Deliverability
What’s sender reputation? Glad you asked. In this article, we define what sender reputation is and its components. We’ll cover our top tips, and explain some of the most common mistakes that new senders can make.
Let’s dive in.
Your sender reputation is a key factor that inbox service providers (ISPs) like Gmail and Yahoo use to determine inbox placement – whether or not to place your email message in your user’s inbox or in their spam folder. In other words, your sender reputation is a major component of your email deliverability.
In a worst-case scenario (if your reputation is really bad), your sender reputation might even land you on an email blocklist. As you can imagine, sender reputation is very important. After all, whether you’re sending out a transactional email or an ecommerce campaign, what’s the point of great email design or personalized content if it never gets read?
ISPs aren’t always 100% transparent when it comes to their parameters for delivery and inbox placement. However, Gmail provides its Google Postmaster Tools that give you insight into what Gmail thinks about your sender reputation. Since Gmail is one of the major players in the email game, you can bet other email clients use similar measures to gauge your sender reputation.
Just as in your personal life, it’s never a single action that determines your reputation. In fact, your sender reputation is composed of your IP reputation and your domain reputation over time.
Let’s unpack this for clarity. Here are some components that determine your IP and domain reputation, which, in turn, determine your sender reputation:
So you’ve integrated your app with an email service provider (ESP). That’s it, right? Not quite.
If you’re using an EPS like Mailgun, we’ll help you protect your sender reputation. However, not all ESPs are created equal, and you may be on the hook for looking after your own sender reputation. If you have a bad sender reputation, ISPs will flag your messages and will be less likely to place your emails in your reader’s inbox.
Make sure your great email campaign reaches your reader’s inbox. Maintain a good sender reputation to ensure your email deliverability.
While you can use tools like Sender Score to monitor your reputation score, that’s not enough by itself. Instead, check out these tips to improve your sender reputation:
Let’s go over each of these below.
Verify your email list regularly to purge invalid addresses, spam traps, and disengaged subscribers. This lowers your bounce rate and increases your open rate. Both of these metrics will help improve your sender reputation. In fact, as Nick Schafer of Sinch Mailgun explains in this video, he believes that these are some of the most important metrics if you want to improve your sender reputation.
Avoid abuse complaints by giving your readers an easy way to unsubscribe when they want to opt out of their relationship with you. It’s sad to see them go, but that’s better than waiting for them to mark your messages as spam.
Asking your subscribers to verify their emails before adding them to your mailing list might seem like an unnecessary extra hoop to jump through. However, this extra step helps to verify that the email addresses on your mailing list are valid. More importantly, you give your users a chance to confirm that they actually want to receive your messages.
Even if you’re a legitimate sender mailing high-quality content, you might end up on a blocklist. Check if you’re on a blocklist before sending out your next email campaign to ensure your messages land in your reader’s inbox. After all, if you’re on a blocklist, your messages will never make it to your reader’s inbox. A high bounce rate can negatively affect your sending reputation. At Mailgun, we provide a blocklist monitoring service to keep your deliverability rates high.
Before you start sending, make sure you have your SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI records in place. These authentication protocols are your ID cards that prove you are who you say you are. Think of mailbox providers as the bouncers in a club. Your authentication records ensure you can join the party and stick that landing in your user’s inbox.
And that’s sender reputation in a nutshell. It’s not just about technology – it’s about behavior, consistency, and respect for your audience. If you over-send, ignore list hygiene, or skip best practices, you risk coming off like that person who just doesn’t get the hint.
As Natalie Hays, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sinch Mailgun, explained in episode two of our Deliverability Academy webinar:
Imagine you meet someone new, and you want to be friends. But instead of playing it cool, you text them 50 times in a row: ‘Hey.’ ‘What’s up?’ ‘Did you get my message?’ ‘Why aren’t you answering?’ It’s awkward.
If you’re not sure where to start or think your sender reputation needs some TLC, you’re in luck. Our team of account managers is here to help you evaluate your deliverability program and improve your inbox placement.
As we mentioned above, suddenly sending out a large volume of emails sends a red flag to mailbox providers. This type of behavior is seen as “spammy” and can negatively impact your sender reputation. Instead, slowly warm up your IP for sending at volume. Some ESPs, like Mailgun, warm up your dedicated IP address as a service.
This goes without saying, but if it looks like spam, chances are that ISPs will treat it as spam. Don’t use all-image emails, spammy words, too many exclamation points, or too many emojis. Check your subject lines for spelling mistakes! If your message looks like spam, ISPs could refuse to place it in your reader’s inbox. This will negatively impact your reputation.
Keep tabs on your email marketing metrics – like open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate – to determine if your readers are still engaged. If your readers have become disengaged, you can send a re-engagement email or create a sunset policy to remove them from your email list.
As we mentioned above, using a shared IP means sharing your IP reputation with other senders. Of course, this can be a good thing if you’re a new sender and want to piggyback off of an IP with an established reputation. However, this can backfire if the other senders on your IP have bad email sending habits. Use a dedicated IP address to avoid these problems.
This is a surefire way to disaster. Purchasing email lists will likely lead to higher complaint rates – when recipients mark your content as spam, if the emails you purchased are all legitimate. Purchased lists are not validated, and the recipients on them have not opted-in to receive messages from your service. Even if you think these lists might contain some legitimate leads, the risk to your sender reputation is too high.
