Summary
Email deliverability is a shared responsibility between Email Service Providers (ESPs) and the businesses utilizing their services, yet the prevailing view among industry experts places the greater burden on the business. ESPs are fundamental, providing and maintaining the technical infrastructure, network reputation, and core sending standards like authentication protocols and timely dispatch. They ensure emails are technically capable of reaching their destination servers. However, the ultimate success of an email program-specifically, whether emails land in the primary inbox rather than spam folders-is predominantly determined by the business's practices. This includes cultivating a healthy list with proper consent, crafting relevant and engaging content, managing sending frequency, segmenting audiences effectively, and consistently monitoring recipient engagement. Most professionals agree that businesses are accountable for 80-90% of deliverability outcomes, as their actions directly shape their individual sender reputation, a critical factor for inbox placement.
Key findings
- Business Bears Majority: The overwhelming consensus among experts is that the vast majority of email deliverability responsibility-often cited as 80-90% or more-lies with the business (sender), not the Email Service Provider (ESP). This is particularly true for enterprise-level ESPs where infrastructure is generally robust.
- Business Responsibilities: Businesses are primarily responsible for factors directly impacting their individual sender reputation and inbox placement. These include list quality, consent acquisition, content relevance and quality, sending frequency, audience segmentation, and active recipient engagement. Their practices related to bounces and complaints also significantly influence their deliverability.
- ESP Responsibilities: ESPs are responsible for the foundational technical aspects of email delivery. This encompasses managing core sending infrastructure, maintaining a clean network and IP reputation, ensuring timely email dispatch, and handling standard authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC configuration), along with managing feedback loops and abuse desk registrations. They ensure emails successfully leave their servers and reach the recipient's server.
- Shared vs. Individual Reputation: While ESPs manage the overall network and shared IP reputation, the business is ultimately accountable for its specific sender reputation. Even the best ESPs cannot guarantee inbox placement if a business's sending practices are poor, as they will allow clients to make choices that harm deliverability, even if advised against.
Key considerations
- Strategic ESP Selection: Although businesses bear the primary deliverability burden, selecting a reputable Email Service Provider (ESP) is a foundational step. A good ESP actively manages its infrastructure, maintains a clean IP network, and handles technical compliance, minimizing potential issues outside the business's direct control. Conversely, a poor ESP or CRM setup, especially for mid-market or small businesses, can lead to deliverability problems that are purely the ESP's fault, such as blacklisted shared IPs or suboptimal domain masking.
- Proactive Sender Management: Businesses must adopt a proactive approach to deliverability, which includes continuous monitoring of engagement metrics, adjusting sending practices based on performance, and rigorous list hygiene. The ultimate responsibility for initiating changes and improving deliverability rests with the customer, even when technical issues hint at ESP shortcomings.
- Beyond Technical Setup: Even for technical aspects like DKIM and SPF, proper implementation and ongoing management by the business are vital. Deliverability extends far beyond whether an email technically leaves the server; it's about whether it lands in the primary inbox, which is heavily influenced by content quality, recipient engagement, and adherence to permission-based sending.
What email marketers say
15 marketer opinions
While email deliverability is a collaborative effort between Email Service Providers (ESPs) and their business clients, industry consensus overwhelmingly assigns the larger portion of responsibility to the business. ESPs provide the essential technical backbone and maintain shared network health, but the success of an email program in reaching the inbox ultimately rests on the business's strategic choices and sending habits. Experts frequently cite a significant imbalance, often suggesting businesses are accountable for 80-90% or more of their deliverability outcomes. ESPs are crucial for managing technical infrastructure, maintaining IP reputation, and handling core authentication protocols. They ensure emails successfully leave their servers. However, businesses bear the primary burden for factors like list quality, content relevance, recipient engagement, and sending frequency, which directly influence their individual sender reputation and inbox placement. Even technical aspects such as SPF and DKIM require correct implementation by the company, solidifying the idea that the business is the main driver of its deliverability success.
Key opinions
- Business Majority Responsibility: The overwhelming consensus among email marketing experts is that businesses hold the vast majority of deliverability responsibility, often cited as 80% to 90% or even higher. This proportion reflects the significant impact of content, audience, and sending practices on sender reputation and inbox placement.
- ESP's Infrastructure Role: ESPs are primarily responsible for providing and maintaining the core technical infrastructure, including robust sending servers, managing IP reputation, ensuring timely email dispatch, and handling fundamental authentication setups like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. They manage the technical pathway from their servers to the recipient's inbox.
