How to fix bad domain reputation and best IP strategy for low volume sender?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 14 Jul 2025
Updated 18 Aug 2025
7 min read
Dealing with a tarnished email sending reputation can feel like an uphill battle, especially when you're a low-volume sender. It's frustrating when your legitimate emails land in the spam folder, impacting crucial communications with your audience. I've seen many businesses struggle with this, often making missteps that further complicate recovery.
The challenge is amplified for those sending fewer emails, as each message carries more weight in shaping your sender identity. This guide will walk through the steps to diagnose and mend a poor domain reputation, and outline the most effective IP strategy specifically for low-volume senders, helping your emails reach the inbox consistently.
Understanding reputation for low-volume senders
Your sender reputation is primarily assessed through two main components: your domain and your IP address. For low-volume senders, both play a critical role, but the impact of each can differ. Domain reputation is tied to your brand's trustworthiness, built over time by recipient engagement and compliance with email best practices. IP reputation, on the other hand, is associated with the specific server or IP address sending your emails.
Mailbox providers (MBPs) use these reputations to decide whether to deliver your emails to the inbox, the spam folder, or reject them outright. A low reputation often leads to poor inbox placement. Understanding how this reputation is perceived is the first step toward recovery.
Google, for instance, provides tools like Google Postmaster Tools (GPT) which offer insights into your domain and IP reputation from Google's perspective. Regularly monitoring these metrics is crucial, as they can reveal issues like high spam rates or blocklisting (blacklisting). You can find more on this in our ultimate guide to Google Postmaster Tools V2.
For comprehensive reputation monitoring, it's also wise to check your domain and IP against common blocklists (blacklists). These lists are maintained by various organizations to identify and block sources of spam and malicious email. Being listed on a major blocklist, even for a short period, can severely impact deliverability. Our in-depth guide to email blocklists provides further details.
Immediate actions to stop the bleeding
The first and most critical step in fixing a bad domain reputation is to stop any sending practices that are causing the problem. If you've been sending cold outreach or to unengaged lists, you need to pause those campaigns immediately. Continuing to send problematic emails will only deepen your reputation hole and make recovery much harder.
After halting problematic sends, a brief pause can allow mailbox providers to rest the resources, as Google sometimes recommends. This doesn't mean stopping all email, but certainly the low-performing or unengaged sends. Use this time to clean your email lists by removing inactive or problematic addresses, and audit your email content for any spam triggers. This is a vital step in recovering from reputation issues.
Before remedial actions
Sending Practices: Continuing cold lead nurturing series to unengaged contacts.
IP Strategy: Inconsistent IP usage, switching between private and shared IPs without proper warming.
Consequences: Near 100% spam folder delivery at Gmail, Microsoft, and Verizon. Bad domain and IP reputation.
While it might seem counterintuitive to pause sending to newly engaged users, a short break (a few days) can be beneficial. However, don't wait too long, as immediate engagement is key for welcome series and transactional emails. The goal is to signal to MBPs that you've addressed the problematic sending and are now focused on positive engagement. This initial reset is crucial for any domain reputation improvement efforts.
Rebuilding domain reputation
Once problematic sending has ceased and your lists are clean, the next step is to rebuild trust. This starts with sending only highly relevant and personalized emails to your most engaged subscribers, such as welcome series or transactional messages. For low-volume senders, quality over quantity is paramount during this phase.
Crucially, ensure your email authentication protocols—SPF, DKIM, and DMARC—are correctly configured. These protocols verify your emails are legitimate and prevent spoofing, significantly boosting your sender reputation. A proper DMARC implementation, for instance, helps ISPs trust your emails. You can refer to our simple guide to DMARC, SPF, and DKIM for setup.
Gradually increase your sending volume, starting with your most engaged segments and slowly expanding. This IP warming process builds a positive sending history with mailbox providers. Avoid sudden spikes in volume, as this can trigger spam filters and set back your recovery. The time it takes to recover domain reputation can vary, but consistency is key.
