Since 2017, we've been analyzing email deliverability rates across various platforms. These bi-annual tests provide marketers with valuable insight into the performance of the top email service providers. AWeber was one of the first tools we included on our list.
Founded in 1998, AWeber is one of the industry's oldest players. Currently, it caters to over 100,000 users, which means it continues to be a popular tool for small businesses.
The tool boasts interesting email marketing features, but the key question remains: do the emails reach their intended inboxes?
Let’s look at AWeber's email deliverability rate over the years.
But First, What is Email Deliverability (and How is It Calculated)?
Email deliverability measures whether an email message reaches the recipient's inbox, rather than falling into the black hole of spam and missing emails.
When conducting our tests, we measure the percentage of emails successfully delivered to recipients' inboxes, including both primary and supplementary folders like Gmail Promotions. Based on our findings, the average deliverability rate of all providers tested in our most recent test is 83.1%. See more email deliverability statistics here.
Email deliverability differs from email delivery, which is more about tracking the emails that didn’t bounce back, even if they end up in the spam folder. So as long as your email hops from one server to the other, it counts as ‘delivered’. This blog post also shows you how to calculate email delivery rates.
Given this critical distinction, deliverability is a superior metric for email marketers. It provides useful insight into the likelihood of your emails reaching the intended recipients and making an impact.
The Importance of Email Deliverability
Email is a crucial tool for communication, marketing, and engagement for companies, individuals, and organizations. High email deliverability can:
- Boost engagement opportunities and campaign performance.
- Strengthen brand reputation, as undeliverable or spam emails can make the sender appear unreliable.
- Improve resource utilization, especially when working with email providers that charge by the number of emails sent or the subscriber list size.
However, calculating email deliverability rates for each marketing campaign poses a significant challenge for marketers. Simply because running tests every single time is cumbersome.
Fortunately, we can help here. We perform bi-annual email tests with a deliverability testing tool called Glockapps to see how well your chosen email marketing service, such as AWeber, performs.
AWeber Email Deliverability Rate
Our first-ever round of testing (2017) found AWeber's deliverability rate to be 80.25% – slightly below the industry average. We’re seeing it evolve in more recent rounds, which is somewhat encouraging. For instance, AWeber scored 83.1% in the latest deliverability test conducted in January 2024.
This current score is considered acceptable (according to our methodology) since it meets the industry average. However, it’s not enough given that AWeber still sits near the bottom of the list, ranking 11th out of 15 platforms we test. Moreover, the platform’s scores continue to shift periodically, making their performance unpredictable.
Take a look at their fluctuating performance over the years.
| AUG 2017 | MAR 2018 | JAN 2019 | JULY 2019 | FEB 2020 | SEPT 2020 | MAR 2021 | OCT 2021 | APR 2022 | JAN 2023 | JUNE 2023 | Jan 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWeber Deliverability % | 80.3 | 79.8 | 75.6 | 80.4 | 85.4 | 83.0 | 77.6 | 72.1 | 71.8 | 92.0 | 93.2 | 83.1 |
In January 2023, AWeber demonstrated a 92% deliverability rate, improving to 93.2% by June 2023. We were quite impressed! For the last three rounds, they averaged 89.4% deliverability, placing sixth on our list and garnering “excellent deliverability” status.
| ROUND 8 (OCT 2021) | ROUND 9 (APR 2022) | ROUND 10 (JAN 2023) | ROUND 11 (JUNE 2023) | ROUND 12 (JAN 2024) | AVERAGE OF LAST 3 ROUNDS | AVERAGE OF LAST 5 ROUNDS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWeber Deliverability Rate | 72.1 % | 71.8 % | 92 % | 93.2 % | 83.1 % | 89.4 % | 82.44% |
But as we’ve said, their performance is pretty inconsistent. This becomes evident once you look at their five-round average. The figure drops to 82.44%, indicating a poor deliverability score.
AWeber Email Deliverability: A Closer Look
We've tested AWeber's deliverability for years. Here’s how they’ve fared:
Deliverability to Gmail Primary Inbox vs Promotions Tab
Our latest round (January 2024) showed that AWeber’s email delivery rate to Gmail Primary Inbox was 81%. The score is pretty poor and is the second lowest out of the 15 platforms. Compared to our June 2023 test, there’s a significant 14% drop in performance.
The latest round also showed that 0% of emails ended up in the Gmail Promotions tab. It’s worth noting that from September 2020 to April 2022, most (55% to 78.41%) emails ended up here. But since 2023, the number has decreased to 27.7% (Jan 2023) and 0% (June 2023). Email marketers can see this as a positive development since emails that land in the Primary Inbox typically have a higher open rate.
Deliverability to Microsoft (Outlook and Hotmail)
AWeber’s deliverability rates to Outlook (93.85%) and Hotmail (90%) in the latest round were outstanding. It’s a world away from our very first test, wherein none (0%) of our test emails made it into Microsoft inboxes. Their highest deliverability rate to these providers is 98.7%, as demonstrated in our June 2023 test.
