How can I improve email deliverability and open rates for a client with a bad domain reputation, especially with Gmail, and what strategies should I use for unengaged users?

Key findings

• Gmail focus: A client with a poor Gmail Postmaster Tools reputation and sub-10% open rates on Gmail accounts indicates that Gmail is the primary deliverability challenge, even if other domains perform better on smaller scales. Focusing efforts on improving Gmail's perception of your sending practices is critical to recovering Gmail email deliverability.
• Authentication baseline: Correctly authenticating email (SPF, DKIM, DMARC implied) is a fundamental first step to legitimize your sending domain. Without proper authentication, even good sending practices will struggle for inbox placement.
• List hygiene: Cleaning email lists and restricting sending to recently engaged users are crucial for improving deliverability, especially when dealing with a history of poor engagement. This helps in diagnosing and improving email deliverability and open rates.
• Unengaged users: Users unengaged for 30+ days, especially in industries with high churn (like apartment finding), are challenging to re-engage and can significantly drag down overall open rates and domain reputation if emailed indiscriminately. Consider if these users have naturally disengaged because the service is no longer relevant.
• Shared IP blacklisting: While blacklistings on specific, less influential blocklists (like Backscatterer, Sorbs new, Sorbs spam) might not directly affect Gmail delivery, general blocklist monitoring and understanding how email blacklists actually work is important for overall sender health. However, a bad domain reputation with Gmail often stems from engagement metrics, not these specific blocklists.

Key considerations

• Gradual re-engagement: When expanding beyond highly engaged segments, do so very slowly and incrementally. Aggressive expansion can quickly reverse any reputation gains.
• Subdomain strategy: Warming up a new marketing-specific subdomain is a valid strategy, but it requires significant time and patience. Some instances suggest it might be more effective to rebuild reputation on the original domain if warming proves too slow to achieve efficacy.
• Content relevance: For older segments, re-evaluate messaging. Instead of general newsletters, consider targeted campaigns such as Are you still looking? or Would you refer/recommend us? This can improve engagement and signal relevance to ISPs.
• ISP-specific adjustments: Be prepared to adjust sending practices for specific ISPs (e.g., Microsoft, Gmail) based on their unique filtering criteria and your engagement data. Removing non-engaging segments for a particular ISP can sometimes improve overall program engagement.
• Monitoring and feedback: Continuously monitor Google Postmaster Tools domain reputation and other available tools to gauge spam placement and open rates. Act quickly on negative trends.

Key opinions

• Start with basics: Many marketers begin by ensuring all authentication (like SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is correctly set up, followed by rigorous list cleaning to remove unengaged or invalid addresses. These steps are considered non-negotiable for improving deliverability.
• Segment by engagement: A common strategy involves restricting emails to only recently engaged users (e.g., within 30 days) to protect sender reputation while trying to recover. Expanding to less engaged segments should be done cautiously.
• New domain warming challenges: Warming up a new subdomain for marketing can be effective but takes a substantial amount of time. Some marketers have observed that it might be so slow that returning to and fixing the original domain's issues becomes more practical.
• Tailor content to lifecycle: For users who haven't engaged recently, generic newsletters are often ineffective. Marketers suggest re-evaluating messaging to be highly specific and relevant to their current (or perceived) stage, such as asking if they're still looking for a service or if they'd like to opt-down.
• Domain-specific issues: It's important to analyze open rates and deliverability by specific email providers (e.g., Microsoft, Gmail) to identify where the biggest problems lie. Sometimes, it makes sense to adjust sending to domains where engagement is consistently low.
• Understand natural churn: In certain industries, like apartment rentals, a natural decline in engagement after a period (e.g., 30-60 days) is expected as users fulfill their need. Marketers should account for this in their re-engagement strategies and list segmentation.

