Suped

What data should be included in a deliverability risk score dashboard?

Michael Ko profile picture
Michael Ko
Co-founder & CEO, Suped
Published 15 Apr 2025
Updated 15 Aug 2025
5 min read
Understanding email deliverability is complex, often involving sifting through various data points, reports, and technical configurations. For many marketers, this can be overwhelming, making it hard to quickly grasp their email program's health.
A deliverability risk score dashboard aims to simplify this by providing a consolidated, easy-to-understand indicator of your sending reputation and potential issues. It's designed to give a quick overview, allowing users to see if their performance is improving, declining, or holding steady over time without deep dives into every metric.
But what specific data points should feed into such a score to make it truly valuable and actionable? It's not just about crunching numbers; it's about identifying the right signals that accurately reflect your deliverability standing and guide effective remediation.

Understanding core engagement metrics

At the heart of any deliverability assessment are engagement metrics. These tell a compelling story about how your audience is interacting with your emails. High open rates and click-through rates generally signal positive engagement, which inbox providers view favorably.
Conversely, high spam complaint rates and unsubscribe rates are strong negative indicators. Inbox providers closely monitor these signals, as they suggest that recipients find your emails unwanted or irrelevant. Tracking these metrics over various timeframes, such as the last 7, 14, 30, and 90 days, can reveal important trends.

Metric

Description

Score Impact

Open rate
Percentage of recipients who open your email.
Higher indicates positive engagement and better inbox placement.
Click rate
Percentage of recipients who click a link within your email.
Strong indicator of recipient interest, boosting reputation.
Spam complaint rate
Percentage of recipients marking your email as spam.
High rates severely damage sender reputation, leading to blocklisting (or blacklisting).
Unsubscribe rate
Percentage of recipients opting out of your mailing list.
High rates suggest content irrelevance, impacting future deliverability.
These engagement indicators, whether positive or negative, are crucial for gauging how email service providers (ESPs) and mailbox providers (MBPs) perceive your sending behavior. Keeping an eye on your email engagement metrics helps you adapt your strategy to improve inbox placement.

Reputation signals and blocklist impact

Beyond direct engagement, a deliverability risk score dashboard should incorporate data from reputation services. Google Postmaster Tools (GPT) provides insights into your domain and IP reputation from Gmail's perspective, while Microsoft Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) offers similar data for Outlook and Hotmail recipients. These are direct feedback loops from major mailbox providers.
Third-party reputation scores, like those from Cisco Talos, also offer a broader view of how your IP and domain are perceived across the internet. These scores are aggregated from various sources and can indicate potential issues before they become critical. Combined, these sources provide a comprehensive picture of your sender reputation, which heavily influences whether your emails reach the inbox or the spam folder.

Critical blocklist alert

  1. High Impact: Being listed on a significant blocklist (or blacklist), such as Spamhaus, is a critical deliverability issue. It often means a large portion of your emails will be rejected or sent straight to spam folders.
  2. Immediate Action Required: A dashboard should flag such listings prominently, ideally with a "red" status, indicating that immediate investigation and blocklist monitoring are necessary.
  3. Contextual Weighting: Not all blocklists carry the same weight. The dashboard should differentiate between highly influential blocklists (e.g., Spamhaus) and less critical ones, reflecting their actual impact on your email deliverability (or inbox placement).
Your score should incorporate whether your IP or domain is listed on any email blocklists. A listing on a major blocklist (also known as a blacklist) immediately indicates a significant deliverability problem. Some blocklists, like Spamhaus, are highly influential, and a listing there often means widespread email rejection. The dashboard needs to clearly communicate these statuses and their relative severity.

Technical foundation and bounce analysis

The technical setup of your email sending infrastructure is foundational to good deliverability. A robust deliverability risk score dashboard must include data related to email authentication standards such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Proper configuration and alignment of these records verify your sender identity and protect against spoofing, which is crucial for building trust with mailbox providers.
Analyzing SMTP bounce responses is another critical technical component. While hard bounces (invalid addresses) are clear, soft bounces can contain valuable clues. Pattern recognition in soft bounce errors, especially those indicating spam-like behavior or content filtering, can highlight emerging issues. These insights can help improve your email deliverability.
Example DMARC recordDNS
v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc_reports@yourdomain.com; ruf=mailto:dmarc_forensics@yourdomain.com; fo=1;
The dashboard should track the compliance and alignment of your authentication records, immediately flagging any misconfigurations or failures. A poor technical foundation, even with good content and engagement, can lead to significant deliverability problems, so this data is essential for a comprehensive risk score.

Translating data into actionable insights

A deliverability risk score should not just present numbers; it must facilitate action. If your score is declining, what specific steps can you take to fix it? This is where the dashboard needs to move beyond simple data presentation to offer diagnostic insights and actionable recommendations. The dashboard colors or indicators should lead to a clear punch list of red, yellow, and green items.

Problem identified

Your deliverability risk score is trending downwards over the last two weeks, with a notable increase in spam complaints for Gmail recipients.

Recommended actions

  1. Review Content: Analyze recent campaign content for potential spam triggers or irrelevant messaging.
  2. Audience Segmentation: Segment your audience more precisely to ensure emails are relevant to recipients.
  3. Conduct Deliverability Tests: Use an email deliverability tester to check inbox placement across various providers.
The most effective dashboards allow senders to tailor which KPIs matter most to them, whether it's conversions, retention, or specific engagement metrics. A score is only useful if it helps answer the question, "Now what?" and guides you toward concrete steps for improvement and consistent monitoring of deliverability trends.

Views from the trenches

Best practices
Regularly review your email list hygiene to remove inactive or problematic subscribers to maintain list quality.
Segment your audience effectively to ensure your content is always relevant, reducing spam complaints and unsubscribes.
Implement and monitor all email authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to build sender trust.
Common pitfalls
Focusing solely on open rates without considering other engagement metrics like clicks or complaints.
Ignoring soft bounce error messages that can indicate deeper deliverability issues.
Not reacting quickly to blocklist (or blacklist) notifications, which can severely damage reputation.
Expert tips
Prioritize sending to highly engaged subscribers first to send strong positive signals to inbox providers.
Understand that reputation scores vary by mailbox provider, so a single score may not reflect all deliverability aspects.
The goal of a deliverability score is to identify problems, not just provide a perfect number. Actionable insights are key.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says they like to calculate emails sent, opened, and clicked per subscriber for various lookback windows, like 7, 14, 30, and 90 days. This allows them to prioritize sending to engaged users, which sends a strong signal to inbox providers.
2020-12-30 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says a dashboard should include GPT domain and IP reputation, Microsoft SNDS data, bounce rates with thresholds for color changes, shifts in opens and clicks, third-party reputation scores, and blocklist (or blacklist) status with importance context (like Spamhaus).
2020-12-30 - Email Geeks

Summarising the essential data

A comprehensive deliverability risk score dashboard integrates various data points to provide a holistic view of your email program's health. It combines engagement metrics, reputation data from major mailbox providers and third-party services, and crucial technical health indicators like authentication compliance and bounce analysis.
The true value of such a dashboard lies not just in displaying a score, but in empowering marketers with clear, actionable insights. By monitoring these key data points, senders can proactively address issues, maintain a strong sender reputation, and ultimately ensure their emails consistently reach the inbox.

Frequently asked questions

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