Email Sender Reputation – why is important in 2020

The sender’s reputation (or rating) is the main criteria that affects the hit of emails in the Inbox folder (not the spam one). As in life, goodies are forgiven for minor misdeeds like a couple of uppercase words, but from the spam filters’ point of view, even perfect letters can easily get into spam if their sender has managed to undermine their trust. As they say, first you work for your reputation, then it works for you.

“Strengthen Spam Control

Email marketing, despite all the machinations of ill-wishers, is developing and in the coming years is not going to leave the leading position in strengthening the relations of companies with customers. But if 10 years ago, quantity successfully replaced quality, then in 2019 you will have to abandon unsystematic mailings. Times have changed, as have consumer preferences.

Marketers already know that it makes no sense to send emails to people who do not want to receive them. Give subscribers the right to start at the start to choose the subject of newsletters that will come in their mailboxes. Do not send them tons of junk mail. This causes only negative and spam complaints. Thus, everyone will be satisfied. Subscribers receive only those letters that they need, and you are the loyal attitude of customers towards the company and the brand.
One of the important moment in email marketing campaign it’s bulk email verification, do not forget about this step.”

 

What affects the rating

The sender’s rating is counted by email services to determine from who you should receive emails, and from who you shouldn’t. Algorithms that determine the rating are as carefully concealed as the algorithms for indexing websites. Each provider has its own way. The rating is affected by dozens of parameters, and here is a few of them:

• IP address or domain presence in blacklists;
• spam complaints;
• the number of non-existent addresses and the presence of spam traps in the database;
• amount of emails that were deleted without reading;
• the mailings regularity;
• programs or scripts used to send the newsletter;
• email content and links in the text;
• percentage of openings and clicks;
• replies to an email and forwarding of the message.

Reputation is a fickle thing. For each newsletter, the sender score might improve or worsen. To do this, the sender is identified by the IP address and domain from which messages were sent.

Rating = domain’s rating + IP addresses rating

It may seem that if you change your domain and IP, you will have a clean reputation again. But it’s not that simple. Providers keep a history of newsletters. And if you send emails that have damaged your rating from a new IP and domain, you will be tracked down quickly. 

How to track your reputation in Gmail Postmaster

Main indicators:

• IP rating

• Domain rating

It is pretty convenient that Google splits the positive and negative IP and domain ratings. You can immediately understand where the problems occurred when one of the indicators is reduced. The downside is that only those who send at least 200-500 emails a day to Google mailboxes can see the statistics.

What to do if your reputation goes down

Let’s imagine that the worst thing happened. While checking statistics in the postmaster, you noticed negative changes in rating indicators. To correct the situation, follow these steps:

1. Analyze your actions for the last few newsletters. Go through the criteria that affect your rating and think about what might have lowered your rating. Have you uploaded a new email list of unknown origin? Have you changed the subject of your mailings dramatically (for example, you made newsletters about fishing, and now you have decided to change the theme to beauty products).
2. Go through the postmaster records. Maybe there is a large percentage of complaints and unsubscribes in any of the recent mailings? A sharp change in the number of delivered and opened emails? If there is such a mailing list, see how it differs from the rest and why it might not be liked by email providers.
3. Fix the mistakes. If the reason is found in the list of subscribers or sent emails, correct it and do not repeat it in future newsletters.
4. Contact tech support. If the drop in rating remains a mystery to you after the analysis, contact technical support for help. Email providers are always trying to give a hand to good senders.

Reputation does not fall just like that, there are always some reasons. To prevent this, it’s enough not to do things that can spoil it. This applies to both the recipient database and the emails themselves. Remember that it is much easier to maintain than to restore it, email sender rating score never soars as fast as it can fall.  Here are a few rules to help you do this.

3 reputation points of growth

1. Ask the postmaster support team to analyze the mailing list and make recommendations for improving it. You may not get an answer, but it will only be a plus for your reputation.
2. Add the “Report Spam” button to the email, clicking on it will mean unsubscribing. You won’t reduce unsubscribe rates though, but some of the dissatisfied subscribers will click this button instead of the button in the mail service, and the number of complaints will decrease.
3. And finally, the most important, but the most difficult advice — improve the content of the emails. Always think about what your subscribers want to get, and what problems you can help them solve using the newsletter. When emails are waiting at the other end, this not only ensures an impeccable reputation but also helps turn subscribers into customers.

Proofy team wishes you good luck in your email marketing efforts!