Summary
New email service providers (ESPs) face a unique challenge: how to support large email sends from non-technical small business customers without compromising their own or their customers' sender reputation. Many SMBs expect to "batch and blast" emails as they might have done with older, larger ESPs, but modern deliverability standards, especially new requirements from major mailbox providers, make this approach risky for new, lower-volume senders. The core issue revolves around balancing user experience (frictionless onboarding) with the technical necessity of proper email authentication and volume warming to maintain a healthy sender reputation.
Key findings
- The zero-to-one problem: A new ESP with low overall sending volume cannot quickly accommodate a single customer's large send (e.g., 25k emails) without significantly jeopardizing its deliverability and the reputation of its shared infrastructure (IPs and root domain).
- Customer expectations: Non-technical SMBs often come from legacy ESPs that allowed large, infrequent sends, leading to an expectation of similar functionality without understanding modern deliverability best practices.
- DNS friction: Requiring customers to set up their own domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) via DNS records is a significant barrier to activation and a common reason for customer churn, particularly for non-technical users.
- Subdomain strategy: Using dedicated subdomains for each customer helps isolate their sender reputation, but still requires careful warming and monitoring, especially when starting with low volume for each subdomain. This strategy doesn't eliminate the fundamental need for volume warmup.
- Reputation risk: Poor sending practices by one customer (e.g., sending to unengaged lists, hitting spam traps) can negatively impact the ESP's overall IP and root domain reputation, affecting all other customers.
Key considerations
- Gradual warmup: New ESPs must implement strict IP and domain warming protocols, even when using subdomains for each client. This means gradually increasing send volume over time to build a positive reputation with mailbox providers. Learn more about how email reputation transfers during IP warming.
- Customer education: ESPs need to clearly communicate deliverability best practices, including volume limitations and list hygiene, to non-technical customers from the outset. This sets realistic expectations and prevents frustration.
- Authentication strategy: While challenging, encouraging or even mandating customer domain authentication (using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC) shifts reputation responsibility away from the ESP's root domain. This is becoming increasingly important with new sender requirements. A simple guide to DMARC, SPF, and DKIM can help.
- List quality: Implement robust list validation, suppression management, and sunsetting policies to ensure customers send only to engaged, opted-in subscribers. This mitigates risks like hitting spam traps or generating high complaint rates.
- Outsourcing deliverability (or parts): Leveraging established email relay services (like SendGrid or Postmark, as mentioned in the Slack discussion) handles much of the underlying technical sending infrastructure. However, ESPs still retain responsibility for client-side factors like list management and reputation monitoring. You can learn more about deliverability strategies from experts.
What email marketers say
Email marketers and founders of new ESPs often find themselves caught between providing a seamless, "done-for-you" experience and the stringent technical requirements of email deliverability. The desire to simplify email marketing for non-technical users, coupled with the need to scale quickly, clashes with the slow, deliberate process of building sender reputation. Many marketers highlight the tension between customer convenience and the necessity of proper sender authentication and list hygiene, recognizing that sacrificing the latter ultimately harms both the ESP and its clients.
Key opinions
- Frictionless dream vs. reality: New ESPs aim for a zero-friction model where customers sign up and immediately send, but this ideal often breaks down due to the inherent complexities of email deliverability (e.g., DNS setup, warming).
- Building in-house deliverability: While difficult, some ESPs choose to build in-house deliverability to offer an all-in-one solution and reduce friction associated with customers exporting emails to separate ESPs.
- The churn problem: Customers, especially non-technical ones, get frustrated and churn when faced with delays or technical requirements, particularly around DNS record syncing for authentication.
- Leveraging subdomains: Creating new subdomains for each customer is a common strategy to isolate sender reputation, but it does not remove the need for proper warm-up, especially for significant volumes.
- Spam trap hits: Even with opted-in lists, subdomains can hit spam traps, indicating underlying list quality issues or outdated contacts. This requires continuous monitoring and list hygiene efforts.
- Aligning expectations: A key challenge is educating customers about warmup best practices and volume restrictions, especially when they're used to a "batch and blast" approach from previous ESPs.
