Email marketing is surprisingly generating the highest ROI of any marketing channel. But do you know, not everyone has the authority to become a successful email marketer until they have a reliable and genuine email sender reputation? 

Email marketing isn’t just about writing an email, setting the campaign, and clicking to run the campaign. That’s just the trailer for experienced marketers.

Other questions experienced marketers ask are:

  • Are the set-up email IDs valid?
  • Are all the emails deliverable?
  • Are the emails reaching their desired destination?
  • What about the progress of the open rate or click-through rate? 
  • Are emails delivered to their intended recipients?
  • And the list goes on!

After analyzing, you’ll be able to develop a reputation that can help you win new clients, build trust, enhance brand recognition, and gain a strategic edge to grow your business. 

But again, the question is, have you proven yourself to be an authentic email sender?

If not, then don’t worry. This comprehensive guide walks you through the process to improve and gain the email sender reputation that you may have missed before.

What Is Email Sender Reputation?

Email sender reputation metrics refer to the score that an internet service provider (ISP) assigns to the email sender for the campaign.

The email sent from the companies to the masses depends on various factors they have to maintain to earn their sender reputation. 

But the actual score and how ISPs assign your sender reputation are just a little scrolling distance away.

Also, sender reputation is associated with the domain from which emails are sent. That seems to be, if that domain sends an email, it establishes a reputation.  

Why Is Sender Reputation Important?

The importance of sender reputation allows you to figure out how effective your email campaign will be and what return on investment you can get from your reputation.

Email marketers are more likely to think of the ISP to touch the required standard for the sake of achieving sender reputation.

Remember that ISP is more intelligent to handle. They know your email list and even know the last email opened by your recipients.

Or in case no one opens your email, I can bet it’ll end up in the spam folder… 

Sender credibility is more critical than subject lines, brilliant format, smart content, or anything else, according to Return Route. Sender reputation allows you to be:

Efficient in email deliverability

The metrics are used to increase the email deliverability rate by throwing them into the recipient’s inbox and enhancing the sender reputation.

ESPs strictly followed their criteria to judge the email sender reputation like email sender IP, frequency of email sent, the number of emails opened, the number of deleted messages and blacklisted emails, etc.

Build an image for the recipients

When you consider ISP and ESP guidelines, they build a bonafide image and give protection to your recipients. It makes your brand image more authentic and genuine to refrain from manipulating people’s trust. 

Get credibility from ISPs

ISPs try to capture spammers and prevent recipients from getting emails if they find spammers. If you are labeled a spammer, all your efforts are going to get stuck for a long time.

Both ISPs and ESPs make sure to deliver a great experience to all the users. That’s why they need to look at every sender and then provide credibility to you.

Improve the Factors That Can Impact Your Sender Reputation

Do you know how many emails are sent per day worldwide? Any guess???

Almost 270 billion emails are sent around the world. And the interesting thing is that more than half of those are business emails and the rest are consumer emails. 

One more thing that you should know is that almost 50% of emails land in the spam folder. That might be a fear for you in terms of the effects of your sender reputation.

There are major factors that assess the sender reputation and protect you from spam jail. So what factors impact sender reputation?

1. The total number of recipients

Everything that exceeds the limits is harmful. You should not get shocked if I say the spammers send emails in huge numbers.

Once ISPs get the high-frequency campaign, they will not let you do it. You cannot send 0-10,000 emails a day. 

For example, Google gives you the opportunity to send 500 emails/day if the email is warmed up. Don’t break the rule, and try to keep a stable number of recipients for your overall campaign.

2. Get the complaint and marked Spam

You have to be careful about ISPs and ESPs when you set up your campaign initially. Many times, people see your email and find that notification to mark as spam.

The recipient can report your email and mark it as spammy to avoid unauthentic emails.

Spam complaints are dangerous, but a trustworthy brand can overcome them by providing brand-authentic details within their emails.

You can get a free SPAM checker that searches emails for issues such as blacklisted IP addresses or email domains, unwanted email content, and so on.

