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How Email Sender Reputation Impacts Inbox Placement - Mailgun
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For example, email campaigns and newsletters come from marketing.yourcompany.com while transactional messages are sent from orders.yourcompany.com. Transactional emails are much less likely to be marked as spam since they are expected and highly relevant. It’s also important that transactional messages avoid the spam folder as they usually contain timely information recipients want and expect. “Using different subdomains for promotional and transactional emails helps distinguish different domain reputation for those mail streams.” Do you use subdomains to separate transactional and promotional email traffic?
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.
While Gmail, Outlook, and others may not publish sender reputation scores, there are services that help you keep track of the factors that influence them. That includes Google Postmaster Tools for the Gmail ecosystem, Microsoft SNDS for Outlook, and the Yahoo Sender Hub. “However, when we asked senders in our survey if they use these services, adoption was quite low. Nearly 70% of respondents are not using any of the three services from major mailbox providers to monitor sender reputation. The most used was Google Postmaster Tools at 28%.” 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.
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.
Key findings on email sender reputation “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.” Sender reputation is often compared to a credit score. Mailbox providers like Gmail and Outlook pay attention to your sending practices and use sophisticated algorithms to assess your reputation. Are you trustworthy? Are your messages anticipated and important? Or would “junk” be an accurate way to describe what’s being sent?
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%
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.
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.