Despite high engagement and good sender reputation, email throttling by Gmail and Microsoft can be attributed to a multitude of factors, requiring a comprehensive approach to diagnosis and resolution. These factors range from sender reputation and email content issues to technical configurations and external influences. Specifically, sender reputation can be impacted by past sending practices, infrastructure issues, sudden volume spikes, or sending from newly created IPs without proper warm-up. Email content that contains suspicious keywords, poorly coded HTML, or imbalanced image-to-text ratios can trigger spam filters. Authentication failures, arising from missing or misconfigured SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, raise suspicion with email providers. Poor list hygiene, resulting in high bounce rates or hitting spam traps, degrades deliverability. Moreover, failing to process feedback loops, issues with shared IPs, being listed on blocklists (even temporarily), non-compliance with email formatting standards (RFC 5322), and stringent DMARC policies can all contribute to throttling. Unseen backend triggers, such as infrastructure changes or algorithmic updates on the receiver's end, can also play a role. Effective monitoring using tools like Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS, proactively managing sender reputation, consistently adhering to best practices in email content and list hygiene, implementing robust authentication, and actively resolving delivery issues through postmaster communication are crucial for mitigating throttling.
13 marketer opinions
Despite high engagement and good reputation, email throttling by Gmail and Microsoft can occur due to various factors. These include sender reputation issues (past practices, infrastructure problems), email content (suspicious keywords, poor HTML), authentication problems (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), list hygiene (spam traps, bounce rates), feedback loop processing, shared IP issues, sudden volume spikes, blocklist status, and even infrastructure or algorithmic issues beyond the sender's immediate control. Monitoring tools like Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS are crucial for identifying and addressing these problems.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks mentions that others have reported similar issues in the channel.
1 Dec 2022 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Email marketer from Reddit shares that poor list hygiene, even with engaged subscribers, can cause throttling. This includes sending to old addresses that have become spam traps or high bounce rates. Regular list cleaning is essential.
29 Jun 2023 - Reddit
2 expert opinions
Email throttling by Gmail and Microsoft, despite high engagement and a good reputation, can stem from underlying issues related to infrastructure, security, or non-transparent backend triggers. These issues are not always visible in standard email marketing metrics. Problems with email sending infrastructure, compromised servers, and unusual sending patterns can raise flags, leading to throttling. Algorithmic updates and temporary glitches can also result in delays.
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that throttling can occur for reasons that aren't always transparent. Even with good metrics, there might be backend triggers related to infrastructure changes, algorithm updates, or temporary glitches on the receiving end that cause delays.
23 Nov 2022 - Word to the Wise
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource responds that even with high engagement, problems with email sending infrastructure or security, such as compromised servers or unusual sending patterns from your network, can raise flags and lead to throttling by Gmail and Microsoft.
21 May 2022 - Spam Resource
4 technical articles
Even with high engagement and good reputation, email throttling by Gmail and Microsoft can occur due to issues related to IP reputation, complaint rates, email formatting, and DMARC policy. Maintaining a good IP reputation is essential; sudden volume spikes or sending from new IPs without a warm-up can trigger throttling. Increased complaint rates, even small, can lead to throttling. Non-compliance with email formatting standards (RFC 5322) causes parsing issues. A DMARC policy set to 'quarantine' or 'reject' blocks failing authentication checks. Monitoring SNDS and reviewing DMARC reports are critical.
Technical article
Documentation from RFC Editor explains that non-compliance with email formatting standards outlined in RFC 5322 (and related RFCs) can lead to parsing issues and filtering, potentially resulting in throttling, even with good engagement metrics.
21 Jun 2023 - RFC Editor
Technical article
Documentation from DMARC.org explains that a DMARC policy set to 'quarantine' or 'reject' can cause emails to be throttled or blocked if they fail authentication checks (SPF or DKIM), regardless of engagement. Reviewing DMARC reports is important.
19 Jul 2023 - DMARC.org
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