbjJ-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.21.54-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=861&amp;w=1536 1536w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/G8JSmbjJ-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.21.54-PM.png?fit=scale&amp;fm=png&amp;h=1148&amp;w=2048 2048w, https://media.convertkit.com/post/G8JSmbjJ-Screen-Shot-2020-06-22-at-10.21.54-PM.png?fm=png 1252w" sizes="(max-width: 1252px) 100vw, 1252px" /></p>
<p>We’ve been having so much fun releasing more episodes of our deliverability podcast! Here are the episodes we released in March:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://share.transistor.fm/s/83843805" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Audience building for creators</a></li>
<li><a href="https://convertkit.com/how-to-re-engage-subscribers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How to re-engage subscribers without damaging your deliverability</a></li>
<li><a href="https://convertkit.com/writers-earn-living-through-email" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How writers can earn a living through email</a></li>
<li><a href="https://convertkit.com/10-common-email-marketing-mistakes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10 common email marketing mistakes</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Follow us on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/deliverabilitydefined/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@DeliverabilityDefined</a> for weekly deliverability education and tips.</h3>
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ConvertKit’s March 2021 Deliverability Report

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