Autopilot: Email deliverability and performance FAQ
Looking to purchase a dedicated IP? Learn more here.
How does Autopilot maximize email deliverability?
Our #1 priority is getting your emails delivered to the inbox. To make this possible, we have partnered with Sendgrid. They are the email infrastructure market leader, and offer world-class email deliverability.
Together we take the following steps to help your emails land in the inbox:
- We have specialists constantly monitoring our infrastructure and IP addresses to ensure the best possible deliverability rates.
- We have relationships with major ISPs to ensure that if there's ever any issues we can work together to resolve them quickly.
- We don't allow bad senders on Autopilot. Learn more in our Acceptable Use Policy. This ensures better deliverability for everyone because only legitimate email is sent via Autopilot.
What steps can I take to help my emails reach the inbox?
We recommend taking the following steps:
- Ensure that you are complying with our Acceptable Use Policy; most importantly, only send to recipients who have opted in to receive email from you.
- Setup a custom email domain so your email comes from a domain name that your recipients are used to receiving email from.
- Become a paying subscriber; when you do, you'll be put into a different IP pool to trial users. You can also purchase a dedicated IP (sometimes referred to as a "custom IP") which allows you to take full control over your deliverability.
- Personalize your emails. For example, consider using a contact's name in the subject line to increase engagement.
- Enable our email sunset policy feature.
- Ensure that your emails don't contain words that may trigger spam filters.
What kind of performance can I expect on Autopilot?
There are many variables which make a general answer to this question difficult. We do everything we can on our end to ensure our email deliverability and performance is high, but ultimately it's a team effort. You should always ensure that you are sending quality, relevant content to people who have opted in to receive it from you.
However, we thought the best way to answer this question would be to share the metrics of some of our customers that agreed to make their metrics public. As you will see below, Autopilot users consistently outperform industry averages.
Featured Case Study: LiveChat
LiveChat is killing it with customer journey marketing. Since adopting Autopilot, the company has seen:
- open rates as high as 75% on lead generation emails;
- an increase in overall click rates of 360%; and
- an increase in reply rates from 1% to 21%.
Read the full case study and watch the webinar with LiveChat here.
Case Study: Draper University
About
Draper University is Silicon Valley's top entrepreneurship program and accelerator founded by Tim Draper.
Performance and Usage
Draper University sends thousands of emails per month including newsletters, re-engagement emails and event invitations. Their average open rate is 47% and their average click-through rate is 7.25%.
Analysis
Outperformed the education and training industry's average open rate of 22.7% and click-through rate of 3%.
Case Study: ShaleCast
About
ShaleCast is transforming oil and gas mineral rights ownership for the millions of mineral owners created by the US shale boom. Its technology forecasts royalty income, prices, and production for the next 15 years to help mineral owners visualize the future of their oil and gas assets.
Performance and Usage
ShaleCast sends thousands of emails per month including customer on-boarding emails, customer updates and webinar invitations. Their average open rate is 59.5% and their average click-through rate is 29.9%.
Analysis
Outperformed the software industry's average open rate of 21.56% and click-through rate of 2.40%.