Summary
Email engagement profoundly impacts inbox placement in Microsoft and GWorkspace B2B environments. High engagement, including opens, clicks, replies, forwards, and marking emails as 'not spam,' signals value and improves sender reputation, boosting deliverability. Conversely, low engagement, spam complaints, and inactive subscribers negatively affect sender reputation, increasing the likelihood of spam filtering. Mailbox providers such as Gmail and Outlook use engagement signals to refine filtering accuracy, but their measurements of engagement may differ from those of marketers. Feedback loops (FBLs) are crucial for monitoring and addressing spam complaints. B2B engagement strategies should focus on key decision-makers within organizations. Finally, third-party services like Proofpoint can impact delivery paths, and content relevance is essential for driving engagement.
Key findings
- Engagement Crucial for Deliverability: High engagement rates significantly improve inbox placement in Microsoft and GWorkspace.
- Low Engagement Hurts Deliverability: Low engagement, inactive subscribers, and spam complaints lead to decreased inbox placement.
- Provider Engagement Measurements Differ: Mailbox providers and marketers may have different ways of measuring engagement.
- B2B Engagement is Key: Engaging key decision-makers in B2B organizations improves inbox placement.
- FBLs Improve Deliverability: Feedback loops (FBLs) help identify and address issues leading to spam complaints.
- Third-Party Services Impact Delivery: Third-party security services such as Proofpoint can influence delivery paths.
- Relevance Drives Engagement: Content relevance is critical for driving positive engagement and improving deliverability.
Key considerations
- Improve Engagement: Develop strategies to improve email engagement (opens, clicks, replies) by providing valuable and relevant content.
- Clean Email Lists Regularly: Maintain clean email lists by removing inactive subscribers to improve engagement metrics.
- Monitor Feedback Loops: Actively monitor and address feedback loop data to identify and resolve issues causing spam complaints.
- Segment your Lists: Ensure you are only sending emails to people who are engaged with your brand. This ensures that the audience are happy to get your content.
- Model Third-Party Impact: Consider the impact of third-party security services on email delivery and adjust strategies accordingly.
- Focus on B2B Key Contacts: Identify and engage key decision-makers within B2B organizations to improve inbox placement.
What email marketers say
8 marketer opinions
Email engagement significantly impacts inbox placement in Microsoft and GWorkspace B2B environments. High engagement metrics, such as opens, clicks, replies, forwards, and users marking emails as 'not spam' or moving them to the primary inbox, signal value to mailbox providers, improving sender reputation and deliverability. Conversely, low engagement, inactive subscribers, spam complaints, and emails being moved to the promotions tab can negatively affect sender reputation and increase the likelihood of emails being filtered to spam. Engagement from key decision-makers within B2B organizations is particularly important.
Key opinions
- High Engagement Improves Deliverability: High open rates, click-through rates, replies, and forwards signal to mailbox providers that emails are valuable, improving inbox placement.
- Low Engagement Hurts Deliverability: Low open rates, inactive subscribers, and spam complaints negatively impact sender reputation, leading to increased spam filtering.
- B2B Engagement Matters: Engagement from key decision-makers within B2B organizations is particularly important for inbox placement.
- Google Engagement Signals: Moving emails from the 'Promotions' tab to the 'Primary' tab in Gmail improves sender reputation and future inbox placement.
Key considerations
- Monitor Engagement Metrics: Regularly monitor open rates, click-through rates, and spam complaints to identify and address deliverability issues.
- Clean Email Lists: Remove inactive subscribers to improve engagement metrics and sender reputation.
- Relevance is Key: Ensure email content is relevant and valuable to recipients to encourage engagement.
- B2B Strategy: Focus on engaging key decision-makers within B2B organizations to improve inbox placement.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that having a large number of inactive subscribers negatively impacts engagement metrics, which can cause mailbox providers like Gmail and Outlook to filter your emails to spam. They recommend regularly cleaning your email list to remove unengaged subscribers.
