It’s vital to know how to check email sender reputation, because an email sender reputation score is one of the most important factors that determines how many of your campaign emails are delivered to recipient inboxes. Email senders with a good reputation will have a high delivery rate, while those with a poor reputation will see their emails blocked or sent to spam folders. In this post, I’ll explain how email sender reputation score is calculated, and what ISPs look for when evaluating it, and finally how to check email sender reputation. If you want to avoid your email going to the spam box, or worse, blocked altogether, then this post is for you!
Email Sender Reputation Score Determination
Your score is calculated based on a number of factors, also including: UBE (unwanted bulk email), bounce rates, and spam complaints. ISPs use these criteria to evaluate email sender reputation and determine whether or not to deliver emails from a particular sender.
Other aspects are also used to calculate your sender reputation score. For example if your emails are not opened by enough recipients, email from you could eventually be diverted to recipient spam boxes instead. This is why it’s important to ensure you leverage the following:
Use Double Opt-In
Double opt-in is a process by which email recipients must confirm their subscription to an email list before they start receiving email messages from that list. It’s a good way to ensure that email addresses on your list are valid and that people actually want to receive your email messages.
The double opt-in process usually works like this:
A person subscribes to your email list by filling out a form on your website.
The person receives an email from you with a link to confirm their subscription.
The person clicks the link in the email, which takes them back to your website.
Once they click the link, they are added to your email list and start receiving your email messages.
While double opt-in does require an extra step for email subscribers, it’s worth it because it helps to ensure that your email list is full of people who actually want to receive your email messages. This, in turn, will help you to avoid high bounce rates and spam complaints, which can negatively impact your email sender reputation score.
Use a Good Email Service Provider
A good email service provider (ESP) can be a valuable asset when it comes to maintaining a good email sender reputation score. ESPs can help you to avoid high bounce rates and spam complaints by providing features like email list cleaning and deliverability monitoring. They can also provide helpful resources and support if you run into any email delivery issues.
If you’re serious about maintaining a good email sender reputation, then it’s worth investing in a good ESP. Not only will they help you to avoid some of the pitfalls that can damage your reputation, but they can also provide valuable resources and support if you need it.
Consider Your Email Content
The content of your email messages can also impact your email sender reputation score. If you’re sending email messages that are full of spammy keywords or that are otherwise not relevant to your subscribers, then you’re more likely to end up in the recipient’s spam folder. To avoid this, make sure that your email content is relevant and helpful to your subscribers.
Great content, with a compelling subject line also helps improve the open rate, so ISPs will be less likely to push your email to spam.
Use a Dedicated IP Address
If you want your email messages to have a good reputation, you can use a special address for sending email. This is called a ‘dedicated IP address’. When you use this address, your email messages will look like they come from the same place all the time. This will help your email messages have a good reputation.
To get a dedicated IP address, you need to ask your email service provider. They will give you an IP address that is only used by your email messages. This is different from the IP address that is used by your website.
A dedicated IP address also improves your email sender reputation score, because you are not effected by other people using the same IP address (as you’ll be the only one using it).
Domain Reputation vs IP Reputation
Domain reputation is a measure of the email sender’s trustworthiness, based on the email server’s (domain) sending history. Domain reputation is also determined by evaluating the email server’s sending practices and email domains.
IP reputation, on the other hand, is a measure of the email sender’s trustworthiness, based on the present and past IP behaviour of the server. IP reputation is determined by evaluating the email server’s sending IP addresses.
Domain reputation is more important than IP reputation (in my opinion), since it takes into account the email sender’s past behavior. However, both domain and IP reputation are used to determine the email sender’s trustworthiness.
What ISPs Look For in an Email Sender
When determining whether or not to deliver email messages to the recipient’s inbox, ISPs will look at the email sender’s reputation, evaluating the email sender’s domain reputation and IP reputation.
They will also look at other factors, such as the content of the email message, the email sender’s past behavior, and whether or not the email message is likely to be spam. Including monitoring the engagement rate of your emails.
By taking all of these factors into account, ISPs can usually make a good decision about whether or not to deliver email messages to the recipient’s inbox.
How to Improve Email Sender Reputation Score
Email sender reputation score is an important factor for email marketers. A high email sender reputation score means that email messages are more likely to be delivered to the recipient’s inbox, while a low email sender reputation score means that email messages are more likely to be sent to the spam folder or blocked altogether.
There are several additional things email marketers can do to improve their score…
Avoid Spammy Keywords
Some of the most common spammy keywords in email are: “free”, “sale”, “buy now”, and “click here”. Avoid using these words in your email content, as they will likely cause your email messages to be flagged as spam. In the same sense, avoid mentioning large sums of money, or investment opportunities.
Monitor Email Engagement Rate
As mentioned above… ISPs monitor email engagement rates in order to determine whether or not email messages are being opened and read by recipients. A high email engagement rate means that email messages are more likely to be delivered to the recipient’s inbox, while a low email engagement rate means that email messages are more likely to be sent to the spam folder or blocked altogether.
Provide Unsubscribe Options
Another way to improve your email sender reputation score is to provide an unsubscribe option for email recipients. This allows email recipients to easily remove themselves from your email list, and shows that you respect their wishes.
By providing an unsubscribe option, you are also indicating that you are a responsible email marketer who follows email best practices. This is something ISPs look for when determining email sender reputation.
How to Check Email Sender Reputation
Knowing how to check email sender reputation is “must have” knowledge for the success of your current and future email marketing campaigns. The delivery rate for your email declines very quickly, the lower the score goes. For example, according to Sender Score’s Average Delivered Rate (the below taken from their PDF report):
- Scores from 91 – 100 have a 91% delivery rate.
- Scores from 81 – 90 have a 71% delivery rate.
- Scores from 71 – 80 have a 44% delivery rate.
- Scores from 61 – 70 have a 28% delivery rate.
If you’re an email marketer, then it’s important to keep track of your email sender reputation score. This number is a measure of how trustworthy your email messages appear to ISPs, and can have a big impact on how many of your emails are delivered to the recipient’s inbox.
There are several ways you can explore to learn how to check email sender reputation. Below are two popular resources, that I regularly use:
Talos Intelligence
Your reputation will be graded using one of three grades (instead of a number score) for your mail relayer’s IP address, which might keep things a bit simpler:
1) Good
“Good” means the risk of this (your) address’s harmful actions is minor.
2) Neutral
“Neutral” means your risk level is generally fair, but some of your email messages are going to be filtered (sent to spam, blocked, etc.)
3) Poor
“Poor” means that your risk level is not good, and your email messages are likely not going to reach recipient inboxes.
Sender Score
This is another free resource, which also rates your sending IP address. They use the full score range (0 – 100). All you need to do is create a free account and then follow the prompts on their scoring tool.
Alternative Methods on How to Check Email Sender Reputation
Another way to know how to check email sender reputation is to contact your ESP provider directly and ask them for feedback. This can be a good way to get detailed information about why your score may be low, and what you can do to improve it.
Knowing how to check email sender reputation is an important skill for email marketers to leverage. By understanding how it is calculated and what ISPs look for, you can make sure that your emails are more likely to be delivered to the recipient’s inbox.
Conclusion
Your email sender reputation score is a critical factor in email deliverability. If you want to make sure your email reaches the inbox, you need to know how to check email sender reputation; then you need to take steps to improve your email sender reputation score. By following the tips in this post, you can improve your email sender reputation and help ensure that your messages are delivered to the inbox.
You can learn much more about how to check email sender reputation, by visiting our Small Business Email Marketing posts. As well as find out further about Email Sender Reputation.