Understand email deliverability to maximize your chances of having emails read by your contacts

You've just sent your campaign with love, you open your Gmail to check, and then... disaster strikes?

Your email isn't in the "Primary" tab, but is neatly tucked away in "Promotions."

Is your email broken? No.

Did you do something wrong? Probably not.

Is it serious? Not at all!

At CrocoClick, we like to keep things clear. So let's dive into the deep waters of deliverability to understand how email providers (and their AI) decide the fate of your emails.

How mailboxes sort mail: The 3 Pillars)

Imagine that your contact's mailbox is a very zealous customs officer at the entrance to an exclusive nightclub. To decide whether to let an email in (and which room to put it in), he analyzes three specific documents. These are known as the three factors of deliverability.

1. The reputation of the IP address (the vehicle 🚐)

The IP address is the truck that transports your email.

• If the truck is known for transporting waste (spam), it is blocked at the border.

• If the truck belongs to a reputable company, it will be allowed through.

🐊 The CrocoClick touch: By default, we use ultra-monitored IP address groups (shared IPs). Our technical partners ensure 24/7 that these IPs remain "clean" and well regarded by Google and other email providers. This means you benefit from our excellent reputation from the moment you send your first email.

What's more, we prohibit spam at CrocoClick in order to protect our IPs. If a CrocoClick user has an abnormally high spam rate (for example, 20% SPAM!), we reserve the right to cancel their subscription in order to preserve deliverability for other users.

2. Domain Reputation (Your passport 🛂)

This is your identity (e.g., contact@mon-entreprise.com). Even if the truck (the IP address) is clean, customs will check who you are.

• Do people open your emails?

• Do they click?

• Is your technical signature (SPF/DKIM/DMARC) valid? If you have a good reputation, Google will trust you.

3. Content & Context (AI comes into play 🤖)

This is where everything comes into play for the "Promotions" tab and the classification of your emails. It's not just a keyword analysis. Email inbox AI analyzes your entire email, which can be summarized as follows:

Content + Technical Context + Human Behavior = Classification

Email providers look at:

• Style: Are there a lot of images? Large colorful buttons? Complex HTML code? (Typical signs of a newsletter).

• Vocabulary: "Sales," "Offer," "Free," "Join us."

• Volume: Did you send this email to 5,000 people at once? (If so, it's not a "personal" email sent to your mom).

• Engagement (most important): How do other users react? If they open your email to make a purchase, Google understands that it's a useful promotion.

Focus on CrocoClick infrastructure: Shared IP or Dedicated IP?

At CrocoClick, we adapt the power of the engine to the size of your list.

🔹 For most Crocos: Optimized (Shared) IP

This is the ideal solution. You share premium sending "highways" with other serious CrocoClick customers.

• Advantage: No maintenance for you, the reputation is already there, it's turnkey, and included with all our plans.

🔹 For "Heavy Senders" (+150,000 emails/month): Dedicated IP

If you send massive volumes, we can assign you your own IP address as an option. It's the ultimate luxury: you're the only one in charge.

Why only from 150,000/month? An IP address is like a diesel engine: it needs to stay warm.

• If you have a dedicated IP but only send 50,000 emails, the IP will "cool down."

• Google will forget who you are.

• Your reputation will plummet.

• And you are more sensitive to user actions (1 person who marks you as spam has more "weight" when the sending volume is low).

That's why, with an IP address, we recommend doing a "warm-up" (IP heating).

With a dedicated IP, you start from scratch. You have to "warm it up" for several weeks (send 50 emails, then 100, then 500...) to prove yourself.

That's why this option is reserved for high-volume professionals!

The Promotions tab: Purgatory or shopping paradise?

A little rant in this article: we need to stop seeing the Promotion tab as a punishment.

In 2025, the Promotions tab is NOT the Spam tab.

• Spam = "I don't want to see this, it's dangerous or useless." 🗑️

• Promotions = "I want to see this, but later, when I have my credit card in hand." 🛍️

If you send marketing newsletters, offers, or product information, your rightful place is in the Promotions tab.

That's where users expect to find you.

Forcing your way into the Primary tab can even annoy your readers and increase unsubscribes.

And if you're like us, when Black Friday rolls around, the Promotions tab is where we turn first ;)

So stop focusing on the Promotions tab, and look at your engagement rates (opens, clicks, replies, etc.) instead.

"I still want to try going to the Main tab!"

Okay, you're persistent! If you really want to land next to emails from family and colleagues, you need to look like a friend, not a brand.

Here's the (radical) recipe for fooling AI:

1. ❌ Remove all images.

2. ❌ Remove call-to-action buttons (text links only).

3. ❌ Remove HTML code (use "Plain text" format rather than fancy email templates).

4. ❌ Write as you would talk to a friend (no marketing jargon).

5. ❌ Ask your subscribers to reply to your email (this is the most powerful signal for Google!).

But be careful: an ugly email often converts less well than a beautiful marketing email in the Promotion tab. The choice is yours! 😉

In summary at CrocoClick 🐊:

1. We manage the technical aspects (IP and domain) so that you don't end up in Spam.

2. Google handles the sorting (Primary vs. Promotions) based on your content and volume.

3. Being in "Promotions" means being placed in the right place in most cases.