The Importance of Sender Reputation And What You Can Do To Boost It

Your reputation matters.  Not just to how people view you or your business, but how ESPs and ISPs view your email marketing campaigns.  If your email sender reputation is bad (regardless of content) your email deliverability and profitability will suffer.

Email sender reputation is one of the most important aspects to any email marketing business, or any business for that matter, that relies on email communications to customers or prospects.  And it’s an aspect that you have almost full control over if you implement the right practices and tools we provide at EmailOversight.

You see, email service providers (ESP) and internet service providers (ISP) are keeping score of every email you send.  Their algorithms are designed to either boost or crush your in-boxing efforts and are based on a handful of important factors.  Factors you can control.

Now, each ISP and ESP will score your emails differently.  And your sender reputation is based upon these scores.  Some ESPs like Gmail may in-box the exact email that Yahoo! won’t.  So it’s important to know how to increase your sender reputation across the board… to get in-boxed by everyone.

Here’s what the algorithms are looking for when they score you:

Is your business receiving a lot of SPAM complaints?

Are your records single opt-in… double?

Are your subscribers opening, replying, clicking or engaging in any other friendly fashion?

Do your emails have a high bounce rate?

Have you introduced a bulk list to your email efforts?

Are your emails hitting SPAM traps?

Are you sending emails from a blacklisted server or domain?

ESP’s and ISP’s know the answer to these questions… and so should you.  But simply knowing the answers won’t get you in-boxed.  Fixing any problem issues, however, can.

Here’s what you can do:

Obviously, SPAM complaints are bad news.  But did you know you can remove subscribers from your lists who are known complainers?  Before they hit the dreaded SPAM button?

By utilizing the tools at EmailOversight, you can actually eliminate known complainers as they come into your list, before you ever send them a single email.  Eliminating problem subscribers, before they become a problem, will help your sender reputation.

You want your subscribers to open and engage with your emails.  Having clean, purposeful subject lines that raise curiosity can help your opens, but you’ll need great content to garner clicks.  Keep your email content on point and fun.  And be sure you’re sending your emails to recipients who are interested in the content to begin with.  Segment your lists and send appropriate content to the appropriate segments.

Eliminate hard bounces and watch your soft bounces.  Having a well cleaned list, one that continually removes hard bounces and sequesters soft bounces, will increase the percentage of emails that are actually deliverable.  Your sender reputation relies on hygiene.  Bad or fake records should be removed immediately.

Now, if you’ve uploaded a bulk email list be careful.  Even if you’ve purchased another company’s legitimate email lists and assets, bulk uploads can cause major problems.  These lists are often loaded with complainers, bad or fake records and SPAM traps.  Before sending, go through a thorough list hygiene with EmailOversight to validate and verify all the data you’ve purchased.

With lists you’ve built yourself, you still have to remove SPAM traps.  These are “undercover” email addresses used by ESPs and ISPs to monitor your email campaigns.  Their real purpose is to check if you’re keeping your lists clean.  Comply.  Be sure to have every SPAM trap removed, and monitor your lists to be sure new traps are not infiltrating your lists.

Finally, check to see if you’re on any blacklists.  Not just your email server, but your domain server as well.  Even if you’ve been a “best practices” email sender, you may find yourself blacklisted, and it’s not your fault.  If you don’t know who you’re sharing a server with, it may come back to bight you.

At EmailOversight, we can scrub your lists clean, help remove SPAM issues, get your sender reputation up to where it deserves to be, and get your emails in-boxed.

Our “best in show” tools will  allow you to grow your revenues and profits faster than you thought possible.  And our API allows you to do it seamlessly.  See all that EmailOversight can do for your business, you may be surprised how easy boosting your sender reputation and profitability really is.