Key considerations

• Patience with recovery: Rebuilding a bad domain reputation and improving open rates is not an overnight process. It requires consistent effort, monitoring, and adaptation over several months.
• Strategic re-engagement: Before pushing automated campaigns to less engaged users, focus on improving overall engagement with the active segment. Automated campaigns thrive on healthy lists and good sender reputation.
• Monitor spam placement: Actively gauge where emails are landing. Tools that provide insights into inbox versus spam folder placement are invaluable for guiding strategy adjustments.
• Provider support: While not directly deliverability-related, the quality of support from your email service provider (ESP) can significantly impact your ability to troubleshoot and implement deliverability improvements effectively.
• Avoid 'gaming' systems: While removing non-engaging segments can improve metrics, the underlying goal should always be to send relevant content to interested recipients, rather than merely inflating open rates.

Key opinions

• Focus on gmail: If Gmail deliverability is the primary issue, efforts should be almost entirely concentrated on resolving that specific problem. Success with Gmail often translates to broader improvements.
• Radical sending reduction: A critical first step is to drastically reduce sending to Gmail, delivering emails only to those who are highly likely to engage (recent openers, new sign-ups). This helps to quickly send positive signals to Gmail's algorithms.
• User action prompt: Encouraging new sign-ups to actively check their spam folder and move welcome messages to the inbox can provide crucial positive engagement signals directly to Gmail, aiding in reputation recovery.
• Blacklist irrelevance: Certain blocklists (e.g., Backscatterer, Sorbs new, Sorbs spam) are often not influential on major inbox providers like Gmail. Their presence on these lists should not be a primary concern for Gmail deliverability issues.
• Engagement as reputation: Experts consistently reinforce that positive user engagement (opens, clicks) is the most powerful factor in improving and maintaining sender reputation with ISPs. Lack of engagement is a red flag.

Key considerations

• Sustained effort: The recommended period for strict sending policies to rebuild Gmail reputation is typically 2-3 weeks, but sustained effort beyond this is necessary for lasting improvement.
• List segmentation: Continuous, rigorous list segmentation based on engagement levels is not just a recovery tactic but a fundamental ongoing best practice for healthy deliverability.
• Proactive monitoring: Using tools like Google Postmaster Tools is essential for monitoring the impact of changes and understanding Gmail's perception of your sending practices. This provides vital feedback for adjustment.
• Content and cadence: Beyond who you send to, what you send and how often you send it plays a significant role in encouraging engagement and avoiding spam filters. Irrelevant or overly frequent mail can quickly erode trust.
• Authentication foundation: While engagement is key, ensuring foundational elements like DMARC, SPF, and DKIM are correctly configured and aligned is a prerequisite for any deliverability improvement efforts to take hold. You can also use a free DMARC record generator tool to assist with setup.

Key findings

• Reputation monitoring: Documentation from major ISPs like Gmail (via Postmaster Tools) stresses the importance of monitoring your domain and IP reputation scores. These scores are direct indicators of how trusted your sending domain is perceived.
• Authentication standards: Adherence to email authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is consistently highlighted as a baseline requirement. These protocols allow receiving servers to verify the sender's identity and prevent spoofing.
• Engagement signals: User engagement (opens, clicks, replies, non-complaints) is a critical factor explicitly mentioned in guidelines for inbox placement. Low engagement indicates a lack of interest, which can trigger spam filters.
• List quality: Documentation frequently advises on maintaining high list quality through regular cleaning, removing invalid addresses, and avoiding spam traps. High bounce rates or complaint rates are detrimental.
• Sending volume and consistency: New sending IPs or domains should be warmed up gradually to establish a positive sending history. Abrupt spikes in volume or inconsistent sending patterns can be viewed suspiciously.

Key considerations

• Content relevance and quality: Documentation often provides guidelines on email content, advising against spammy characteristics, misleading subject lines, and excessive promotional material. Quality content drives engagement.
• Unsubscribe options: Clear and easy-to-find unsubscribe mechanisms are crucial. Forced engagement or difficulty unsubscribing leads to spam complaints, which severely harm reputation.
• Feedback loops: Utilizing ISP feedback loops allows senders to identify and remove users who mark their emails as spam, which is vital for preventing further damage to sender reputation.
• Compliance with policies: Failing to comply with the bulk sender guidelines of major providers like Google and Yahoo can lead to direct filtering to the spam folder or outright rejection. These policies are regularly updated and must be followed.