Email reputation reflects how trustworthy your email-sending practices appear to internet service providers (ISPs) and recipients. Built on a foundation of key components like IP reputation, domain reputation, and content quality, your email reputation shapes whether your emails land in the inbox or the spam folder.
While email reputation focuses on these core elements, it is also supported by broader aspects of your infrastructure, such as authentication protocols, compliance with regulations, and proper server configuration.
In this guide, we’ll explore what email reputation means, why it matters, and how to build and maintain a strong reputation to ensure your emails reach their intended audience.
What is email reputation?
Email reputation is a measure of how trustworthy your email-sending practices are, determined by evaluating key factors such as IP reputation, domain reputation, and content quality. It plays a crucial role in deciding whether your emails successfully reach recipients' inboxes or are flagged as spam.
Importance of IP and domain reputation
Both IP reputation and domain reputation are foundational to your overall email reputation and play a critical role in determining your email deliverability. Your IP reputation is the checkpoint for email service providers (ESPs) when deciding whether to deliver your email to the inbox, spam folder, or block it entirely. If your IP address has a history of sending spammy emails, it will lower your IP reputation, significantly impacting your ability to reach recipients.
Similarly, domain reputation is equally important and can affect your email deliverability even if you switch your IP address. ESPs assess the overall history and behavior of your domain to determine if your emails are trustworthy.
These two elements—IP reputation and domain reputation—are closely interconnected and work together to form the backbone of your email sender reputation.
Factors affecting email reputation
Various factors influence email reputation. Understanding these can help you maintain a decent email reputation and ensure your emails reach their intended recipients. Here are the key factors that affect email reputation:
1. Content quality
The content of your emails plays a significant role in your reputation. Avoid using spammy language, excessive images, and misleading subject lines. High-quality, relevant content can improve your engagement rates and, consequently, your email reputation.
By monitoring these factors, you can improve your email reputation and ensure your messages reach your audience effectively.
2. Spam complaints rate
When recipients mark your email as spam, it negatively impacts your email reputation. High complaint rates signal to email service providers (ESPs) that your emails are unwanted, damaging your reputation.
3. Bounce rate
A high bounce rate indicates the number of emails sent to invalid addresses. This can happen due to outdated email lists or incorrect email addresses. High bounce rates suggest poor list management practices, which can hurt your email reputation.
4. Email volume
Consistency in your email sending volume is crucial. Sudden spikes in email volume can be suspicious to ESPs and may signal that your account is compromised. That's why brands warm up their domains to gradually increase their email volume over time, establishing a trustworthy sending pattern.
5. Engagement rates
High engagement rates, such as open and click-through rates, indicate that recipients find your emails valuable. ESPs use engagement metrics to determine if your emails should be delivered to the inbox or the spam folder for individual recipients.
6. Blacklist status
Being listed on email blacklists can drastically reduce your email reputation. Regularly monitor blacklists and take immediate action if you find your IP or domain listed.
7. Spam trap hits
Spam traps are email addresses designed to catch senders with poor list management practices. Hitting a spam trap is a clear sign of inadequate list hygiene, such as sending emails to outdated or unauthorized addresses. This can significantly harm your email reputation, signaling to ISPs that your practices may not be trustworthy.
8. Email authentication protocols
Implementing email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC helps verify that your emails are legitimate. Proper authentication can enhance your email reputation and increase email deliverability.
Monitoring your email reputation
Monitoring your email reputation is like maintaining your car—regular check-ups can help prevent bigger issues. While these tools can’t directly measure your email reputation, they can provide insights into related metrics, helping you gauge its health.
Google Postmaster
One of the best tools for monitoring your email reputation is Google Postmaster. Google offers this free tool to help you assess your domain and IP reputation and other key metrics like sender score, spam rate, and encrypted traffic. Google Postmaster provides an IP reputation lookup for your domain, which is particularly beneficial for Gmail users. It offers detailed insights and reports to help you enhance your domain's reputation, making it invaluable if your audience primarily uses Gmail.
Yahoo Postmaster
Yahoo Postmaster is a tool that helps email senders monitor and improve their sender reputation with Yahoo Mail. By signing up for Yahoo Postmaster, senders can gain valuable insights into their email deliverability performance, including metrics such as spam complaint rates, hard bounce rates, and overall reputation status (e.g., Good, Neutral, or Poor).
Microsoft SNDS
Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) is a tool Microsoft provides to help email senders monitor and improve their sender reputation when delivering to Microsoft domains like Outlook, Hotmail, and Live. SNDS offers valuable insights into key metrics, such as the spam complaint rate, the sending reputation of your IP address, and activity involving Microsoft spam traps.
Mailtrap
Mailtrap is a useful tool for testing emails before sending them live. It captures email traffic from your staging and development environments, allowing you to test your emails in a safe environment. With Mailtrap, you can automate testing using its flexible API. It also checks your email content for spam, verifies HTML and CSS, and makes it easy to share test emails with your team.
Litmus
Litmus is a third party email testing and analytics platform designed to optimize email campaigns. It allows you to preview how your emails will appear across different devices and email clients, ensuring they render correctly. Litmus also provides spam filter testing, analytics on email engagement, and in-depth insights into the performance of your campaigns. This makes it an invaluable tool for improving email deliverability, identifying potential issues before sending, and enhancing overall email reputation.
MyEmailVerifier
MyEmailVerifier is a third party tool tool that verifies email addresses to ensure they are accurate and deliverable for your marketing efforts. It checks email syntax and domains in real time and can handle bulk verifications. Integrated with APIs, it seamlessly fits into your applications, boosting email deliverability and campaign effectiveness. Detailed reports help you make informed decisions, making maintaining a clean and effective email list easier.
Talos Intelligence
Talos Intelligence, a robust IP and domain reputation tool by Cisco, is one of the most comprehensive third party softwares for monitoring your email reputation, sender score, domain reputation, and IP reputation. By entering your IP, domain, or network owner details, this tool provides real-time threat data and generates a detailed report on your domain's performance using its extensive database.
Email reputation audit checklist
Avoid buying email lists and instead build your list organically through genuine sign-ups.
Regularly remove inactive subscribers to maintain a healthy list.
Gradually increase your sending volume to build your domain reputation.
Respect unsubscribe requests promptly to maintain trust.
Be clear and honest with subject lines to avoid frustrating recipients.
Adhere to major email providers' guidelines to ensure proper deliverability.
You can also watch the expert discussion below to learn all about the new email sender guidelines for Google and Yahoo.
Improve email reputation with Mailmodo
Maintaining good email deliverability can be challenging, but it's achievable with the right approach.
When SBNRI, a fintech company, started sending emails from a new domain, they experienced lower deliverability, which led to a lower open rate and a drop in domain reputation.
After consulting with Mailmodo’s deliverability experts, the team identified poor list hygiene and high spam complaints. Here’s how we helped them:
Segmented active contacts from their email list
Sent daily warmup emails, managing the frequency and volume
Suppressed invalid and bounced emails
Our team also assisted with setting up email authentication and measuring campaign performance.
Read the full case study here!
With Mailmodo, you’ll have expert guidance at every step to improve your email reputation and ensure your emails land in your recipient's inbox. Don’t wait to boost your campaign’s performance!
Escape the spam folder with managed deliverability
Conclusion
Improving your email reputation involves adhering to guidelines and nurturing trust and engagement with your audience. It is essential to monitor your domain and IP reputation regularly. Understanding the factors influencing email reputation and using an audit checklist helps maintain a positive sender reputation.
High deliverability means a strong email sender reputation that indicates adherence to best practices. This results in enhanced email performance, increased revenue, and greater lead generation.
