Constant Contact has gained itself a pretty good reputation in the email marketing world thanks to its niche feature set and nearly 30 years' experience in the industry.
When choosing a new email service provider, it's completely normal to focus on the price of the software, especially if you have a tight marketing budget. However, email deliverability is also an extremely important factor to consider and should be a top priority if you are looking to get the very best results out of your email marketing efforts.
Now, let's take a look at what email deliverability is, Constant Contact's deliverability features, their results from our tests, and lastly, how they compare to other popular providers.
What is Email Deliverability?
Ever wondered why some emails land straight in your inbox and others disappear into promotions or spam folders? Well, it's all down to email deliverability, which is a crucial topic for us and one that seems to be gaining more and more traction in the email marketing world, especially due to recent changes with authentication.
Although many believe it all lies in the content of the email, other factors affect deliverability. One of them is the deliverability rate of your specific Email Service Provider (ESP). The ESP you use to send your email campaigns can greatly affect whether your emails reach your audience's inbox or their spam folder. To ensure your messages reach subscribers, you need a reliable ESP with good deliverability and to follow email best practices.
Email Deliverability vs Email Delivery
People often get confused between email deliverability and email delivery, however, they have their differences. So let's break it down for you.
Email delivery is the process of transferring an email from the sender's email server to the recipient's email server, with the main intention of the email reaching the intended recipient’s inbox or email folder. However, even emails that land in spam are counted within the email delivery rate.
On the other hand, email deliverability is defined by the ability to deliver emails to your subscribers' inboxes. It is what some marketers use to measure the likelihood of their email campaigns reaching their subscribers' inboxes.
Why is Email Deliverability so important?
So, imagine spending hours creating the winning email campaign – you’ve perfected the copy, tested different subject lines, and built the perfect list only to find out that your email landed in your recipients' spam folder, or worse – it didn’t arrive at all.
Ensuring your emails reach your recipients should be the top goal of any email marketing campaign. Luckily, Constant Contact understands this challenge and has positioned itself as a strong leader in the world of email deliverability.
Constant Contact Deliverability Rate: January 2024 Email Deliverability Insights
In our latest email deliverability test (January 2024), Constant Contact achieved an excellent deliverability rate of 91.7% and came second out of fifteen providers.
They also performed pretty well in our previous test (June 2023), coming 5th and scoring an impressive 92%. They are one of the few providers who have remained somewhat consistent in their scoring, scoring from 90-92% in the last 5 tests.
Now, let's take a look into the deliverability specifics of our two latest email deliverability tests.
| Email Placement | June 2023 (%) | January 2024 (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Main Inbox | 79.8% | 84.2% |
| Tabs | 12.2% | 7.5% |
| Spam | 1.5% | 2.5% |
| Missing | 6.5% | 5.8% |
Our June 2023 analysis of where exactly emails get delivered revealed that 79.8% of ConstantContact’s emails were delivered to the main inbox, 12.2% to tabs, a tiny 1.5% to spam, and 6.5% went missing.
Next up, our January 2024 analysis revealed that 84.2% of the emails sent using Constant Contact landed in the main inbox. 7.5% got delivered in the secondary tabs, while 5.8% went undelivered, and lastly, 2.5% were flagged as spam.
It's refreshing to see that the number of emails arriving in the main inbox increased by 4.4 percentage points since the previous round. Hopefully, Constant Contact can keep this up and gain the winning spot in our next round.
| Internet Service Provider | June 2023 Deliverability (%) | Jan 2024 Deliverability (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Gmail | 58 | 100 |
| Yahoo | 100 | 100 |
| Outlook | 100 | 100 |
| Hotmail | 100 | 100 |
| AOL | 100 | 100 |
Constant Contact also maintained a 100% deliverability to Yahoo, Outlook, Hotmail, and AOL inboxes throughout both tests, achieving a 100% deliverability rate to these internet service providers. There was also a noticeable improvement in deliverability to Gmail inbox from June to January, growing from 58% to a successful 100% deliverability.
Constant Contact Deliverability Features
In addition to this attractive deliverability rate, Constant Contact offers a selection of features and strategies that can help to improve the probability that your emails will get delivered to your audience.
1. Proactive Monitoring:
- Constant Contact's dedicated deliverability team continuously monitors new contact signups, list uploads, and email content for any signs of suspicious activity. This approach allows them to detect and address potential deliverability issues, ensuring that users' emails reach their intended recipients effectively.
2. Authentication:
- The platform prioritizes email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to verify the authenticity of users' emails. By implementing these protocols, Constant Contact enhances the credibility of users' email senders, reducing the likelihood of emails being flagged as spam or phishing attempts.
