Summary
After the intense volume of emails sent during Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM), many email marketers face a familiar challenge: declining inbox placement. Even well-established sending programs can experience emails landing in spam, open rates dropping sharply, and unsubscribe rates increasing.
Webinar: Restore your inbox placement after Black Friday
To address this critical issue, Pierre Pignault, CEO of MailSoar, joined GlockApps on December 4, 2023, as a guest email deliverability expert for a co-hosted webinar titled “Restore Your Inbox Placement After BFCM.” During the session, he shared practical, data-driven strategies to help senders diagnose deliverability issues, understand their root causes, and recover inbox placement after high-volume campaigns.
This article is a comprehensive recap of the webinar, highlighting key insights, real-world examples, and concrete metrics discussed during the session, along with a step-by-step recovery framework to restore your inbox placement after BFCM and rebuild long-term sender reputation.
The session explored how to identify deliverability issues, understand their root causes, and implement actionable recovery strategies.
If you didn’t register to attend the live webinar, you can watch the replay or read this summary of the key takeaways. This post highlights the main lessons from the webinar ‘How to Restore Your Inbox Placement After Black Friday’.
Key factors affecting your inbox placement
According to Pierre Pignault, the main culprit behind deliverability issues is negative engagement:
“When we see high unsubscribe rates, we often see high spam rates. Negative engagement is the problem you need to address to recover.”
Important metrics to monitor post-BFCM
| Metric | Threshold | Impact |
| Open Rate | <30% | Low relevance can trigger spam placement |
| Unsubscribe Rate | >0.5% | Harms deliverability |
| Spam Complaints | Any spike | Red flag for inbox filters |
| Volume Spike | >2x normal volume | Causes deferrals, bounces, spam suspicion |
Example: A Gmail open rate dropping from 30% to 5% is a clear sign of deliverability issues.
Four-Week Recovery Plan to Restore Your Inbox Placement (After BFCM)
Pierre Pignault recommends a structured four-week approach to recover from post-BFCM inbox placement issues:
Week 1: Strict segmentation
- Target recent openers (30–60 days).
- Focus on positive engagement to improve the sender’s reputation.
“The goal of week one is to segment as strictly as possible. You’re going to favor positive engagement.”
Week 2: Reduce negative signals
- Identify campaigns or automations with unsubscribe rates >0.5%.
- Pause or optimize underperforming campaigns.
“Put yourself in the shoes of your subscriber. High unsubscribe rates signal mismatched content or frequency.”
Week 3: Widen segmentation gradually
- Expand your audience while maintaining:
- Open rates >30%
- Unsubscribe rates <0.5%
- Spam rates <0.3%
- Maintain consistent patterns and avoid sudden spikes.
“By week three, most senders are back in the main inbox if they followed best practices.”
Week 4: Monitor and scale
- Track metrics via Google Postmaster, ESP analytics, and inbox placement testing.
- Increase sending volume gradually (5–10% growth).
“Sudden 100–150% increases confuse spam filters and risk inbox placement.”
A few takeaways to restore your inbox placement (After BFCM)
Leverage inbox placement testing tools
- Use third-party tools like GlockApps for a visual overview of inbox placement across providers.
- Focus on open rates, unsubscribe rates, and spam rates to stay within thresholds:
“If you focus on open rates, unsubscribe rates, and spam rates, and keep them within thresholds, you won’t have issues.”
These insights allow marketers to make data-driven decisions rather than guessing.
B2B Deliverability Considerations
- Google Postmaster isn’t available for B2B; rely on ESP metrics and inbox placement testing tools.
- Dedicated IPs are recommended only for high-volume, compliant senders:
- B2C: >300–400k emails/month
- B2B: >50–100k emails/month
- B2C: >300–400k emails/month
“Don’t switch to a dedicated IP if your shared IP reputation isn’t strong—you could worsen deliverability.”
Common misconceptions about email recovery
Email pause myth
“Pausing all emails for a week won’t help. Start targeting engaged users immediately to reduce negative signals and speed recovery.”
Cold email warnings
- Suspended accounts often result from complaints about spam.
- Review targeting, list hygiene, and subscriber expectations.
- Recovery typically takes 2 to 4 weeks.
- Focus first on recent openers.
- Monitor open rates, unsubscribe rates, spam complaints, and volume regularity.
- Use inbox placement testing for visual insights.
- Scale gradually while maintaining positive engagement metrics.
“Everything is recoverable if you put audience engagement at the forefront of your email program.”
By following these strategies, marketers can ensure their emails return to the primary inbox, even after the BFCM surge.
Join our upcoming webinars to learn more about best practices and advanced strategies from the experts at MailSoar.
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