- Business's Content and Audience Control: Businesses are accountable for all aspects related to 'what' they send and 'who' they send it to. This encompasses creating relevant and engaging content, managing list acquisition and hygiene, ensuring proper consent, segmenting audiences, controlling sending frequency, and actively monitoring subscriber engagement and feedback like complaints and bounces.
- Impact of Sender Reputation: While ESPs manage the overall network and shared IP reputation, the individual sender's reputation, shaped by their unique sending habits and subscriber interactions, is the primary determinant of their specific deliverability outcomes. Even with a technically sound ESP, poor sender practices will lead to poor inbox placement.
Key considerations
- Strategic ESP Choice: Selecting a high-quality Email Service Provider (ESP) is paramount, as their infrastructure, IP management, and adherence to technical standards directly affect foundational deliverability. Poorly managed ESPs, particularly those catering to mid-market or small businesses, can inadvertently cause deliverability issues through blacklisted shared IPs or suboptimal technical configurations, despite the business's best efforts.
- Proactive Business Management: Businesses must adopt a proactive, data-driven approach to their email marketing, continuously monitoring engagement metrics, adapting content and frequency, and rigorously maintaining list hygiene. Even when an ESP is at fault for a deliverability issue, the ultimate responsibility for identifying the problem and initiating a solution, whether by adjusting practices or switching providers, lies with the business.
- Beyond Technical Sending: Deliverability extends beyond mere technical email dispatch; it fundamentally concerns whether emails land in the primary inbox, not just avoid the spam folder. This outcome is predominantly influenced by non-technical factors such as content relevance, subscriber engagement, and list quality, areas where the business has direct control.
- Implementing Authentication: While ESPs provide the framework for authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, it is the business's responsibility to correctly implement and maintain these settings on their domain. Correct configuration is a shared technical task, but the impetus for proper setup falls to the sender to ensure their emails are verified and trusted by recipient inboxes.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that ESPs are responsible for infrastructure, such as SPF and DKIM setup and timely email dispatch, while businesses are responsible for content and recipient selection, which heavily influences reputation. Mickey C. suggests a 90/10 split of deliverability responsibility, with 90% on the company for content and audience, and 10% on the ESP for infrastructure and policing their network to prevent widespread blacklistings.
15 Nov 2023 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks initially states 100% of deliverability responsibility lies with the company, then revises it to 99.1% on the company and 0.09% on the ESP. Tiffani emphasizes that even technical aspects like DKIM and SPF require correct implementation by the company, asserting that at least 90% of the responsibility is on the company.
28 Apr 2024 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
3 expert opinions
The landscape of email deliverability responsibility is largely bipartite, with Email Service Providers (ESPs) providing the technical bedrock and businesses driving the actual success of their email campaigns. While ESPs manage essential infrastructure, clean network reputations, and core authentication mechanisms, experts widely agree that the greater onus, often 90% or more, falls on the sending business. This significant allocation acknowledges that even top-tier ESPs, viewed by some as subcontractors, cannot entirely prevent deliverability issues if clients make poor choices regarding list hygiene, content relevance, sending frequency, or recipient engagement. These business-controlled factors critically determine the sender's individual reputation and ultimately, inbox placement.
Key opinions
- Business Dominates Responsibility: Industry experts consistently assert that businesses bear the overwhelming majority of email deliverability responsibility-often quantified at 90% or more-as their choices directly impact sender reputation and inbox placement.
- ESP's Core Technical Role: ESPs are responsible for fundamental technical infrastructure, including managing IP addresses, maintaining a clean sending network, and providing the framework for sender authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
- Sender's Content & Audience Impact: Businesses are directly accountable for critical deliverability factors such as list quality, email content, sending frequency, and cultivating recipient engagement, all of which are pivotal for maintaining a positive sender reputation.
- Individual Sender Reputation: While ESPs manage broader network reputation, the individual sender's reputation, shaped by their specific sending practices and subscriber interactions, is the primary driver of their inbox success or failure.
- ESPs Cannot Guarantee Success: Even the most advanced and reputable Email Service Providers cannot guarantee inbox placement if a business's sending practices are detrimental, as ESPs often allow clients to make choices that harm their own deliverability, even against advice.
Key considerations
- Strategic ESP Selection: Choosing a reputable ESP is a foundational step, as their commitment to maintaining a robust and clean technical infrastructure, along with proper IP management, minimizes technical hurdles beyond the sender's direct control.
