Summary
Conducting an in-depth email deliverability and reputation audit is a multifaceted process that requires a thorough review of technical infrastructure, sender reputation, list hygiene, content quality, and engagement metrics. Experts agree that while various tools can provide data, a truly comprehensive audit often necessitates the expertise of specialized consultants. Key areas of focus include verifying email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), monitoring IP and domain reputation through services like Gmail Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS, and analyzing bounce and complaint rates. Crucially, the audit extends to evaluating the health of the email list, identifying spam traps, and assessing subscriber engagement. The goal is to uncover issues affecting inbox placement and overall email performance, leading to actionable insights for improvement.
Key findings
- Technical Setup is Foundational: A comprehensive audit begins with verifying technical foundations, including proper configuration of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication protocols, as well as checking MX and reverse DNS records. Incorrect setup can severely impact deliverability, especially to major ISPs like Google and Microsoft.
- Reputation is Key: Assessing IP and domain reputation is central to the audit, involving checks against major blocklists and monitoring services like Gmail Postmaster Tools, Microsoft SNDS, MX Toolbox, Cisco Talos Intelligence, and Validity's insights. This helps identify past or current adverse activity impacting sender trust.
- List Health and Engagement: The quality of your email list and subscriber engagement are critical. Audits must evaluate list acquisition methods, identify spam traps, invalids, and inactive subscribers, and analyze engagement metrics such as opens and clicks. Low engagement or high complaints indicate underlying list hygiene or content issues.
- Content and Sending Practices: Auditing email content for spam triggers, assessing sending volume consistency, and reviewing bounce and complaint rates are essential. Understanding detailed message event logs helps pinpoint patterns in rejections and deliverability errors, offering insights into content or sending practice issues.
- Leveraging Specialized Tools: Utilizing a range of specialized tools and platforms like Litmus, Email on Acid, HubSpot's internal metrics, LeanDmarc, and potentially external audit services, provides invaluable data for a holistic view of deliverability performance.
Key considerations
- Consultant Expertise: An in-depth audit is highly complex and often requires specialized consultants due to the nuanced understanding needed to interpret data and identify root causes, as there is no single 'score' for deliverability.
- IT Collaboration: Close collaboration with the IT department is crucial, especially for technical aspects like DNS records, IP health, and server configurations.
- Ongoing Process: Deliverability and reputation auditing is not a one-time event; it requires continuous monitoring of various metrics and regular adjustments to sending practices.
- Data Interpretation: While numerous tools provide data, understanding and acting upon the results is paramount to effectively improve deliverability.
What email marketers say
16 marketer opinions
An in-depth email deliverability and reputation audit systematically examines all facets of an email program to ensure messages reach their intended recipients. It extends beyond surface-level checks, requiring a detailed evaluation of technical configurations, sender reputation, list quality, and engagement patterns. While various platforms offer diagnostic insights, a truly comprehensive assessment often benefits from expert guidance to interpret complex data and identify root causes of delivery issues. The ultimate goal is to optimize email performance by addressing foundational elements and refining sending strategies based on detailed findings.
Key opinions
- Technical Foundation & Authentication: Verifying correct DNS records, including MX, SPF, DKIM, and reverse DNS (PTR), is paramount. Audits confirm that DMARC policies are published and configured accurately, and test email headers to identify any misconfigurations that could lead to rejections.
- Reputation & Blacklist Monitoring: Thorough checks of IP and domain reputation are conducted using tools like Gmail Postmaster Tools, Microsoft SNDS, and MX Toolbox. This involves cross-referencing against major blocklists to identify any compromised standing, and ensuring sending IP addresses have a clean history.
- List Hygiene & Quality: A critical component is the evaluation of list acquisition methods to ensure opt-in compliance and to avoid purchased lists. This includes proactive identification and removal of spam traps, invalid, and inactive email addresses through consistent cleaning and validation processes.
