Summary
Improving email and domain reputation, along with overall deliverability, is a critical challenge for many organizations, especially after facing issues like excessive sending to unengaged lists. The path to recovery involves understanding the distinct factors that influence reputation and implementing strategic changes to sending practices. This summary synthesizes insights from email marketing professionals, deliverability experts, and technical documentation to provide a comprehensive approach to enhancing your email program.
Key findings
- Distinct reputations: IP reputation and domain reputation are separate entities, although both contribute to your overall sender score. Focusing on one exclusively will not solve issues with the other.
- Sending practices are paramount: Changing IP types (e.g., from dedicated to shared) will not inherently fix reputation problems. The core issue lies with poor sending practices, such as mailing to unengaged lists, which must be addressed directly.
- Inbox placement over reputation metrics: True success is measured by emails reaching the inbox, not just by an improved reputation score. Reputation is a secondary metric, a reflection of your underlying sending behavior. Focus on fixing what causes emails to go to spam.
- Aggressive list hygiene: If emails are consistently landing in the spam folder, continuing to send to the full list is detrimental. Aggressive pruning of inactive or unengaged subscribers, and potentially pausing marketing sends, is necessary to halt further damage.
- Separation of mailstreams: Transactional and marketing emails should ideally be sent from different IPs and possibly different domains to isolate the reputation of critical messages from potentially lower-engagement marketing campaigns.
Key considerations
- Root cause analysis: Identify what specific events or practices led to the initial drop in reputation. Understanding the cause is vital for preventing recurrence and targeting effective solutions. You can learn more about this by reading our article on how to identify the cause of declining email deliverability.
- Patience and consistency: Rebuilding a damaged reputation takes time and consistent adherence to best practices. Mailbox providers assess sending patterns over extended periods. For more information, consider our guide on how long it takes to recover domain reputation.
- Engagement-focused sending: Prioritize sending to highly engaged segments of your list. Positive interactions (opens, clicks, replies) are powerful signals that improve reputation.
- Monitor and adapt: Continuously monitor your deliverability metrics, including inbox placement, bounce rates, and complaint rates. Tools like Google Postmaster Tools provide valuable data for this. A strong email infrastructure relies on proper authentication of your sender domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
What email marketers say
Email marketers often face the challenging task of rehabilitating a damaged sender reputation while balancing business objectives. Their discussions frequently highlight the immediate impact of past poor practices and the practical steps required for recovery. Key themes emerge around the need for aggressive list management, understanding core metrics beyond just 'reputation,' and the strategic use of email streams.
Key opinions
- Impact of poor practices: Previous agency's sending to the entire list severely damaged email and domain reputation. This necessitates a significant reduction in send volumes and a complete change in sending behavior.
- IP type is secondary: Switching from a dedicated IP to a shared IP will not solve underlying issues if sending practices remain problematic. For high-volume senders, controlling reputation on a dedicated IP is a long-term goal.
- List cleaning is vital: Cleaning the email list is paramount. Proactive removal of inactive or invalid email addresses improves deliverability rates and reduces spam folder placement.
- Separating mail types: It is common practice to use different IPs or even different providers for transactional emails versus marketing emails to protect the deliverability of critical communications.
- Focus on engagement: Improving email engagement is key. This includes using double opt-ins and providing an easy way to unsubscribe to maintain list hygiene and prevent complaints.
Key considerations
- Monitor list health: Regularly check bounce rates, complaint rates, and overall email delivery rates. Removing inactive or invalid emails is crucial for a healthy list.
- Gradual volume increase: When rebuilding reputation, start with a smaller volume of emails and gradually increase it over time. This approach helps rebuild trust with mailbox providers.
- Spam trigger avoidance: Carefully avoid common spam triggers in email content and structure to ensure messages reach the inbox effectively. This directly impacts your domain reputation.
- Strategic sending to engaged segments: Prioritize sending to your most engaged audience segments. This helps generate positive engagement signals, which are crucial for improving reputation.
- Leverage authentication: Ensure your emails are properly authenticated with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These protocols are fundamental for building trust and improving deliverability. For more, see our guide on DMARC, SPF, and DKIM.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks outlines a scenario where a previous agency's poor sending practices led to a damaged reputation, necessitating a drastic reduction in email volume. They clarify that despite cleaning their list and significantly cutting monthly sends from 3 million to 700,000, their email and domain reputation remain problematic.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks emphasizes that switching to a shared IP will not solve deliverability issues if the underlying sending practices are not fixed. They highlight that for high-volume senders, the long-term objective should be to maintain control over reputation using a dedicated IP, rather than attempting to shift responsibility. This approach ensures greater stability and accountability in email delivery.
What the experts say
Deliverability experts provide invaluable insights drawn from extensive experience with mailbox providers and complex email ecosystems. Their perspectives often emphasize fundamental principles over quick fixes, focusing on the underlying causes of deliverability issues and sustainable strategies for long-term improvement. They underscore the importance of audience engagement, data analysis, and strategic patience.
Key opinions
- Separate reputations: IP reputation and domain reputation are distinct factors influencing deliverability. A problem with one does not automatically transfer to the other, requiring separate strategies for improvement.
