How is B2B Mail Different to B2C?
B2B mail is shorthand for business-to-business, essentially marketing to other professionals. The basics of B2C, or business-to-consumer, mail still apply, but B2B mail comes with its own unique challenges and considerations.
Sender Reputation isn’t the only thing keeping your mail from someone’s inbox in a B2B environment. Business emails often have additional filters and security policies that are gatekeepers to the inbox, and a sender’s contact data plays an ever more important role in getting through to your recipients.
Here, we’ll cover the fundamentals of B2B email deliverability.
Mail Authentication
Like commercial mail filters, B2B filters require full authentication on incoming mail; moreso with Google Workspace and Office365 becoming larger players in the sector.
Ensure your mail has passing SPF, DKIM, and at least a non-enforcing DMARC policy. Any failing authentication could lead to spam placement or blocks. Your ESP will typically handle these, but requirements vary by platform and configuration.
Confirm that SPF and DKIM are correctly configured for your sending domain, and that your DMARC policy is in place.
Filter out the Catch-All Addresses
Corporations have catch-all or role-based emails. These are your typical [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], etc.
These addresses are often shared by multiple users, which may seem like you’re expanding your reach by mailing these. The reality is that these addresses are often public, and receive a large amount of unsolicited mail. This leads into our next point.
Data Acquisition and Consent
Knowing your data, where it comes from, and the level of consent to marketing is paramount.
Two of the most common ways to acquire contacts are inbound leads and collecting recipient data via marketing and events.
When collecting data through these methods, ensure you’re getting explicit consent to mail recipients. Lacking consent can lead to high complaints, poor engagement, and reduced inbox placement.
Split Warm and Cold Leads
Once you’ve acquired your leads, you need to segment them before you mail them.
Ensure that any cold leads are completely siloed from engaged recipients and warm leads to keep your mail safe. You can do this through independent IPs for different data streams, and ideally separate mailing subdomains.
This is even more important when using any kind of third-party data.
Everything, Everywhere, All Filtered
Different business sectors will have different levels of filtering and security they apply to any incoming mail. Knowing your audience and catering mail to them helps your mail reach the inbox as much as it does with freemail, but with key differences.
Financial, Military, and Government sectors typically have the highest level of security available, which means increased scrutiny and strict filters. Organisations in these sectors may apply stricter security and filtering policies. If you experience delivery problems, consider a simpler, text-based version of your mail alongside your existing format.
If you’re seeing throttling or partial blocking, try adjusting the amount of mail you’re sending to those recipient domains.
Educational institutions often have specific policies on what they will or won’t allow into their system. Your recipients are your best tool to ensure you’re allowed through filters; your recipients may need to add you to their safe sender list, or their IT can add you to their filters allow list.
When you can’t contact recipients through an external source to get on their allow list, look for alternative channels to contact them (such as SMS).
On top of this, a high number of businesses use additional filters on top of their corporate mailboxes, such as ProofPoint or Barracuda. Even relevant, wanted email can encounter additional filtering in corporate environments. Maintaining strong authentication, good sender reputation and reliable contact data can help improve deliverability, but individual organisations may apply their own security policies.
Putting it All Together
B2B email deliverability relies on the same fundamentals as B2C: authentication, reliable contact data, and relevant content. By understanding your audience’s requirements and maintaining good sending practices, you can improve your chances of reaching the inbox.
Need help reviewing your approach? Contact PostUp to discuss your B2B deliverability, explore data validation through our ZeroBounce partnership, or speak with our deliverability experts.