Sender reputation is a score assigned to you, and it’s based on your email campaigns. It takes into account campaign quality, frequency, as well as user interaction. The email service providers use this score to ensure spammers can’t reach their customers.
Why Is It Important?
First and foremost, the sender’s reputation affects your email deliverability. Email providers monitor spam reports, engagement, and bounce rates to determine if the email sender is valid or not.
These metrics allow them to save their users from fraud, like cyber attacks or phishing attacks.
Additionally, sender reputation can show you how successful your campaigns are. If your sender’s reputation is high, it means that subscribers like your emails. On the contrary, when your numbers start getting lower you need to investigate and see if it’s just a matter of poorly written emails or something else.
How to Make Sure Your Reputation Stays Good
There are many things you can do to keep your reputation, and the list starts with your email lists.
Verify and clean your email lists
Use an email verification tool to check subscribers as you’re getting them. These tools will catch outdated emails, addresses with typos, and other invalid contacts. Additionally, you should use this type of tool to clean your list every once in a while.
And while cleaning your list from invalid emails will certainly help you – you should also say goodbye to inactive subscribers. Anyone who hasn’t opened or interacted with your emails in the last two months should go. Before you delete these emails forever, you can try sending a reactivation campaign, but if that doesn’t work don’t hesitate to click that delete button.
Double opt-in is the way to go
Double opt-in has multiple benefits. It helps you get rid of invalid emails before they get to your list. But, it’s a way for you to be certain that the people on your list actually want to be there.
Besides, double opt-in is required by law in some countries. So make sure you investigate the rules before implementing anything.
Warm-up your IP
If you just started a new website, you have what’s considered a “cold” IP. This means that you don’t have any credibility yet in the eyes of email service providers.
Since building a good sender reputation takes time, take your time. Start small, and then gradually increase the number of contacts you’re emailing, as well as the number of emails you’re sending.
Improve your open rates
Low engagement lowers the sender’s reputation. Therefore, you should take the time to craft and test the perfect subject line for each campaign you’re sending. Users decide whether to open an email based solely on the subject line, so it needs to be good.
This means that you should also allow spammy, attention-grabbing techniques like using all caps, multiple exclamation marks, etc.
Wrapping Up
If your business relies on email marketing you could face huge losses once your sender’s reputation is affected. This is why you should pay attention to all things that could negatively impact your reputation.
To make things easier, we recommend that you use tools to track your email analytics, sender reputation, and other factors.