16 Jul 2022 - Mailjet
Marketer view
Email marketer from Neil Patel explains that high engagement rates (opens, clicks, replies) signal to mailbox providers that your emails are valuable and wanted, thus improving deliverability and inbox placement. Conversely, low engagement or spam complaints can negatively impact your sender reputation.
15 Jan 2023 - Neil Patel
What the experts say
7 expert opinions
Email engagement is a significant factor in determining inbox placement, especially within GWorkspace. While engagement is crucial, mailbox providers like Google and Microsoft may measure it differently than marketers. Low engagement negatively impacts sender reputation, leading to decreased inbox placement. Additionally, third-party security services such as Proofpoint can influence delivery, and relevance is key to driving engagement.
Key opinions
- Engagement Matters: Engagement significantly impacts inbox placement, particularly in GWorkspace.
- Engagement Measurement Differences: Mailbox providers and marketers may define and measure engagement differently.
- Low Engagement Negative: Low engagement negatively impacts sender reputation and inbox placement.
- Third-Party Impact: Third-party security services can change delivery paths.
- Relevance Drives Engagement: Delivering relevant content is key to driving high engagement.
Key considerations
- Understand Provider Metrics: Gain insight into how Microsoft and Google measure engagement to align strategies.
- Relevance is Paramount: Prioritize relevant and valuable content to boost engagement.
- Monitor Engagement: Track engagement metrics to identify and address deliverability issues.
- Account for Security Services: Model delivery strategies to accommodate third-party security services like Proofpoint.
Expert view
Expert from Spamresource explains that low engagement rates (lack of opens, clicks, and interactions) significantly impact sender reputation. Mailbox providers interpret low engagement as a sign that emails are unwanted, leading to decreased inbox placement in Microsoft and GWorkspace environments.
4 Jul 2021 - Spamresource
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks confirms that engagement matters even in the B2B space. However, what marketers can measure as engagement isn’t what Google measures as engagement.
14 Jun 2025 - Email Geeks
What the documentation says
5 technical articles
Email engagement profoundly impacts inbox placement in Microsoft and GWorkspace environments. Both Gmail and Outlook utilize user actions, such as marking emails as 'not spam,' moving them to the inbox, reading, and replying, as signals to refine their filtering accuracy. Positive engagement improves sender reputation and the likelihood of inbox delivery, while negative engagement (reporting as junk or spam) weakens it. Feedback loops (FBLs) provide senders with reports on spam complaints, and monitoring/addressing these issues improves deliverability. Low engagement and high complaint rates result in a poor sender reputation, leading to increased filtering to spam folders.
Key findings
- Gmail uses Engagement: Gmail uses user engagement signals to determine email value and inbox placement.
- Outlook uses Engagement: Outlook considers user actions as signals for filtering accuracy.
- Positive Engagement Boosts Reputation: Positive user engagement strengthens sender reputation.
- Negative Engagement Hurts Reputation: Negative user actions weaken sender reputation.
- FBLs are Important: Feedback loops help improve email practices and user engagement.
- Sender Reputation Matters: Low engagement and high complaint rates lead to poor sender reputation and spam filtering.
Key considerations
- Encourage Positive Engagement: Create valuable and relevant content that encourages users to interact positively with your emails.
- Monitor Feedback Loops: Actively monitor and address feedback loop data to resolve issues leading to spam complaints.
- Avoid Negative Engagement: Implement strategies to minimize spam complaints and negative user actions.
- Sender Authentication: Implement SPF, DKIM and DMARC to ensure mail is properly authenticated.
Technical article
Documentation from RFC-Editor explains that Feedback Loops (FBLs) are mechanisms where mailbox providers send reports about spam complaints back to senders. Monitoring and acting upon FBL data helps improve email practices and user engagement. In addition, it improves deliverability across platforms like Microsoft and Google.
5 Dec 2022 - RFC-Editor
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft details that Outlook considers user actions (reading, replying, moving messages) as signals to refine its filtering accuracy. Positive user engagement strengthens the reputation of the sender, while negative actions (reporting as junk) weaken it.
21 Mar 2024 - Microsoft
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