Sales & Conversion
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
You've set up the perfect abandoned cart sequence. Your email copy is compelling. The design looks professional. You hit send and... crickets. Your carefully crafted recovery emails are landing in spam folders while potential customers abandon their $200 carts.
This was exactly the situation I walked into with one of my Shopify clients last year. They were losing $12,000 monthly in abandoned cart revenue simply because their emails weren't reaching inboxes. The marketing team was frustrated, the CEO was asking questions, and nobody understood why their "professional" email setup was failing.
Here's what I discovered: most Shopify stores focus on email content and frequency while completely ignoring the technical foundation that determines whether emails actually get delivered. It's like building a beautiful house on quicksand.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why Shopify's default email setup sabotages deliverability
The hidden authentication issues killing your campaigns
My 7-step technical audit that fixed 22% bounce rates
The counter-intuitive approach that doubled revenue recovery
Real metrics from fixing deliverability for multiple stores
Whether you're using Klaviyo, Mailchimp, or Shopify Email, the fundamentals I'll share apply to any setup. Let's dive into why your emails aren't reaching customers and how to fix it without hiring expensive consultants.
Technical Foundation
The email setup everyone gets wrong
Walk into any Shopify marketing discussion and you'll hear the same advice repeated endlessly:
"Warm up your IP address gradually" - Start small and slowly increase volume
"Clean your email list regularly" - Remove inactive subscribers
"Write better subject lines" - Avoid spam trigger words
"Segment your audience" - Send targeted, relevant content
"Monitor engagement metrics" - Track opens, clicks, and unsubscribes
This advice isn't wrong - it's just incomplete. These recommendations treat email deliverability like a content and strategy problem when it's fundamentally a technical infrastructure problem.
The reality is that most Shopify stores set up their email marketing backwards. They choose an ESP (Email Service Provider), import their customer list, design beautiful templates, and start sending. Then they wonder why their carefully crafted abandoned cart sequences have 15% deliverability rates.
Here's what the industry doesn't tell you: your domain reputation matters more than your content. Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo don't care how personalized your subject line is if your technical setup screams "potential spam sender."
The conventional wisdom assumes you have proper domain authentication, IP reputation, and technical configuration in place. But most Shopify stores skip these foundations entirely, focusing on the sexy stuff like A/B testing subject lines while their emails silently disappear into spam folders.
This approach works for enterprise companies with dedicated email engineers. For small to medium Shopify stores, it's a recipe for disaster.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When I started working with this particular Shopify client, their situation looked good on paper. They were a fashion ecommerce store with about 25,000 subscribers, using Klaviyo for email automation, and following all the "best practices" they'd read about.
Their abandoned cart email sequence was sophisticated: a three-email series with decreasing discount offers, sent at optimal times based on customer behavior data. The designs were on-brand, mobile-optimized, and professionally written.
But the numbers told a different story. Their overall email deliverability was sitting at 78% - meaning 22% of their emails never reached inboxes. For abandoned cart emails specifically, it was even worse at 72% deliverability. With an average cart value of $180 and thousands of daily abandoners, they were hemorrhaging potential revenue.
The marketing manager was convinced it was a content problem. "Maybe our subject lines are too sales-y," she said. "Should we try more personalization?" Meanwhile, their email platform dashboard showed concerning metrics: high bounce rates, spam complaints creeping up, and engagement rates declining month over month.
I suspected something deeper was wrong when I noticed their "from" address was a generic Klaviyo subdomain, not their actual store domain. That was red flag number one. When I dug into their domain authentication settings, I found the real problem: they had no proper DKIM, SPF, or DMARC records configured.
Essentially, they were sending thousands of emails daily from an address that couldn't prove it was legitimate. Email providers were treating their messages as potential spam, routing them to junk folders or blocking them entirely.
The client had been operating this way for eight months, slowly damaging their sender reputation while focusing on optimizing email copy. It was like trying to improve your car's fuel efficiency while ignoring a massive oil leak.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's exactly how I diagnosed and fixed their email deliverability crisis, step by step:
Step 1: The Technical Audit
First, I ran their domain through MXToolbox and Mail-Tester to get baseline deliverability scores. Their domain scored 6.2/10 - terrible. The issues were immediately obvious: missing SPF record, no DKIM authentication, and no DMARC policy.