- Proactive Sender Management: Businesses must adopt a highly proactive stance, continuously monitoring engagement metrics, refining content and sending strategies, and rigorously practicing list hygiene to optimize their own deliverability outcomes.
- Beyond Delivery to Inbox Placement: True deliverability extends beyond mere technical email dispatch; it focuses on whether emails successfully land in the primary inbox, a goal heavily influenced by recipient engagement and content relevance, areas firmly within the business's control.
- Implementing Authentication Protocols: While ESPs provide the tools for email authentication (e.g., SPF, DKIM, DMARC), it remains the business's responsibility to correctly implement and maintain these critical domain settings to ensure their emails are verified and trusted by recipient mail servers.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks asserts that unless a company is paying for managed services, at least 90% of email deliverability responsibility rests on the company's shoulders. James views the ESP as a subcontractor, emphasizing that even the best ESPs will allow clients to make choices that harm deliverability, even if advised against.
10 Nov 2024 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource explains that email deliverability is a shared responsibility between the sender and the ESP. ESPs are responsible for the technical infrastructure, including IP addresses, sender authentication, and ensuring their network is clean. Businesses (senders) are primarily responsible for list quality, email content, sending frequency, and overall engagement, which directly impacts their sender reputation.
16 Jul 2021 - Spam Resource
What the documentation says
6 technical articles
Email deliverability involves a clear division of labor, with Email Service Providers (ESPs) providing the necessary technical infrastructure and businesses bearing the primary responsibility for ensuring their emails reach the recipient's inbox. ESPs like SparkPost, Mailchimp, SendGrid, Zoho Campaigns, and Emma maintain the underlying network, manage shared IP reputations, and ensure compliance with technical sending standards such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Their role is to facilitate the successful transfer of emails to the recipient's server. However, the ultimate success-whether an email lands in the primary inbox or is flagged as spam-is predominantly determined by the business's practices. This includes careful management of content quality, maintaining a clean and engaged subscriber list, adhering to permission-based sending, and effectively handling bounces and complaints, all of which directly shape their individual sender reputation.
Key findings
- ESPs Technical Role: Email Service Providers are responsible for the core technical aspects of delivery, including managing infrastructure, network reputation, and ensuring proper configuration of authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to get emails to the recipient server.
- Business Content & List: Businesses hold accountability for the quality of their sending content, the integrity of their mailing lists-including consent and hygiene-and the overall engagement of their recipients.
- Sender Reputation Control: The individual sender reputation, a critical factor for inbox placement, is largely managed and influenced by the business's specific sending behaviors, including their handling of complaints and unsubscriptions.
- Compliance & Best Practices: Adherence to industry best practices, platform Acceptable Use Policies, and the avoidance of spam triggers rests squarely with the business, directly impacting their deliverability outcomes.
Key considerations
- Server vs. Inbox Delivery: While Email Service Providers ensure the technical delivery of emails to the recipient's server, the business is ultimately responsible for strategic actions that ensure those emails land in the primary inbox, rather than spam folders.
- Proactive List Management: Maintaining a clean, active, and permission-based mailing list is a continuous and crucial responsibility for businesses, directly influencing engagement rates and sender reputation.
- Content Quality Importance: The relevance and quality of email content, along with appropriate sending frequency, are key determinants of recipient engagement and subsequent inbox placement, making these critical business concerns.
- Monitoring Engagement: Businesses must actively monitor engagement metrics, bounce rates, and complaint feedback to adapt their strategies and ensure their sending practices align with receiver expectations, thus safeguarding their reputation.
Technical article
Documentation from SparkPost Documentation explains that SparkPost, as an ESP, manages the underlying infrastructure, network reputation, and ensures compliance with sending standards (like SPF, DKIM, DMARC configuration). However, the customer (business) is ultimately responsible for their sending content, list quality, recipient engagement, and how they manage bounces and complaints, which significantly impacts their individual sender reputation.
15 May 2024 - SparkPost Documentation
Technical article
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools Help implies that while ESPs facilitate sending, the ultimate responsibility for maintaining a good sender reputation with Google (e.g., avoiding spam complaints, sending to engaged users, setting up authentication) lies with the business/sender. Google provides tools to help senders monitor their reputation, but the actions taken to improve or maintain it are the sender's responsibility, often in collaboration with their ESP.
28 Nov 2024 - Google Postmaster Tools Help
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