Sending high volumes of email is hard. Industry averages for email non-deliverability sit around 15-20%. For Black Friday promotional campaigns, return rates can spike as high as 30%. With open rates around 20-25% on average, that leaves half your emails failing to reach the inbox.
Losing 1 out of every 5 emails to spam folders or errors creates huge problems:
- Lost revenue from missed promos and transaction emails
- Poor branding and credibility
- GDPR compliance issues
- Unhappy customers who never receive key notifications
By implementing proper email logs within WordPress and WooCommerce, you gain transparency into deliverability rates. Then you can optimize to improve email performance over time.
Why Email Logs Are Vital for WordPress and WooCommerce
Detailed email logging provides definitive proof of which messages are sent successfully versus failing to arrive. Some key stats show why this data matters:
- Email generates 38X more revenue per dollar spent than other marketing channels according to DMA trends surveys
- 7 out of 10 customers will abandon their cart after receiving high-quality post-purchase email reminders according to SaleCycle research
- Email open rates drop 20-30% when messages land in spam folders instead of the primary inbox
Without visibility through email logs, you won‘t know if a promotion isn‘t converting because it was poorly targeted or because half your customers never received the offer due to deliverability errors.
Here are the key reasons properly configured WordPress and WooCommerce email logs are vital:
Confirm Transactional Email Delivery
See definitive delivery receipts for all confirmation emails, order invoices, password reset notifications, and other vital transactional messages.
Troubleshoot Issues in Real-Time
Identify whether a specific campaign or automated email workflow is failing to arrive properly. Then troubleshoot SMTP configuration or other issues.
View All Email Volume and Performance
See total email volume over days, weeks, and months alongside open and click-through rates to optimize newsletters.
Audit User Notifications and Activity
Keep oversight on exactly which users receive which messages, frequency, etc for auditing.
For high-volume ecommerce stores, optimizing email performance through data can translate directly into thousands in recovered revenue while building better relationships with customers.
Step 1: Install and Configure WP Mail SMTP the Right Way
WP Mail SMTP is the leading plugin for managing outbound email from WordPress. With over 3 million active installs, it is trusted and proven at enterprise scale.
Here are the best practice recommendations for installing WP Mail SMTP:
Choose the Right Email Delivery Method
Most shared web hosting providers have email delivery restrictions or limitations in place that lead to poor deliverability rates.
Instead, you should use a dedicated third-party SMTP provider optimized for transactional and marketing email delivery at high volumes without hitting sending limits or having messages flagged as spam.
The top services recommended by WP SMTP users in 2023 are:
- WP Mail SMTP Recommends SendLayer – Simple SMTP specially designed for WordPress websites. Easy setup and great deliverability with plans starting at $4.99 per month. Full disclosure: As an official SendLayer affiliate partner, I receive compensation for sign-ups through my recommendation link.
- SMTP.com – A very developer-friendly SMTP provider optimized for email deliverability at scale. Good support plans available.
- Amazon SES – Amazon‘s simple email service has very affordable volume pricing and great reliability. But initial setup and configuration process is more complex.
- Mailgun & SendGrid – Two popular services among mid-market ecommerce sites sending moderate volumes of email daily. Require more technical management.
Authentication and Security Matter
Using SMTP authentication and SSL/TLS encryption ensures your emails arrive safely and pass sender validation checks that label untrusted emails as spam.
So always enable:
- Authentication using an SMTP username and password
- Encryption using SSL/TLS
Streamling SPF and DKIM also help improve sender reputation and inbox placement over time.
Double-Check Ports and Servers
Using non-standard ports or insecure connections is a common misconfiguration issue that will block email delivery. Always confirm:
- Standard SMTP ports like 465 or 587 are open
- Proper host server addresses – usually something ending in smtp.example.com
Testing email sending capabilities upfront is smart to validate proper configuration before launching live communications.
Step 2: Configure Email Logging for Maximum Visibility
WP Mail Logging features provide great insight once enabled:
- Go to plugin Settings > Logging
- Check both logging options:
- Log Email – Records send attempts with metadata
- Log Email Content – Captures full message body data
- Set days to store logs (recommend 30-90 days)
- Click Save Settings
With email and content logging enabled, you gain complete visibility including:
- Date/times for each message
- From/to addresses
- Email statuses
- Any errors why emails failed
- Opens, clicks, and unsubscribes
Carefully reviewing logs weekly provides both validation that large-scale broadcasts or drip campaigns are being delivered successfully and fast insight whenever issues arise.
Pro Tip: Exporting logs to CSV files allows deeper analysis in spreadsheets for generating deliverability reports and advanced statistics.
Step 3: Send Test Emails to Validate Deliverability
Before sending high-volume communications or campaigns, it‘s smart to test WordPress email sending capabilities through WP Mail SMTP first.
Navigate to the "Email Test" tab:
- Enter email addresses you own to test deliverability
- Write a test message subject and body
- Select whether the message will be plain text or HTML
- Choose if you want to attach a file
- Hit send!
Within your test inbox, confirm if the WordPress emails arrived to the primary inbox quickly without issues.
Similarly, asking a colleague or customer to opt-in and then sending test emails to Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, AOL and other major webmail providers checks for any potential blocking or spam labeling issues before contact databases are loaded.
Taking time to test ahead of launch prevents embarrassing publicly-facing problems down the line.
WP Mail SMTP Pro Deliverability Reports
WP Mail SMTP Professional packages ($39 or $79 per year) include deliverability graphs and email summar reports covering:
- Email volume trends
- Open and click-through tracking
- Unsubscribe monitoring
- Skipped email queue analysis
- Easy log exporting to CSV/PDF
The interactive charts help segment performance by campaign, newsletter, or even drill down to specific product promotion subject lines once enough data is captured.
Advanced analytics allow further optimization of email timing, list segmentation, subject line A/B testing, and overall deliverability fine tuning through proven data.
Summary – Take Control of Your Email Delivery Performance
Making assumptions about email succes based on generic industry statstics can sabotage your business. The only way to definitively confirm your exact deliverability rates is visible through properly configured WordPress and WooCommerce email logs.
WP Mail SMTP delivers enterprise-grade email logging and summaries that provide the visibility needed to:
- Optimize campaigns to increase revenue
- Troubleshoot issues damaging sender reputation
- Audit notifications and activity
Following this 2023 expert guide to configuring WP Mail SMTP for maximum logging and deliverability will help your business send better emails.
What strategies do you leverage to boost your WordPress email deliverability over 85%? I welcome your tips and tricks in the comments below!