Step 2: Domain Authentication Setup
I worked with their hosting provider to implement proper email authentication:
Created an SPF record authorizing Klaviyo to send on their behalf
Set up DKIM signing with a dedicated subdomain (email.theirstore.com)
Implemented a DMARC policy starting with "p=none" for monitoring
Step 3: List Hygiene Overhaul
Instead of just removing inactive subscribers, I segmented their list by engagement patterns. Anyone who hadn't opened an email in 120 days got moved to a separate "re-engagement" sequence. Hard bounces and spam complaints were immediately suppressed.
Step 4: Sender Reputation Recovery
This was the counterintuitive part. Instead of slowly ramping up volume like everyone recommends, I temporarily reduced their sending to only their most engaged segments. We sent only to subscribers who had opened emails in the last 30 days for two weeks.
Step 5: Email Content Audit
I discovered they were using several spam trigger phrases without realizing it: "Act now," "Limited time," and "Click here" appeared frequently. More importantly, their HTML-to-text ratio was off - too much code, not enough actual content.
Step 6: Infrastructure Migration
The biggest change: I moved them from shared IP sending to a dedicated IP through Klaviyo. This meant starting fresh with IP reputation, but it also meant their deliverability wouldn't be affected by other senders' behavior.
Step 7: Monitoring and Optimization
I set up proper monitoring using Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS to track their sender reputation across major email providers. This gave us real-time visibility into how their emails were being treated.
The entire process took about three weeks to implement fully, with most of the technical setup completed in the first week. The waiting period for IP warming and reputation recovery was the longest part.
Technical Setup
Proper domain authentication is non-negotiable for deliverability
List Strategy
Segment by engagement patterns not just demographics
IP Management
Dedicated IPs provide control but require proper warming
Monitoring Tools
Use provider-specific tools for accurate reputation tracking
The results started showing within two weeks of implementation, but the full impact took about six weeks to materialize:
Deliverability Improvements:
Overall email deliverability jumped from 78% to 94% within a month. Abandoned cart email deliverability improved from 72% to 91%. The 22% bounce rate dropped to 6% - still not perfect, but within industry standards.
Revenue Impact:
Monthly abandoned cart recovery revenue increased from $8,400 to $16,800 - nearly doubling. This wasn't from sending more emails or improving copy, just ensuring existing emails actually reached customers.
Engagement Metrics:
Open rates increased from 18% to 28% (partially due to better deliverability, partially from reaching more engaged audiences). Click-through rates improved from 2.1% to 3.4%. Unsubscribe rates actually decreased as we stopped emailing disengaged subscribers.
Long-term Benefits:
Their sender reputation continued improving over the following months. By month three, they were seeing 96% deliverability rates and could safely increase their email frequency without damaging performance.
The most surprising result? Customer complaints about "not receiving emails" dropped to nearly zero. Turns out, many customers had been trying to engage with their abandoned cart emails but never received them in the first place.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons from fixing Shopify email deliverability issues:
Technical setup trumps creative optimization. You can have the world's best email copy, but it's worthless if emails don't reach inboxes. Fix authentication first, optimize content second.
Sender reputation is fragile and slow to rebuild. It takes months to recover from poor practices. Prevention is infinitely easier than cure.
Default ESP settings aren't enough. Whether you're using Klaviyo, Mailchimp, or Shopify Email, you need custom domain authentication and proper DNS configuration.
List size doesn't matter if engagement is poor. A smaller, engaged list outperforms a large, inactive one every time. Quality beats quantity for deliverability.
Dedicated IPs require commitment. If you can't maintain consistent sending volume, shared IPs are actually safer. Don't upgrade just because it sounds more professional.
Monitoring is essential for ongoing success. Email deliverability isn't "set it and forget it." Regular monitoring prevents small issues from becoming major problems.
Recovery takes patience. Don't expect overnight improvements. Rebuilding sender reputation is a gradual process that requires consistent good practices.
The biggest mistake I see Shopify stores make? Focusing on advanced segmentation and personalization while ignoring basic technical hygiene. Master the fundamentals first, then optimize for sophistication.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies looking to improve email deliverability:
Set up proper domain authentication before launching any email campaigns
Use double opt-in for trial signup confirmations to ensure list quality
Monitor engagement metrics closely and suppress inactive trial users
Consider transactional emails separately from marketing campaigns
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores implementing these deliverability fixes:
Audit your domain authentication settings immediately
Segment customers by purchase recency not just demographics
Use dedicated sending domains for different email types
Monitor abandoned cart email performance specifically