Issue #197 All About Email

🧭 Your Treasure Map to the Inbox

AuthorAuthor

Simon Harper & Travis Hazelwood
July 07, 2025

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Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #197 of All About Email!

Last week was one of my favourite newsletters of the year, as we looked back at your top newsletters of the previous six months.

This week, my second guest author of the summer takes us on a deliverability adventure (one of my favourite topics).

Take it away, Travis! 👇

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Guest Author - Travis Hazelwood

Travis has spent the last 6 years managing the deliverability experience of billions of emails a year across multiple platforms and industries.

Driven by his love of teaching, he utilises his speaking sessions and writing opportunities to educate senders through metaphors that humanise deliverability and help them earn a spot in the inbox every day.

Between speaking engagements, Travis manages email and SMS at Ortto, writes a monthly blog, and experiments daily with metaphors on LinkedIn.

Do you remember the fun of treasure maps as a kid?

Well, if you’re up for a bit of adventure, I thought I’d share with you my silly (but helpful) treasure map to the inbox.

As with any good map, you need a compass to help you know you’re going the right direction, no matter where you are and what you’re doing.

On Email Marketing Island, when searching for the inbox, your engagement rates will always help you know if you’re heading in the right direction.

So make sure you keep an eye on both this map and your compass (engagements), and you should never go wrong.

On to the treasure hunt! 👇

Illustrated treasure map titled "Email Marketing Island" featuring a winding dotted path from "Authentication Cove" through "Express Consent River" to "Sunset Cliffs," with an "X" marking a spot near a mountain and a sailboat in the surrounding sea.

All strong inboxing begins at “Authentication Cove”

Whether it’s your first email program or 100th, you cannot step foot on “Email Marketing Island”, let alone reach the inbox, if you’re missing necessary authentication records.

Make sure the following authentication is set up and still active on your domain:

  • SPF

  • DKIM

  • DMARC

Ortto’s Custom Domain feature makes this really easy to monitor with an email alert if SPF/DKIM unexpectedly fails, but if your current platform doesn’t offer this, you can always use aboutmy.email to send a test email to check for yourself. 

Grab a boat and float the “Express Consent River”

Unlike most rivers, this one flows away from the sea (a slight suspension of disbelief is needed here).

“Express consent” is the key to building any momentum with your email marketing. Anything less can and will slow down your journey to the inbox.

The keys to gaining express consent with your lead-gen efforts are:

  • Content transparency with every opt-in form.

  • Using lead-gen strategies that encourage an ongoing relationship instead of a one-time transaction (Avoid using forced, gated, or blanket opt-in strategies as much as possible).

  • Always include CAPTCHA on forms.

  • Building Welcome and Nurture automations that honour that intent.

Hop-scotch through the “Swamp of Relevance”

Now, the real work begins.

As you navigate an ongoing relationship with your subscribers, you regularly need to work to maintain relevant content based on their interests and your brand's previous relationship with them.

You do this with:

There are many opportunities for pitfalls and “loop-the-loops”, so take your time with these and be intentional.

Carefully hike along the “Sunset Cliffs”

As you work your way up the mountain, the trails become tight with the threat of a sheer reputation drop at every step.

💡 Slimming down your audience is crucial to ensure you can move forward effectively.

Ortto allows you to automate this via a Sunset Policy, but you can also do this manually by segmenting and suppressing long-term unengaged subscribers.

While many want to try to keep all of their list, it is vital to regularly re-engage and sunset at key lifecycle points, as shown in this template I built.

🚨 Still, be cautious about manually re-engaging all of your unengaged users at once, as you risk a landslide that will take your reputation down with it.

Finally, use your “Engagement Compass” to know the right spot

👀 Once you’ve passed “Sunset Cliffs”, you can only see when you’ve reached the inbox by the metrics you’re earning:

  • Are you seeing strong open rates (>25%) and click rates (>1%)?

  • Are you seeing low bounce rates (<5%), unsubscribe rates (<1%), and complaint rates (<.1%)?

Check once, twice?

Now you know…

🎉 You’re there! You’re in the inbox!

You’ve done the work:

  • Provided highly desired content,

  • Been proactive in honouring subscriber sentiment,

  • As well as subscriber preferences.

Now, the engagements not only show that you’ve earned the inbox but are also yielding the desired results from it.

🤑 Congratulations! You’re rich now!

Final Words

🧀 OK, I’ll admit that this was a bit cheesy, and the metaphors get a little wonky at places.

However, I hope you were able to understand all the important pieces that come together to earn the inbox.

While you may look for shortcuts along the way, you must remember that no long-lasting journey to the inbox can occur without all of these.

🏴‍☠️ Good luck and happy treasure hunting!

My (Simon’s) Thoughts

🏝️ What an absolute pleasure it has been to have Travis as a guest for the very first time on this newsletter.

I don’t know about you, friend, but I will be asking Travis back for more adventures.

🤔 What was your favourite part? Mine had to be:

  • The Swamp of Relevance,

  • Sunset Cliffs,

  • and Engagement Compass…

OK, that’s not one thing, but it was too hard for me to choose. Travis did such a fantastic job!

❤️ “Wonky metaphors” (which I loved) and an epic map that reminds me of my days playing Monkey Island made for an excellent piece of storytelling around arguably the topic of the year so far: “Deliverability.”

And a hat tip to aboutmy.email, also one of my recommended tools in the search for the inbox, and preach “express consent”!

🎉 Thank you, Travis!

All About Email - Playlist 🎧

I listen to lots of music, particularly when I’m writing newsletters.

Each week, when I hit the publish button, I’ll share the track I am currently listening to and create the most eclectic playlist you’ve probably ever heard.

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That’s It For This Week 👋

Next week you’ll be hearing from me (Simon) again, and I’m excited!

See you next week!

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

If you have a question about this email or email marketing, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

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