Deliverability to Yahoo and AOL
AWeber's deliverability rate shines when it comes to Yahoo and AOL. The email marketing platform's performance is consistently stellar.
Since 2017, deliverability rates to both internet service providers (ISPs) have remained high, with multiple testing rounds achieving 100%. There was only one dip for Yahoo, dropping to 89% in our October 2021 round, and one for AOL, falling to 80% in our January 2019 round.
Missing Emails and Spam
As of our latest round, AWeber has the highest rate of missing emails (10.4%) and spam (6.6%). It’s safe to say that the email marketing service struggles in this regard. Historically, their worst performances were: 7.5% missing emails (Oct 2021 round) and 23.2% spam (Apr 2022 round).
Of course, there have been some high points along the way. In our 2023 tests, AWeber’s amount of missing emails went down to 2.7%, and spam dwindled to 0.9%.
AWeber Deliverability Features
AWeber offers a range of features and proactive measures to improve your inbox rate and deliverability:
Authentication
AWeber provides a few options to help you easily set up DKIM, SPF and DMARC authentication. For SPF authentication, the process requires an extra step: adding your email provider to your domain's SPF record.
Note: After setting up DMARC authentication for our January 2024 tests, we observed fewer emails going to Promotions. We don’t know for sure if it played a part, but it's always best practice to set it up anyway.
Split Testing
AWeber lets users create up to three email variations. Play with subject lines, previews, messages, and even send times to see which email lands well with your audience. In addition, you can select which segments to send the emails to, and at what percentage.
List Management
AWeber allows users to create customized subscriber segments. Various segmentation options are available, such as open rates, click-through rates, and demographics.
Note: AWeber only manages opt-in emails to ensure users only send messages to subscribers who ask for their emails.
In-house reputation team
AWeber’s in-house team operates around the clock, analyzing a multitude of email signals to discern sender behaviors. This information enables AWeber's Deliverability Team to quickly identify and thwart email abuse. Suspicious and subpar accounts are then taken out of the system to help bolster reliability and deliverability.
ISP Relations
AWeber emphasizes their establishment of personal contacts with major ISPs, which allows for prompt issue resolution and regular communication to prevent mail blocking. They also state that they follow ISP standards for managing and sending opt-in emails. By doing so, messages are less likely to be blocked or marked as spam.
Unlike providers like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign and Hubspot, AWeber doesn’t give high-volume senders the option to acquire a dedicated IP. This means you’ll have to share the same IP address with other users. So when someone else uses the platform to distribute junk email/spam, it could influence sender reputation, and in turn, deliverability rate.
Still, you can combat these by consistently following the best email marketing practices. The video below highlights what you should focus on:
Or download a free deliverability checklist here.
Our Email Deliverability Test: Process and Insights
According to AWeber, their monthly internal tracking process consistently yields 99% deliverability. They are reported to employ internal mechanisms to monitor email deliverability, including metrics such as undeliverable message volumes and real-time engagement statistics.
So, why are our results different? First of all, our testing methods differ from those used by AWeber to track its internal campaigns. Second, variations in testing criteria, sample sizes, or testing environments could lead to different outcomes.
We use Glockapps to measure deliverability rates. For every round, we run five tests over a five-week period. Based on our biannual tests, deliverability rates differ among email marketing services. We also notice varying scores for each platform over time.
However, some providers demonstrate their ability to consistently deliver good results. The best example of this is MailerLite, which has been awarded Emailtooltester’s Best Deliverability and Best-of-5 Email Deliverability badges.
MailerLite vs AWeber Deliverability Rates
How does AWeber compare to our six-time ‘Best of 5’ award winner? Let’s look at the numbers: MailerLite averages a deliverability rate of 94.41% over the past five testing cycles, while AWeber has only achieved 82.44%. That's a difference of 11.97%!
MailerLite's ongoing excellent deliverability rate illustrates the need for proper email authentication, meeting ISPs’ evolving requirements, and easy subscriber management.
AWeber Deliverability: An Overview
Our deliverability tests indicate that AWeber’s performance has been fluctuating over time. In our latest round, we observed recent declines. However, some areas showed gradual improvements. For instance, even if their overall deliverability rate dropped by 10.1 points since last year, they’ve also been getting better at landing emails in Gmail’s primary inbox than in the Promotion tab.
AWeber is still one of the platforms with the most missing emails, but they now deliver a high volume of emails to Microsoft (unlike when we started testing). They’re also able to maintain their high deliverability rate to Yahoo and AOL.
Our data provides insights into AWeber's performance across multiple testing rounds, but actual results may vary depending on factors such as list quality, email content, and engagement.
If you're considering AWeber for your email campaigns, we recommend tracking deliverability and engagement metrics regularly to optimize results.
If you're curious about AWeber, sign up for free here.
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This article has been written and researched following our EmailTooltester methodology.
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