How Email Sender Reputation Impacts Inbox Placement - Mailgun

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1. The more that people open, read, click, respond to, and forward your messages, the more apparent it is to mailbox providers that your campaigns belong in the inbox. On the other hand, if your emails are being ignored, deleted, or people are unsubscribing in droves, mailbox providers will assume you belong in the junk folder. “Segmentation and personalization lead to more relevant emails, and A/B testing helps you discover what your subscribers are most likely to engage with.” In the end, it’s all connected. Cleaning up your email list to remove inactive subscribers and sending more personalized, targeted emails results in higher email engagement rates. Making it easy to unsubscribe removes people who don’t want your emails from the equation as well.

   In Email sequence performance analysis

2. IP reputation and domain reputation “So, decisions concerning your email sending infrastructure can impact deliverability.” In general, your domain reputation reflects the history of your organization’s digital trustworthiness. In a way, it’s connected to brand reputation. Your IP reputation reflects recent sending practices, and it may be shared with others on the same sending IP.

   In SMTP and email API providers

3. While it’s good to see more attention in these areas, senders shouldn’t lose sight of the importance of email engagement and how it relates to sender reputation. Engagement is a measurable factor you can work to continuously improve, especially through email marketing efforts. “The more that people open, read, click, respond to, and forward your messages, the more apparent it is to mailbox providers that your campaigns belong in the inbox.” 12.8% of senders chose personalization and segmentation as a tactic to improve their sender reputation score. 5.8% picked A/B testing. Even though these options landed lower on the list, they can also help you improve your engagement metrics to boost sender reputation. Segmentation and personalization lead to more relevant emails, and A/B testing helps you discover what your subscribers are most likely to engage with.

   In Engagement-based deliverability

4. Mailbox providers are judging you – sizing you up as a sender and deciding if your emails are inbox worthy or deserve to end up in spam. Your goal is to stay on their good side, which means thinking about your email sender reputation. “Mailbox providers like Gmail and Outlook pay attention to your sending practices and use sophisticated algorithms to assess your reputation.” 25.5%

   In Sender reputation

5. Use of these services is much more common among the highest volume senders. More than 63% of those sending over one million emails per month use Postmaster Tools while nearly one-third use Microsoft SNDS. Just over 11% of the largest senders use Yahoo’s service, which is newer in comparison and is adding features for senders. “This is a system that notifies senders when recipients mark emails as spam.” Postmaster Tools and SNDS also offer information on IP and domain reputation as well as email authentication, delivery errors, and more.

   In Spam complaint management

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