The likelihood that a sent email actually reaches a recipient's inbox, rather than being filtered into spam or blocked entirely — influenced by sender reputation, list hygiene, content, and technical email authentication.
Why it matters
An email that never reaches the inbox can't be opened, clicked, or converted, regardless of how good its content is — deliverability problems are often invisible in reporting until someone specifically investigates why performance across an entire list has quietly declined.
In a sentence
"Our open rates across the board dropped, and it turned out to be a deliverability issue, not a content problem — one of our sending domains had gotten flagged."
Related terms
- Often confused with: Open rate (deliverability determines whether an email reaches the inbox at all; open rate measures what happens after it's delivered).
- Synonyms: Inbox placement.