Key considerations
- Scalability and viability: For a startup, sacrificing deliverability best practices for short-term activation may lead to long-term scalability and business viability issues due to poor inbox placement. Switching ESPs may only offer temporary deliverability improvements.
- Prioritize authentication: Even if it causes friction, pushing customers to authenticate their own domains is crucial for long-term sender reputation and better inboxing. This includes verifying their SPF, DKIM, and DMARC settings, which is explained in how these affect deliverability.
- Proactive monitoring: Regularly run email tests (e.g., mail-tester.com) and use deliverability tools to identify and address issues like spam trap hits. Understanding how email blacklists work is also important.
- Partnerships and advisory: Seek advice from deliverability consultants and foster deep partnerships to navigate complex reputation issues. They can offer insights that are not always immediately apparent.
Marketer view
A new ESP founder from Email Geeks explains they are struggling to achieve zero-to-one deliverability for some customer use cases. They note that a request from a customer to send 25,000 emails to active subscribers for an event poses a significant challenge because this volume would represent a large percentage of their total sending volume, making proper warming difficult. They are currently using new subdomains for each customer to isolate sender reputation but acknowledge this doesn't fully solve the rapid volume issue. They highlight that customers are accustomed to "batch and blast" from legacy ESPs, creating a difficult expectation to manage.
Marketer view
An ESP founder from Email Geeks states their primary product value is to be a done-for-you, all-in-one solution for email marketing. They have experienced customer churn and non-activation due to clients lacking their own ESPs or facing too much friction when exporting emails created by the platform into their own ESPs. This led to the decision to build an in-house sending solution.
What the experts say
Email deliverability experts agree that building a strong sender reputation is non-negotiable, even for new ESPs serving non-technical clients. The consensus is that while the desire for a frictionless experience is understandable, it often conflicts with the deliberate steps required for good deliverability, particularly around domain authentication and careful warming. Many emphasize that a new ESP must either educate its clients on the importance of these steps or adopt strategies that proactively manage deliverability challenges on the client's behalf, without compromising the overall sending infrastructure.
Key opinions
- ESP setup difficulty: Building a robust ESP, especially one that handles its own deliverability, is an extremely difficult endeavor requiring significant investment and expertise.
- Outsourcing deliverability: Instead of full in-house management, new ESPs might consider partnering with existing, full-fledged ESPs or email relay services to handle the deeper technical aspects of deliverability, such as list management and warming. This shifts some of the responsibility.
- Client domain authentication: Forcing customers to authenticate their own domains with aligned SPF and DKIM is critical because it puts their reputation at stake, not the ESP's shared infrastructure. This practice is increasingly becoming a mandatory standard.
- Pain as motivator: Industry experts suggest that without experiencing the pain of poor deliverability, non-technical senders are unlikely to take action on authentication or list hygiene, indicating a need for stricter enforcement by ESPs or mailbox providers.
- The "zero friction" fallacy: The pursuit of completely frictionless onboarding, especially in regulated areas like email, can lead to mediocre results because intentional friction (like authentication requirements) serves to deter low-effort, risky sending practices.
- Role of deliverability advisors: New ESPs should seriously consider consulting with external deliverability experts to navigate complex issues and ensure proper setup and ongoing reputation management.
Key considerations
- Automating DNS: While non-technical users struggle with DNS, tools exist that can automate the setup of CNAME records using DNS host APIs, potentially reducing onboarding friction for authentication. This is part of the broader discussion on essential ESP capabilities.
- Industry-wide push for authentication: The industry is moving towards mandating stronger authentication. New ESPs have an opportunity to lead this change rather than react to it, ensuring long-term deliverability. This aligns with boosting deliverability with technical solutions.
- Educating customers on "why": Instead of just telling customers what to do, ESPs should build processes to teach them why specific deliverability actions (like authentication or list hygiene) are in their best interest, improving compliance.
- Investing in tools to delegate tech: ESPs can invest in or build tools that help them take over the hard technical parts of email setup from the customer, minimizing customer effort while ensuring best practices are followed. This is key for managing ESP and business deliverability responsibilities.
Expert view
An Expert from Email Geeks advises a new ESP to participate in community discussions to build recognition and reputation before seeking detailed deliverability advice. This approach helps ensure that complex guidance is provided to legitimate senders rather than those engaged in questionable practices, which is a common concern among deliverability professionals.
