Summary
Email deliverability is a multi-faceted challenge that necessitates a combination of technical configurations, proactive monitoring, and sound email marketing practices. Authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are foundational for establishing sender legitimacy and preventing spoofing. Utilizing monitoring tools such as Google Postmaster Tools, Microsoft SNDS, and Inbox Monster helps to identify and address deliverability issues. List hygiene practices, including regular removal of unengaged subscribers and email validation, are crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation. Other important aspects include warming up new IP addresses, testing email designs across different devices, and setting up feedback loops. Ultimately, a balanced approach that leverages both internal data and external tools, combined with critical thinking and adaptability, is essential for optimizing email deliverability.
Key findings
- Authentication Protocols: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are vital for verifying sender identity and preventing email spoofing.
- Monitoring Tools: Tools like Google Postmaster Tools, Microsoft SNDS, and Inbox Monster provide valuable insights into deliverability metrics.
- List Hygiene: Maintaining a clean email list is essential for protecting sender reputation.
- IP Warming: Gradually warming up new IP addresses helps establish a positive sender reputation.
- Email Design Testing: Testing email designs across devices ensures a consistent user experience and reduces spam flags.
- Feedback Loops: Setting up and monitoring feedback loops helps identify and remove subscribers who mark emails as spam.
- Internal Data Analysis: Generating reports from your own delivery logs provides valuable, actionable insights.
Key considerations
- Tool Selection: Choose deliverability tools based on your specific needs and budget, considering factors like B2B vs. B2C focus.
- Proactive vs. Reactive: Prioritize proactive measures, such as authentication setup and list hygiene, to prevent deliverability problems.
- Data Interpretation: Develop the ability to interpret deliverability data and identify root causes of issues.
- Adaptability: Be prepared to adapt your deliverability strategy as email marketing best practices and ISP requirements evolve.
- Balanced Approach: Combine technical configurations with sound email marketing practices for optimal results.
What email marketers say
15 marketer opinions
Email deliverability hinges on a combination of proactive monitoring, authentication, and list management. Tools like Inbox Monster (for SpamHaus reputation feed), Microsoft SNDS, and Google Postmaster Tools offer essential insights, while practices such as regular monitoring, DMARC implementation, and seed list testing are crucial. Maintaining a clean email list, validating email addresses, warming up IPs, and testing email designs also significantly impact deliverability. The best approach varies based on the sender's situation (B2B vs. B2C, severity of deliverability issues), but focusing on sender authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), reputation monitoring, and hygiene are foundational.
Key opinions
- Monitoring Tools: Tools like Inbox Monster, Google Postmaster Tools, and Microsoft SNDS provide crucial insights into sender reputation and deliverability issues.
- Sender Authentication: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are essential for proving the legitimacy of emails and improving deliverability.
- List Hygiene: Maintaining a clean email list by removing inactive subscribers and validating addresses is critical for protecting sender reputation.
- Inbox Placement Testing: Tools like GlockApps, MailMonitor, and seed list testing provide real-time insights into inbox placement and potential spam triggers.
- IP Warming: Gradually warming up new IP addresses is important to establish a positive sender reputation.
- Email Design Testing: Testing email designs across devices and clients helps ensure a positive user experience and prevents spam flags.
Key considerations
- B2B vs. B2C: Deliverability tools and practices may vary depending on whether the sender is primarily B2B or B2C.
- Severity of Issues: The approach to deliverability should depend on the severity of existing issues, with data points indicating problems.
- Data Reliability: Gathering data from multiple sources is essential and always better, and relying on a single data point is risky.
- Tool Efficiency: Deliverability tools provide efficiency in monitoring and reporting.
- Proactive Action: Proactively monitoring blocklists, domain reputation and proactively set up authentication protocols.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Senderlist shares that using a blocklist monitoring service helps you to proactively monitor your IPs and domains and get alerted early if your sending infrastructure is listed. This early detection allows you to act quick and avoid deliverability issues.
4 Dec 2024 - Senderlist
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that they love the SpamHaus reputation feed in Inbox Monster for untangling sticky situations and also thinks inbox placement testing is pretty essential to catching things early, and coverage depends on if you are a B2B sender or B2C.
5 May 2025 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
6 expert opinions
Email deliverability relies heavily on understanding and utilizing available data, both from internal logs and external tools like Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS. A foundational aspect is implementing and correctly aligning SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Equally important is list hygiene, involving regular removal of unengaged subscribers and validation of email addresses. Ultimately, a proactive approach, combined with critical thinking and sound email marketing practices, is essential for maintaining and improving email deliverability.
Key opinions
- Leverage Existing Data: Generating reports from your own delivery logs offers valuable, actionable data.
- Domain Reputation Monitoring: Tools like Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS help identify and address deliverability issues.
- Feedback Loops: Setting up and monitoring FBLs allows for the removal of subscribers who mark emails as spam.
- DMARC Alignment: Proper DKIM and SPF alignment is crucial for achieving a 'Pass' status in DMARC, strengthening email authentication.
- List Hygiene Importance: Regular list hygiene is fundamental for maintaining good deliverability.
Key considerations
- Internal vs. External Tools: Balance the use of readily available internal data with external tools for a comprehensive deliverability strategy.
- Critical Thinking: Rely on sound email marketing practices and critical thinking alongside any tools.
- Proactive Approach: Prioritize proactive measures, such as list hygiene and authentication setup, to prevent deliverability issues.
- DMARC Complexity: Ensure proper alignment of DKIM and SPF with the From address when implementing DMARC.
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise shares the most fundamental and arguably most important aspect of maintaining deliverability is regular, thorough list hygiene. Regularly removing unengaged subscribers, validating email addresses, and segmenting your list will yield much more significant long-term results.
12 Feb 2023 - Word to the Wise
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise highlights that the key to DMARC is ensuring that your DKIM and SPF records are properly aligned with the From address in your emails to achieve a 'Pass' status, enabling you to enforce your sending policies with confidence.
20 Feb 2022 - Word to the Wise
What the documentation says
5 technical articles
Email deliverability relies on a suite of authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and monitoring tools (Google Postmaster Tools, Microsoft SNDS). SPF and DKIM establish the sender's legitimacy, while DMARC builds upon them to define policies for handling unauthenticated emails. Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS provide insights into sender reputation, spam rates, and other key metrics, enabling senders to proactively identify and address deliverability issues.
Key findings
- Google Postmaster Tools: Provides insights into domain reputation and spam rate for Gmail users.
- Microsoft SNDS: Allows monitoring of IP health and reputation when sending to Microsoft email services.
- DKIM: Detects email spoofing by verifying email authorization.
- SPF: Prevents spammers from using forged 'From' addresses by verifying authorized IP addresses.
- DMARC: Provides a policy for handling unauthenticated emails and reporting on authentication results.
Key considerations
- Implementation: Proper implementation of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is crucial for effective email authentication.
- Monitoring: Regular monitoring of Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS is essential for identifying and addressing deliverability issues.
- Authentication Hierarchy: DMARC builds upon SPF and DKIM, so proper configuration of the latter is necessary for effective DMARC implementation.
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft explains the Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) allows you to monitor the health and reputation of your sending IPs, providing data on complaint rates and spam trap hits when sending to Microsoft email services.
28 Feb 2022 - Microsoft SNDS
Technical article
Documentation from Google explains Google Postmaster Tools provides insights into your domain's reputation, spam rate, and other deliverability metrics, helping you identify and fix issues affecting delivery to Gmail users.
12 Jun 2024 - Google Postmaster Tools Help
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