- Content Analysis & Engagement: Email content is scrutinized for potential spam triggers, while engagement metrics, such as open and click rates, are analyzed to gauge subscriber interest. High bounce rates or spam complaints signal underlying issues in content relevance or list health, prompting deeper investigation into specific rejection reasons.
- Sending Practices & Infrastructure: The audit reviews consistent sending volume and bounce management protocols, alongside an assessment of sending infrastructure. Analyzing feedback loop data provides crucial insights into how recipients are interacting with emails, aiding in the adjustment of sending strategies.
- Utilizing Diagnostic Tools: Leveraging a suite of tools like Litmus, Email on Acid, HubSpot's internal analytics, LeanDmarc, and commercial services for list validation provides a multi-faceted view of deliverability. These tools help in gathering technical data and understanding the path of an email.
Key considerations
- Expert Consultation Often Necessary: Given the complexity and the absence of a single universal deliverability score, many experts agree that an in-depth audit frequently requires specialized consultants who can provide nuanced interpretation of the data and tailored recommendations.
- Crucial IT Department Collaboration: Successfully implementing technical recommendations from an audit, such as correcting DNS records or configuring server settings, necessitates close cooperation with the organization's IT team.
- Understanding Data vs. Just Using Tools: While numerous tools offer valuable data, the core challenge lies in understanding what the results signify and translating them into actionable strategies to improve deliverability, rather than just running tests.
- Ongoing Maintenance, Not a One-Time Fix: Email deliverability and sender reputation are dynamic; therefore, an audit should be viewed as part of an ongoing process of monitoring, evaluation, and adaptation, rather than a singular event.
- Leveraging Sample Audits: Some providers offer complimentary sample audits, particularly for list health, which can serve as a valuable initial step to identify major issues like spam traps or invalid emails before committing to a full audit.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests using MxToolbox and Litmus for deliverability checks, noting MxToolbox might be more suitable, and advises connecting with the IT department.
13 Apr 2024 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that an in-depth audit typically requires consultants, as there's no single "score" for deliverability. They suggest getting a quick idea by checking authentication and seed boxes, starting with Hubspot's internal metrics.
17 Jun 2023 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
2 expert opinions
An in-depth email deliverability and reputation audit systematically evaluates a business's email program to optimize inbox placement. It involves scrutinizing sending practices, analyzing technical elements like bounce messages and complaint rates, and meticulously assessing email list hygiene. Understanding the overall reputation of sender IPs and domains is crucial, alongside ensuring proper email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are in place. The audit aims to pinpoint issues affecting email performance, including evaluating subscriber engagement and the quality of email content, leading to actionable improvements.
Key opinions
- Sending Practices & Reputation Analysis: Auditing reviews sending practices and the general reputation of sender IPs and domains. This includes monitoring against blocklists and leveraging feedback loops to understand impact on trust.
- Email Authentication Verification: Ensuring proper configuration and verification of email authentication protocols-SPF, DKIM, and DMARC-is fundamental to establishing and maintaining sender trust with internet service providers.
- List Hygiene & Engagement Assessment: A critical component involves assessing list hygiene and acquisition practices, along with evaluating subscriber engagement metrics, to maintain list health and prevent deliverability issues arising from poor quality data.
- Content Quality & Performance Metrics: Analysis of email content quality for potential spam triggers, combined with close monitoring of bounce messages and complaint rates, helps identify factors impeding inbox delivery and overall email performance.
- Comprehensive Performance Optimization: The audit provides a holistic view by integrating technical, reputational, and behavioral factors, ultimately aiming to pinpoint and resolve deliverability challenges for optimized email performance.
Key considerations
- Holistic Review Required: A successful audit demands a broad examination of all email program facets, from infrastructure to content and recipient interaction, to ensure comprehensive understanding of deliverability.
- Focus on Data Interpretation: Analyzing various metrics, such as bounce rates, complaint rates, and engagement data, is crucial for accurately identifying the root causes of deliverability issues, not just observing symptoms.
