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Optimizing your marketing campaign delivery and deliverability

The following factors determine whether your Shopify Messaging marketing campaigns successfully reach customers:

  • Delivery refers to whether a message is accepted by the recipient's email server or mobile carrier. Email messages that aren't accepted are bounced, and SMS messages that aren't accepted are marked as undelivered.
  • Deliverability refers to where your message ends up after it's delivered. For email, this means landing in the inbox instead of the spam folder. For SMS, it means passing through the carrier without being filtered.

Deliverability is shaped by your sender reputation, which is the track record that email providers and mobile carriers build for your store over time. Providers and carriers consider signals such as how often customers open, click, or ignore your messages, how often messages bounce, how many customers mark your messages as spam, and whether your sending domain or number is authenticated and registered. A strong sender reputation means more of your messages reach customers who want them. A weak one means messages can land in spam, get filtered by carriers, or be blocked entirely.

The built-in delivery settings in the Shopify Messaging app help protect your sender reputation and deliverability. This page covers the delivery settings and subscriber-list practices that apply across all of your marketing channels. For channel-specific guidance, refer to the dedicated pages in the following section.

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Improving delivery by channel

Each marketing channel has its own delivery, deliverability, and sender reputation considerations. For channel-specific guidance, refer to the following pages:

Shopify Messaging delivery settings

Your delivery settings control how your subscriber list is filtered before each send. To review or adjust them, open the Shopify Messaging app, click Settings, and find the Delivery section:

  • Smart delivery: Filters your campaign audience so that your message is sent only to engaged subscribers. For example, customers who haven't interacted with your recent marketing emails, or SMS subscribers with inactive phone numbers, are filtered out of your campaign audience. Reaching fewer, more engaged subscribers typically results in more inbox placements and stronger campaign performance than sending to your full list. You can turn Smart delivery on or off.
  • Bot filtering: Removes bot-generated subscribers before each send.
  • List health: Removes subscribers who have bounced, unsubscribed, or filed a spam complaint from future campaigns.

Turn Smart delivery on or off

Smart delivery is turned on by default and applies across your Messaging channels when you have more than 1,000 subscribers in your send list. When it's active, a Smart delivery is on banner is displayed in the campaign editor before you send.

If there are 1,000 or fewer subscribers in the customer segment that you're sending a marketing message to, then your campaign audience isn't filtered, and the message is sent to all of the subscribers in the list, even if the Smart delivery setting is turned on.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Messaging.

  2. Click Settings, and then find the Delivery section.

  3. Turn Smart delivery on or off. If you turn the setting off, then a dialog is displayed. Click Turn off to confirm.

Maintaining a high-quality subscriber list

A high-quality subscriber list is the foundation of strong delivery across your Messaging channels. Engaged subscribers signal to providers and carriers that your messages are wanted. Customers who unsubscribe, bounce, or mark your messages as spam are automatically excluded from future campaigns.

The following practices apply across all marketing channels:

  • Make sure that you have opt-in consent for all contacts in your database. For email, refer to data privacy and legal compliance. For SMS compliance requirements in your region, refer to the requirements for sending SMS marketing campaigns.
  • Update customer contact information as needed.
  • Evaluate your acquisition sources. If you're receiving many complaints or bounces from a particular source, then remove or replace it.
  • Never purchase or rent contact lists.
  • Use customer segments regularly to filter out subscribers who are unengaged or who signed up long ago without making a purchase.
  • Consider activating double opt-in, which asks subscribers to confirm their intent before they're added to your marketing lists. This filters out unwanted or accidental subscriptions.

Preventing bot-generated subscribers

Bot-generated subscribers are contacts added by automated software, not real customers. Bots submit random or invalid addresses, or real addresses without consent. Sending to bot-generated subscribers increases bounces, spam complaints, and costs.

In addition to the built-in bot filtering setting in Shopify Messaging, take the following steps to prevent interactions with bot-generated subscribers:

  • Activate hCaptcha on your store to prevent bots from subscribing through your store's forms.
  • Audit your store for every place customers can sign up, and secure each form against bots where possible, including forms added by third-party apps.
  • Regularly remove inactive or suspicious contacts from your lists. For example, check for email addresses with unusual domains and customers who've never made a purchase or opened a message.

Troubleshooting stopped campaigns

If your Shopify Messaging campaigns have stopped sending, then review your sender reputation and delivery metrics for the affected channel:

If the issue persists, then contact Shopify Support.