In email marketing, sender reputation is important for ensuring your emails reach customer inboxes. For small businesses, this is one of those things that is hard to know and understand. The short version is there are a few things that impact your “reputation” as someone who sends mass emails. If you have a “bad reputation” then email service providers like Gmail, Hotmail/Outlook, and Yahoo will not deliver your emails or they’ll deliver them to spam folders.
Sender reputation is a score determined by email service providers (ESPs) based on various factors, including bounce rates, sender history, engagement rates, unsubscribe rates, spam complaints, and spam traps. A high sender reputation increases the likelihood of your emails being delivered, while a low reputation can lead to your emails being marked as spam or not delivered at all.
What is email sender reputation?
Email sender reputation is the score reflecting how trustworthy your emails are. It is influenced by both your IP and domain reputations. Your IP reputation is tied to the IP address used to send emails, while your domain reputation is specific to your business’s domain. Both of these scores play a significant role in your overall sender reputation, impacting your email deliverability rates.
Key factors affecting sender reputation
- Bounce rates: High bounce rates, especially hard bounces, indicate issues with your email list’s validity.
- Sender history: Consistently sending high volumes of emails can signal spamming behaviour.
- Engagement: Low open and click rates suggest poor engagement, affecting your reputation negatively.
- Unsubscribe rates: High unsubscribe rates may imply that your emails are unwelcome or irrelevant to recipients.
- Spam complaints: Frequent spam complaints can severely damage your sender reputation.
- Spam traps: These are used by ISPs to identify and block spammers. Sending emails to spam traps can lead to being blacklisted.
Improving and maintaining a good sender reputation
To enhance your email deliverability, consider the following strategies:
- Maintain a clean email list: Regularly update your email list to remove invalid addresses. Use double opt-in methods to ensure subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails.
- Focus on engagement: Craft engaging and relevant content that encourages recipients to open and interact with your emails.
- Avoid spam trigger words: Words like “free” can trigger spam filters. Use them judiciously and in the right context.
- Monitor deliverability: Keep an eye on your email deliverability rates and take corrective action if you notice any decline.
Impact on email deliverability:
A strong sender reputation ensures that your emails are more likely to reach your subscribers’ inboxes. Conversely, a poor sender score increases the chances of your emails being filtered into the spam folder. It’s essential to build and maintain a good sender reputation to maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
Don’t mess with your sender reputation
For small businesses relying on email marketing, maintaining a positive sender reputation is vital for effective communication with customers. By understanding and managing the factors that influence your sender score, you can improve your email deliverability, engage your audience better, and achieve your marketing goals.
Source: We pulled this information from MailChimp to give you the basics but you can review the entire, detailed post on their site: Mailchimp’s website.