- Proactive Issue Identification: The primary goal of an audit is to proactively uncover and address issues impacting inbox placement and overall email campaign effectiveness, enabling timely interventions.
- Continuous Improvement: Email deliverability and sender reputation are dynamic; therefore, findings from an audit should lead to ongoing adjustments and continuous improvements in email sending strategy, rather than a one-time fix.
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource explains that conducting an in-depth email deliverability and reputation audit involves reviewing sending practices, analyzing bounce messages, monitoring complaint rates, assessing list hygiene, ensuring proper email authentication, utilizing feedback loops, and understanding the general reputation of the sender's IP and domain. The audit aims to identify issues affecting inbox placement and overall email performance.
8 Jul 2023 - Spam Resource
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that an in-depth email deliverability audit should assess various factors impacting email performance and sender reputation. Key areas include examining IP and domain reputation, analyzing bounce rates, monitoring spam complaints, evaluating subscriber engagement metrics, verifying email authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), reviewing list acquisition practices, and assessing email content quality to identify potential issues and improve deliverability.
6 Oct 2023 - Word to the Wise
What the documentation says
6 technical articles
An effective in-depth email deliverability and reputation audit relies heavily on analyzing data from various platform-specific tools and dashboards. It involves consistently monitoring key metrics like IP and domain reputation, spam rates, bounce rates, and delivery errors across major email providers such as Google and Microsoft. Furthermore, the audit necessitates a detailed review of message event logs and feedback loop data to uncover patterns in rejections and understand recipient engagement. Utilizing integrated deliverability managers and external reputation checkers like Cisco Talos also provides crucial historical and real-time insights into sending health, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of factors impacting inbox placement.
Key findings
- Platform-Specific Dashboards are Essential: Tools like Google Postmaster Tools, Microsoft SNDS, and AWS SES console provide proprietary data on IP and domain health, spam rates, and delivery issues, which are critical for platform-specific deliverability.
- Comprehensive Metric Monitoring: An audit requires continuous tracking of core sending metrics including bounces, complaints, rejections, and feedback loop data to identify anomalies and assess overall email program health.
- Deep Dive into Message Event Logs: Analyzing detailed message event logs from providers like Postmark and Mimecast is vital for pinpointing exact delivery statuses, understanding rejection reasons, and identifying recurring patterns that signal underlying reputation problems.
- External Reputation Verification: Leveraging public resources such as Cisco Talos Intelligence helps to thoroughly check the historical and current reputation of sending IP addresses and domains for blocklistings or unusual sending activity, which directly impacts deliverability.
- Engagement and Filtering Insights: Tools like AWS Virtual Deliverability Manager offer insights into recipient engagement, while Microsoft SNDS provides data on specific filtering events, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of how emails are handled by ISPs.
Key considerations
- Integrated Tool Utilization: A comprehensive audit demands the use of multiple, integrated tools and platforms, as each offers unique perspectives and data points necessary for a holistic view of deliverability.
- Regular Data Analysis for Trends: Ongoing and routine analysis of dashboard data and reports is crucial to identify emerging trends, detect issues promptly, and make timely adjustments to sending strategies.
- Focus on Pattern Recognition: Beyond just collecting data, the audit emphasizes the identification of patterns in delivery errors, rejections, and complaints to diagnose root causes of reputation and deliverability challenges.
- Proactive Monitoring and Alerts: Setting up notifications for critical sending events like high bounce or complaint rates enables proactive intervention, preventing minor issues from escalating into major deliverability problems.
Technical article
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools Help explains that an in-depth audit involves regularly checking dashboard data like IP reputation, domain reputation, spam rate, feedback loop, and delivery errors to understand deliverability and identify issues.
9 May 2023 - Google Postmaster Tools Help
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft Learn indicates that an audit leveraging SNDS requires checking your IP and domain health, including data on spam complaints, specific filtering events, and blocklists, which are crucial for understanding deliverability to Outlook.com users.
22 Jul 2021 - Microsoft Learn
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