Deliverability Is Basically a Cat 

My boss was teaching her preschooler how to treat their cat. Lessons included such hits as: 

“You have to wait for him to come to you.” 

“You can’t just grab him. If he walks away, let him walk away.” 

“And if his tail starts flicking? Think of that as a temporary rejection. Ignore the signal, and the next response is much more permanent.” 

Halfway through that last one, she stopped and laughed. Later I got a Slack message with an idea for my next blog: “Deliverability is basically a cat. I mean, cats almost never escalate straight to claws. They start with quieter signals first. Subscribers usually do too.” 

She was right, as usual. Not because inboxes are mysterious, or because mailbox providers secretly hate marketers, or because cats enjoy making your life difficult. (Okay, maybe a little.) It’s because they operate on exactly the same principles: trust, consistency, and boundaries. And the moment you start treating one like something it isn’t, things go downhill surprisingly fast. 

The cat walking toward you is consent. You walking toward the cat is optimism. 

One of the biggest misconceptions in email marketing is the belief that attention is something you earn once. Someone subscribed, mission accomplished, now they’re your subscriber. Cats disagree. A cat letting you pet it today has made absolutely no promises about tomorrow, and neither has your subscriber. Every interaction is another opportunity to answer the same question: do I still want this? 

Mailbox providers are watching that answer too, and they’re paying far less attention to what you intended than to how people actually behave. Do they keep opening? Do they ignore you? Do they suddenly disappear? Deliverability isn’t about rewarding persistence, it’s just observing the relationship. 

Coupons work. Free shipping works. 20% off works. So does putting a bowl of tuna on the porch. But now you’ve established expectations, and if every early interaction begins with tuna, don’t be surprised when dry kibble suddenly feels like a betrayal. Acquisition incentives don’t just attract subscribers, they train them. 

This is also why buying a list never works the way people hope. Buying a list is like trying to pet every cat on the block on the theory that one of them will eventually like you back. Technically possible. Socially questionable. Statistically painful. 

People love talking about massive campaigns like holiday launches, Black Friday, or the big product announcement. Cats could not care less. Trust isn’t built through one spectacular afternoon; but through hundreds of completely unremarkable interactions where nothing bad happens. That’s also how sender reputation works: consistent cadence, recognizable branding, useful content, no surprises, and no personality transplant just because revenue is behind target this quarter. 

It’s also why you can’t rush the beginning. You don’t warm up a cat in 30 days. You introduce yourself, and you let the relationship build at its own pace. 

Nobody posts before-and-after photos of “The Feral Cat Who Gradually Became Comfortable Around Me After Four Fiscal Quarters,” and no one gives conference talks called “How We Maintained Predictable Sending Patterns For Three Years.” But maybe they should. Everyone, human and feline, appreciates consistency. 

Engagement drops. Revenue slips. Someone says, “we need to send more.” This has exactly the same energy as chasing a nervous cat around the house because it ran away from you. You’re interpreting discomfort merely as insufficient enthusiasm, when the cat is trying to tell you something else entirely (namely: stay away from me, possibly forever). Good cat owners understand retry logic. 

“Not right now” is often recoverable. 

Responding with “what about now?” at higher frequency usually isn’t. 

As engagement declines, positive signals weaken and complaints become more likely, which makes filters more cautious. At no point has a cat ever thought, you know what would improve this interaction? More intensity. And neither has an email subscriber. 

This one is the clincher. People ask deliverability questions hoping for universal rules: how often should we send, what’s the perfect subject line, what’s the ideal cadence? That’s like asking “how do I make cats like me?” Which cat; mine, yours, the orange one who shares a single brain cell with the whole neighborhood, or the tiny ankle-slayer who lives under your couch and only emerges at 2 a.m.? Showing up with the food bowl at the usual time proves you’re you, but it doesn’t mean today’s request for affection has been approved. 

Some cats want lap time. Some want to exist in the same room and nothing more. Some want exactly one forehead scratch every other Tuesday and will make their displeasure known if you attempt a second. Not every cat likes the laser pointer, and yet marketers keep sending laser pointers to laser-hating cats and then wondering why nobody’s chasing the dot anymore.  

Different audiences have different expectations, different tolerance levels, and different reasons for subscribing. Good email programs pay attention to the relationship that actually exists instead of expecting every audience to behave identically. 

Search long enough and you’ll find: 

“5 Secrets to Make Any Cat Love You.” 

“Veterinarians Hate This One Weird Trick.” 

“You’ll Never Guess What Happens When You Rub Their Belly.” 

“The Seven-Word Phrase Cats Can’t Resist.” 

Email has the same ecosystem: secret subject-line formulas, spam-word lists, magic sending times, deliverability hacks. None of them replace the boring ‘damentals (the “fun” is, sadly, silent): respect boundaries, be consistent, provide value, and act quickly when the relationship changes, because it will. 

Sometimes what looks like a mystery just needs less intervention, not more. People hire cat behaviorists because they assume the cat is broken. Sometimes the behaviorist watches for five minutes and says, “have you considered leaving him alone?” A surprising amount of deliverability consulting works exactly the same way. 

Because here’s the thing! The people who genuinely love cats don’t spend their lives trying to control them, they learn how cats communicate. They notice subtle signals. They respect boundaries. They stop trying to force the relationship. 

And one day, the cat sits beside them. Voluntarily. 

Cats don’t remember what you meant. They remember what happened. 

And deliverability works the same way. Sender reputation isn’t built from your intentions, but from your history. If you haven’t seen the cat in eight months, put the food bowl away. If you never bothered to notice it left, the inbox has, and your mail hasn’t disappeared so much as it’s found the space under the bed, technically still in the house, just never coming out to greet you. 

Maybe deliverability feels mysterious because we’ve spent years expecting lapdog behavior from something that’s been acting suspiciously catlike all along. 

That’s deliverability. Not perfect control, not secret tricks. Just earning the chance to be welcomed back tomorrow. 

And if that sounds exhausting? Get a dog. 

Author: Alison Gootee