#1: Email Reputation "REPUTATION IS EVERYTHING"
www.EmailDelivered.com (C) Copyright 2013
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Email Reputation
.................................................................... REPUTATION IS EVERYTHING 1. Email Reputation As the saying goes, “In business... reputation is everything”. Well this holds true when it comes to email deliverability. Your reputation is key and it’s essential to establish - and maintain - a good email reputation. These include: a. Know your “scores” Just like credit reports in the “real world”, email reputation scores are indicators of how good or bad your email practices are. For example, if your credit score is 400, then there are most likely a lot of issues affecting your credit worthiness that you need to address.
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SENDER SCORE BANDS AND AVERAGE DELIVERED SENDER SCORE
0-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 91-100
AVERAGE DELIVERED
21% 67% 68% 92% 95%
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Email Reputation
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In email, one of the more popular scoring “agencies” is your “Sender Score”. The scores are based on a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is the worst and 100 is the best. Your goal is to have an “A rating” email score, which is over 90. Anything below that indicates that there is some sort of underlying problem that needs to be addressed and corrected.
inbox
sender
internet
inbound mail server
authentication
reputation data
junk email pass pass
spf record lookup dns server
quarantine sender id framework (sidf) block/delete
www.EmailDelivered.com (C) Copyright 2013
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Email Reputation
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CONTROL COMPLAINTS b. Authenticate your Email IP Address Pulbish SPF records (sender policy framework) along with SenderID, Domainkeys and DKIM (domain keys identified mail). You may also wish to separate promotional, newsletter, and transactional communication. c. Control Complaints It’s important to pay attention to complaints and adjust your campaigns, sending patterns, and communication style accordingly. You’ll want to establish feedback loops with all of the ISPs that offer them and then monitor where your complaints are coming from and what types of messages are generating them.
WWW.EMAILDELIVERED.COM
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Email Reputation
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KEEP OFF BLACKLISTS Stay off blacklists at all costs. There are a number of email blackslist that can impact your deliverability, so you want to scan your IP address(es) regularly and ensure they are not winding up on any lists. NOTE: Not all email blacklists are created equal! There are only a handful of blacklists that really have an impact on your email program. NOTE: You want to avoid blacklists for both your IPs and YOUR domains.
www.EmailDelivered.com (C) Copyright 2013
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d. Avoid Blacklists
keep off blacklists
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Email Reputation
.................................................................... e. Only Send Permission Based Email Well it may be appealing to purchase a list, borrow a database, or even “scrape” lists of people that should be IDEAL prospects for what you have to offer, DON’T DO IT!
Assuming that you have received permission from all of your subscribers, be sure to re-engage inactive contacts by implementing a re-engagement campaign (and eliminate subscribers who have chosen not to engage with you after 6 months max). Send subscribers only what they’ve “opted in” for! It’s enticing when someone signs up for your 10-part autoresponder educational series to automatically “dump” them into your promotional list, but if they didn’t sign up for those types of emails, it’s technically not permission for you to send them.
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Include a manage subscriptions page so that contacts can add/remove themselves from email lists according to their preferences. For example, consider offering a once a week digest (downsell) as an option when someone unsubscribes from your daily newsletter. You may not be able to send them a message every day, but at least you’ll maintain that relationship.
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