Expert view
An Expert from Email Geeks suggests that building an ESP is inherently difficult. They recommend that unless a company is prepared to invest heavily in deliverability infrastructure and expertise, it should consider partnering with another entity to handle the actual mail sending. They note that many boutique ESPs focus on client relationships while outsourcing the core sending functions.
What the documentation says
Official documentation from leading email platforms and service providers consistently emphasizes the foundational role of sender reputation and proper authentication in achieving high deliverability. These resources outline the technical configurations necessary for good standing with mailbox providers and offer best practices for list management and sending behavior. For new ESPs, this documentation serves as a critical guide, highlighting that while advanced features are valuable, adherence to core deliverability principles is paramount for success, especially when onboarding non-technical small businesses.
Key findings
- Sender reputation score: ISPs assign a reputation score based on factors like sending volume, complaint rates, bounce rates, and engagement. A higher score increases the likelihood of inbox delivery.
- Authentication protocols: Implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is crucial for proving sender legitimacy. These protocols help mailbox providers verify that emails originate from authorized sources and prevent spoofing.
- List hygiene: Maintaining a clean, engaged subscriber list is paramount. Regularly removing inactive or invalid addresses, and avoiding sending to spam traps, significantly reduces the risk of being blocklisted (or blacklisted).
- Engagement metrics: High open rates, click-through rates, and low unsubscribe/complaint rates signal positive engagement to mailbox providers, improving sender reputation and inbox placement.
- Content quality: Relevant, valuable content that avoids spammy triggers and broken links contributes to higher engagement and a better sending reputation.
Key considerations
- Gradual volume ramp-up: New IPs or domains, even subdomains, require a careful warming period where send volume is gradually increased. Attempting large sends too early can trigger spam filters and damage reputation.
- Consent-based sending: Only send to explicitly opted-in subscribers. Double opt-in is recommended as a best practice to ensure high-quality lists and minimize spam complaints.
- Monitoring deliverability: Regularly monitor deliverability metrics such as bounces, complaints, open rates, and blocklist (or blacklist) status. Proactive monitoring helps identify and resolve issues before they escalate. You can learn how to run an email deliverability test.
- Easy unsubscribe options: Provide clear and easy ways for recipients to unsubscribe. Forced or difficult unsubscribes often lead to spam complaints, which harm sender reputation.
- Technical alignment: Ensure that the sending domain, IP, and 'From' address are consistent and properly authenticated across all emails sent through the ESP, maintaining a cohesive sender identity. This contributes to positive sender reputation. How changing ESPs and domains affects reputation is important to understand.
- Abuse prevention: ESPs must have systems in place to detect and prevent abusive sending by clients, as one bad actor can quickly damage the reputation of shared IP pools and the entire platform. Learn how to protect your sender reputation.
Technical article
The Klaviyo Help Center emphasizes that establishing a strong sender reputation is key to email deliverability. They recommend steps such as using a reputable ESP, maintaining a clean and engaged list, and ensuring proper authentication to help emails reach the inbox effectively.
Technical article
Salesforce documentation on email deliverability highlights the importance of robust authentication protocols, dedicated IP options, and comprehensive analytics. These features allow senders to monitor and improve their sender reputation, ensuring emails are consistently delivered.
Related resources
15 resources
![[Webinar] Email Deliverability: Best Practices for Reaching ...](https://community.hubspot.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/64874i535C7FB6CE25AE0B?v=v2)
Related pages
How does email reputation transfer during IP warming with a new ESP, and how to resolve deliverability issues?
How do ESPs impact deliverability on dedicated IPs?
How do SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and dedicated IPs affect email deliverability when using a third-party ESP?
What are the best practices for migrating to a new ESP while retaining sender reputation?
What is the division of email deliverability responsibility between ESPs and businesses?
A simple guide to DMARC, SPF, and DKIM
How email blacklists actually work: a simple guide
Why Your Emails Are Going to Spam in 2024 and How to Fix It
How to Run an Email Deliverability Test: A Proven Checklist
Boost Email Deliverability Rates: Technical Solutions from Top Performing Senders