3. Spam trap email address

As ISPs are smart enough to recognize fall off in sender reputation, they can also tangle you in a trap. They have lots of emails that are unused and they utilize them to trap the spammers. 

Like the ones who are not experienced in email marketing, they just find a list of emails that include ISPs’ unused IDs and send unethical emails to the generated list.

In this way, they can look into every sender that violates the policies. This practice is followed to trap the spammers and make business emails more protected from blacklisting.

4. High bounce rate

Bounce rate negatively affects the email sender reputation and increases the chances to decrease your sender reputation.

There are many email addresses that are blocked or may be deactivated, as well as temporary and permanent issues that can cause your email to bounce. If you are not cleaning the list, it may cost you hard. 

5. Quality email list generation

If you’re struggling with lots of unauthorized emails, things may turn out in a way you don’t want. You have to clean your list to reach out to the target audience and escape from breaking the violation. It may help you strengthen your email sender reputation.

6. Strengthen IP credibility

Newly created IP addresses (or “cold” emails) are unknown to the ESPs and don’t have credibility yet. They are unique recognitions of email senders that possess shared and dedicated IP addresses.

You will monitor your IP credibility without caring about other senders’ bad practices if you have a dedicated IP address.

You have to initiate with fewer emails that allow Warm Up Your Email to gradually increase and strengthen your IP credibility.

7. Register your email subdomain

The part of an email address after the @ symbol is known as the email domain. Many people use gmail.com, outlook.com, or yahoo.com for personal addresses.

But for your company environment, you need to have your own domain that provides authentication with the SPF and DKIM.

The exact motive for this subdomain is that it will enable you to track your IP credibility on a domain-by-domain basis and avoid any domain-based validation filters.

8. Implement an SPF & DKIM

The sender policy framework is an email authentication designed to prevent spam by verifying the sender’s IP address. You have to implement SPF to protect your sender’s reputation. It allows ISPs to mark you as an authentic cold email sender.

DKIM: DomainKeys Identified mail is a signature that you can add to your emails to verify that the message will not rewrite after it is sent. This signature is added to the header of the email.

It is essential to increase your sender reputation with email services by knowing the origin of the email campaign. 

9. Warm up your email gradually

You have to gradually increase the email sending limits each day. Before starting cold outreach, you need to warm up the email that can help you build a strong email sender reputation. 

Here comes a solution for you: Warm Up Your Email.

This tool helps you improve your sender reputation so your emails land in the inbox where they belong. All you have to do is set the campaign from your SMTP and hit the send button to roll out.

You can monitor your spam score with one of its free tools: Spam Checker. The lower your spam score ranking, the more reputable you are, and more likely your emails will be delivered in your subscriber’s primary inbox.

This process takes time, but it can elevate the deliverability rate and decrease your likelihood of winding up in spam.

10. Examine your sender reputation

You need to keep an eye on your score. It will lead to establishing a positive email sender reputation. The sender’s overall score varies from 0 to 100. The higher you get, the better your reputation. 

11. Filter out the risky emails

To get high-quality and authentic emails, you should not depend on risky emails when your target is to make your email sender IPs powerful. Once you check your list, you can jump over the spam trap email addresses. 

12. Frequency of emails

Consistency with the number of emails throughout the campaigns can help you gradually build trust over the server. You have to schedule your emails once a week, and if you have great content that can engage your subscriber, then you can send those emails with a good benchmark.

I would not recommend sending in bulk within two days. It will kill your revenue and maybe lose you subscribers.

13. Generate email list by double opt-ins

Double opt-in is a great way to welcome interested people into your email list. It ensures that you do not bother someone because you emailed them with their consent. It is the best way to reduce the number of complaints and remain on the list of legitimate senders.

Bottom line

To maintain your identity, you need to maintain a high score. But at first, you have to gradually increase the number of emails that can help you warm up your email account.

And you’ll see how quickly the deliverability rate elevates. And once you get the sender reputation, you can go with the flow with exciting content in your emails. 

Warm Up Your Email account to establish your sender reputation and increase the deliverability rate. Seriously, email marketing works like magic, but only if it lands in the inbox instead of spam!