- Aggressive intervention: If mail is consistently going to spam, continuing to send is counterproductive. Experts recommend aggressive list pruning, and potentially pausing marketing sends entirely, followed by a careful restart of the email program.
- Focus on inboxing, not just reputation: Reputation is a secondary metric; the primary goal is getting emails to the inbox. Fix the underlying issues causing poor deliverability, and reputation will naturally improve.
- Targeted fixes only affect specific providers: Efforts to improve deliverability with one mailbox provider (e.g., Gmail) will primarily affect that provider, not necessarily others. A comprehensive approach is needed for widespread improvement.
- Identify the root cause: It is crucial to determine what specific event or change triggered the drop in reputation to address it effectively.
- Separate mailstreams are critical: Mixing transactional and marketing mail on a single, poorly reputed dedicated IP exacerbates issues. Separating these streams onto different IPs or even different domains is highly recommended.
- Accept sunk costs: Continuing bad sending practices, even if they historically generated some revenue, will only worsen the situation. It's essential to accept past losses and commit to a healthier sending strategy for long-term program performance.
Key considerations
- Strategic volume reduction: If positive engagement (green signals) comes from certain email types (e.g., transactional), significantly reduce the volume of emails generating negative signals (red signals). This ratio change can prevent complete blocklisting.
- Continuous monitoring: Domain reputation is critical and requires constant vigilance. Regular monitoring allows for proactive identification and resolution of potential issues. Our auditing for deliverability guide can assist here.
- Patience and persistence: Rebuilding a damaged reputation, especially after significant issues, demands patience. Mailbox providers take time to re-evaluate sending patterns and build trust. This is part of the overall strategy for sustainable deliverability improvement.
- Holistic approach: True reputation improvement comes from fixing underlying problems like high complaint rates, spam trap hits, and low engagement. Focusing on these behavioral issues will naturally lead to better inbox placement and positive reputation metrics.
Expert view
Deliverability expert from Email Geeks asserts that IP reputation and domain reputation operate independently. They clarify that a negative standing for one does not automatically translate to the other, requiring separate and targeted strategies for improvement. This distinction is fundamental for understanding how mailbox providers assess senders and for crafting effective reputation recovery plans.
Expert view
Deliverability expert from Email Geeks advises clients to adopt a more aggressive strategy if their emails are consistently landing in the spam folder. They firmly state that continuing to send mail that ends up in spam is detrimental to reputation. This highlights the urgent need to halt harmful sending practices to prevent further damage and begin the recovery process.
What the documentation says
Official documentation from leading email service providers and industry bodies offers foundational best practices and technical requirements for achieving high deliverability. These resources emphasize authentication, list quality, and monitoring tools as essential components of a healthy email program. They serve as authoritative guides for senders navigating the complexities of email ecosystems.
Key findings
- List quality is paramount: Maintaining a high-quality email list directly improves deliverability rates and reduces the likelihood of landing in spam folders. Avoiding hard bounces is a key aspect of this.
- Dedicated domains for control: Branded or dedicated sending domains offer greater control over sender reputation, contributing to improved deliverability through consistent and recognized sending identity.
- Authentication is fundamental: Implementing email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is crucial for verifying sender identity, protecting against spoofing, and building trust with recipient servers.
- Monitor with postmaster tools: Utilizing tools like Google Postmaster Tools provides essential insights into email performance, including spam rates, domain, and IP reputation, enabling proactive problem identification.
- IP warming is key: For new sending IPs or significantly changed volumes, a gradual IP warm-up process is necessary. This methodical approach helps mailbox providers build trust in your sending patterns.
Key considerations
- Engagement signals: Mailbox providers heavily weigh recipient engagement when assessing sender reputation. High opens, clicks, and low complaint rates are positive signals.
- Compliance with standards: Adherence to industry standards and ISP guidelines, including authentication and consent, is non-negotiable for achieving good deliverability.
- Proactive issue resolution: Leverage data from monitoring tools to make informed adjustments to sending strategies and address deliverability issues promptly. This includes utilizing your Google Postmaster Tools V2.
- Content relevance: Ensuring email content is relevant and valuable to subscribers encourages positive engagement and reduces the likelihood of complaints or unsubscribes. This is a significant factor impacting overall email deliverability.
Technical article
Documentation from Mailchimp stresses that maintaining a high-quality email list is fundamental for improving deliverability rates and preventing emails from landing in spam folders. It advises against hard bounces, emphasizing that a clean list comprising engaged subscribers is crucial for positive sender reputation and successful inbox placement. Regularly auditing and segmenting your list ensures that messages reach interested recipients, reducing negative engagement signals.
Technical article
Documentation from Klaviyo Help Center explains that branded or dedicated sending domains provide senders with enhanced control over their sender reputation. It indicates that these domains contribute to improved deliverability by allowing for a more consistent and recognized sending identity, which mailbox providers favor. This control is vital for building and maintaining trust with recipients and ensuring consistent email delivery, as it signals legitimacy to ISPs.
Related resources
15 resources
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