The Real Gift: What Survives the Season
We’ve spent the last few weeks clearing space, re-earning permission, finding rhythm, and building calm into our cadence.
Now comes the payoff: deliverability.
By late October, the quiet before the storm starts to fade. Holiday volume picks up fast—email traffic climbs 50% or more between mid-November and New Year’s, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) begin tightening filters. That’s when discipline makes the difference.
Because what we’ve been doing all month—sundowning inactive contacts, pacing our sends, planning quiet weeks—builds more than organization. It builds credibility, and credibility is what gets your messages through.
According to Validity and Adobe’s 2024 deliverability reports, roughly one in five legitimate marketing emails never reach the inbox during peak season. Some don’t even make it past the mail server. When open rates dip and engagement slows, algorithms notice—and that’s when even good senders start missing their marks.
But if you’ve taken the steps we’ve practiced together—cleaning, segmenting, pausing, planning—you’ve already done what most won’t. You’ve earned deliverability. This is both a technical win and a trust signal.
Every clean send, every deliberate pause, every respectful opt-out teaches your audience that you’re paying attention. You’ve shown restraint in a season that rewards noise. You’ve chosen calm over chaos. And that’s exactly what earns your messages a place in the inbox—and your brand a place in people’s routines.
So yes, deliverability is a metric. But it’s also a mirror. It reflects how carefully you’ve tended the relationship between you and your readers, donors, clients, or customers.
The real gift of a clean list isn’t open rates or reach. It’s trust. And trust travels farther than any December sale.
The Holiday Readiness Checklist
Before you schedule your final sends for the year, take twenty minutes for this simple audit. It’s small, but it’s everything.
List Hygiene
☐ Re-engagement series complete
☐ Inactive contacts suppressed
Cadence
☐ Calendar finalized
☐ Quiet weeks protected
Deliverability
☐ SPF / DKIM / DMARC verified
☐ Domain reputation checked
Creative & Links
☐ Mobile view tested
☐ Links verified
Post-Holiday Plan
☐ Thank-you message drafted
☐ Customer service follow-up ready
Run this checklist now, while the air is still crisp and the noise hasn’t hit. The point isn’t perfection—it’s protection. These habits make sure the work you’ve done all season stays intact when inboxes overflow.
Because the real gift isn’t getting through once. It’s being trusted to return.