IP strategy for low-volume senders
For low-volume senders (e.g., 30,000 emails per month, or around 1,000 per day), the choice between a shared IP pool and a dedicated IP is crucial. A dedicated IP generally requires a much higher daily volume, often 500,000 emails or more, to maintain a consistent and positive reputation. With low volume on a dedicated IP, your sends are too infrequent to establish a strong, steady reputation, making you vulnerable to fluctuating deliverability.
If your volume remains low, a shared IP pool from a reputable Email Service Provider (ESP) is often the less risky option. The ESP's other clients contribute to the overall reputation of the shared IPs, helping to stabilize it. While you might be affected by others' bad sending, a good ESP actively manages their shared pools to mitigate this risk. Our article on deliverability issues for very low volume transactional emails covers this in more detail.
IP strategy for low-volume senders
Shared IP Pool: Often better for volumes under 500,000 emails per day. Reputable ESPs manage shared IPs, distributing risk and leveraging collective sending volume for stability.
Dedicated IP: Requires significant, consistent volume (e.g., 500k+/day) to maintain reputation. Low volume can lead to reputation decay and inconsistent deliverability.
Warming Process: Regardless of IP type, new sending patterns or IPs need gradual warming to build trust. Start with small, highly engaged segments.
If you're transitioning from a cold dedicated IP or shared pool, a proper IP warming strategy is vital. This involves sending progressively larger volumes of email to engaged recipients over several weeks to build a positive sending history. This helps mailbox providers, including Gmail and Outlook, learn to trust your sending patterns.
Conclusion
Fixing a bad domain reputation and implementing the right IP strategy for a low-volume sender is a marathon, not a sprint. It requires patience, consistent application of best practices, and close monitoring of your performance metrics. By focusing on engaged audiences, ensuring proper authentication, and choosing an IP strategy aligned with your sending volume, you can rebuild trust and achieve reliable inbox placement.
Remember, email deliverability is a dynamic field. Continuous monitoring and adaptation to new challenges are key to long-term success. Prioritizing recipient experience will always be your best defense against reputation issues.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Always prioritize sending to highly engaged subscribers, especially when recovering reputation to demonstrate positive sender behavior.
Ensure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are properly configured for your domain to authenticate emails and build trust with mailbox providers.
Maintain a clean email list by regularly removing inactive, unengaged, or bounced addresses to improve overall deliverability and engagement metrics.
If you are a low-volume sender, a shared IP from a reputable ESP is generally safer than a dedicated IP, as it benefits from pooled reputation.
Common pitfalls
Continuing to send emails to cold, unengaged, or purchased lists will severely damage your domain and IP reputation, leading to spam folder delivery.
Switching between dedicated and shared IPs frequently without proper warming or understanding volume requirements can destabilize your sender reputation.
Ignoring Google Postmaster Tools or other reputation monitoring insights can lead to missed opportunities for early intervention on deliverability issues.
Sending sudden, large volumes of email after a period of low activity or bad reputation will trigger spam filters and cause further blocks.
Expert tips
Marketer from Email Geeks says that the domain reputation is primarily impacted by spam complaints and low engagement, so addressing these directly is crucial.
Expert from Email Geeks notes that low sending volume (e.g., 30k/month) is often too low for a dedicated IP to maintain a stable and healthy reputation.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests that Google often recommends 'resting the resources' (pausing problematic sending) to allow reputation to cool down.
Expert from Email Geeks advises that while a brief pause is good, don't wait too long to send to newly opted-in subscribers, as engagement drops quickly.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says the bad domain reputation is directly caused by sending spam, making it the first issue to tackle.
2020-05-27 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks mentions that you cannot fix a domain reputation by continuing to send spam, so stopping the spam is the essential first step.
rest the resources, as Google sometimes recommends. This doesn't mean stopping all email, but certainly the low-performing or unengaged sends. Use this time to clean your email lists by removing inactive or problematic addresses, and audit your email content for any spam triggers. This is a vital step in recovering from reputation issues.