3. Blocklist Management:
- Constant Contact closely monitors email blocklists and takes action to address any listings that may impact users' deliverability. This helps users maintain a positive sender reputation and successfully reach their intended recipients' inboxes.
4. Compliance & Account Review:
- Constant Contact adheres to industry regulations and best practices to ensure compliance with email marketing laws such as the CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR. Additionally, the platform conducts regular reviews of user accounts to identify and address any compliance issues or potential risks that may impact email deliverability.
5. Shared IP Address:
- Constant Contact provides shared IP addresses to users who prefer a cost-effective solution and do not require exclusive IP resources. With shared IPs, multiple users send emails from the same IP address.
- While this can be a more economical option, it also means that the sender reputation of the IP address is influenced by the collective sending behavior of all users sharing the IP. Constant Contact monitors and manages shared IP pools to maintain deliverability standards and minimize the risk of IP reputation issues.
6. Dedicated IP Address:
- For users with higher email volume or specific deliverability requirements, Constant Contact also offers dedicated IP addresses. With a dedicated IP, users have exclusive control over their sending reputation and can better manage their deliverability.
- Dedicated IPs are ideal for businesses that prioritize sender reputation and want to maintain full control over their email deliverability. Constant Contact provides guidance and support to users opting for dedicated IPs to ensure optimal deliverability and sender reputation management.
Our Email Deliverability Assessment Methodology
Since August 2017, we've conducted biannual email deliverability assessments to gather valuable insights into the deliverability rates of various ESPs, including Constant Contact. We send tests using the providers’ shared IPs to try and identify which provide the best deliverability rates for small-scale senders getting started with their first email campaigns.
Although these results give us a good idea of how good (or bad) each provider is at getting their emails into inboxes, it's important to recognize that deliverability rates can be influenced by various factors beyond the scope of these tests. Therefore, while these findings offer a useful benchmark, they should be considered in conjunction with other factors that may impact deliverability.
Our tool of choice for email deliverability assessments is GlockApps. This deliverability tool enables us to gauge the performance of each email marketing tool in delivering emails to the four primary email providers: Gmail, Microsoft (Outlook and Hotmail), Yahoo, and AOL.
According to our methodology, the email deliverability rate is calculated as the proportion of emails successfully delivered to recipients' inboxes or other designated tabs. Emails redirected to the spam folder are categorized as undelivered.
Our test criteria states that a deliverability rate of 89% or above is classed as an “excellent” rating, while rates ranging from 83% to 88% are deemed acceptable. Anything below 83% falls into the “poor” category.
Constant Contact vs. Mailchimp Deliverability
When it comes to the topic of email deliverability, Mailchimp takes a proactive stance in ensuring users adhere to proper content distribution practices and avoid spamming recipients. They also use Omnivore, an abuse-detecting technology, to uphold sender reputation and anticipate any potential misconduct before campaign distribution. This strategy contributes to Mailchimp's impressive deliverability rate ranging between 89% to 95.5% in our latest tests. However, it's worth noting that they dropped from second to seventh place in our latest test.
Constant Contact aligns with industry standards and offers a spam check tool that alerts users to any content that might affect deliverability. They scored a deliverability rate of 92% in both of our recent rounds.
You can see both of their results from the last 5 rounds below:
| PROVIDER | OCT 2021 % | APRIL 2022 % | JAN 2023 % | JUNE 2023 % | JAN 2024 % | Average of Last 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ConstantContact | 87.7 | 90.9 | 92.1 | 92 | 91.7 | 90.97 |
| Mailchimp | 85.2 | 85.9 | 92.7 | 95.5 | 89.5 | 89.74 |
As you can see, both platforms score acceptable to excellent deliverability rates (according to our methodology) and actively engage in spam prevention measures. However, when comparing Mailchimp vs Constant Contact deliverability rate over the last five rounds, ConstantContact wins, but only by a couple of percentage points.
Final Thoughts: Constant Contact Deliverability
From our deliverability test results, we can conclude that ConstantContact maintains an excellent deliverability rate, with a significant portion of emails successfully reaching recipients inboxes, especially to internet service providers like Yahoo and AOL. Of course, the performance of the email service provider is subject to different factors, such as email content, list hygiene, and more. Therefore, our tests should only be taken as a general guideline of how these ESPs perform.
It's important to note that email deliverability rates can fluctuate over time and across various testing methodologies. The insights provided demonstrate Constant Contact's performance across multiple testing rounds, which can help your ESP decision-making process.
The author
Learn more about us
Our Methodology
This article has been written and researched following our EmailTooltester methodology.
Our Methodology