Email deliverability can be a tricky area to navigate. You can spend hours crafting the perfect email, but if it doesn’t land in your recipients’ inboxes, all that work goes to waste. When emails aren’t delivered correctly, it’s terrible for your business. Not only does it mean that your audience isn’t receiving the information they signed up for, but it also can harm your reputation as a sender. The Email Quality Score is a key indicator of your emails’ deliverability. It determines whether your emails will be filtered into the spam folder or the inbox. The higher your Email Quality Score inbox delivery, the better. In this article, we’ll break down everything you need to know to improve your Email Quality Score for better engagement and deliverability.

Inframail's email infrastructure solution can help you achieve your goals by improving your Email Quality Score. With better email quality, you’ll see higher engagement rates and better deliverability. 

Table of Content

• What Is Email Quality Score?

• How to Improve Your Email Quality Score

• 11 Best Tools to Check Quality Score

• Start Buying Domains Now and Setup Your Email Infrastructure Today

What Is Email Quality Score?

Email quality score is a metric used to assess the overall quality of email campaigns. This metric also measures the relevance of your emails. Email clients also use email quality scores to analyze: 

• Incoming emails' relevance

• Importance

• Legitimacy

They use various filters and algorithms to assign a quality score to these emails. If your email quality score is low, your email campaigns may end up in the spam or promotion folders. Conversely, a high-quality score will result in your emails landing in the recipients' primary inboxes, leading to higher open and click-through rates. 

Why Does the Email Quality Score Matter? 

The email quality score matters because it will influence the performance of your whole email marketing strategy, not only one message. This score can, among others, lead to better inbox placement and improve the sender’s reputation. But, if it’s low, it can cause your messages to be redirected to spam folders and hurt your overall marketing efforts. A good email quality score can do more than that.

Improve Email Deliverability

A high email quality score contributes to improved email deliverability. ESPs are more likely to route messages to recipients’ inboxs from senders with successful scores. If your score is perfect, your emails can reach the intended audience better. They can avoid the spam folder and increase the overall effectiveness of your marketing.

Improve Conversions

It also translates into better sales. When your emails consistently provide value and resonate with subscribers, they increase the likelihood of conversions. Interested recipients will respond to your call to action and boost your sales, no matter your email campaign goal, encouraging a purchase, sign-up, or any other desired action.

Improve Sender Reputation

That’s not all. If you get a satisfactory score, you establish your reputation as a sender with great email deliverability rates. A strong email sender score indicates that your emails are landing in the right inboxes and don’t bounce back. 

This is crucial for sustaining a positive sender reputation and ensuring that future email campaigns enjoy excellent deliverability without encountering issues like delivery failures or being flagged as spam. Your email provider will ensure that more incoming emails land where they should be.

Build Stronger Relationships With Your Target Audience

A good email quality score can strengthen relationships further. It signifies that your audience finds your messages relevant, interesting, and valuable. Higher open rates, click-through rates, and lower unsubscribe rates are indicators of satisfied recipients. This involvement is fundamental to the success of ongoing marketing efforts and prepares the ground for further relationship expansion.

Make Email Marketing ROI Better 

A high-quality score ultimately contributes to a better ROI for your email program. If your communications consistently reach active users, you can maximize sales opportunities without committing new resources. As a result, your marketing budget is utilized more efficiently. You perform better, too, and ensure that your email efforts are a valuable investment. 

What Affects Your Email Quality Score?

Here are some of the factors that affect your email quality score that you should know about:

1. Sender Reputation 

ESPs assess the reputation of the sender’s email address and domain to understand the sender’s credibility better. They also refer to the sender’s sending history, compliance with anti-spam policies, and previous deliverability metrics. A positive sender reputation leads to a higher email quality score, and vice versa. 

2. Email List Health 

A healthy email list is essential. A healthy email list has active email addresses of recipients who have opted in to receive your emails. An email list with outdated or incorrect addresses can lead to a lousy quality score. 

3. Spam Complaints

Spam complaints can affect your email quality score negatively. If a recipient marks your email as spam, the ESPs indicate that the recipient considers your email unwanted or unsolicited. 

Minimizing spam complaints by sending emails to the correct email addresses who have opted in for your emails is essential for maintaining a high-quality score. 

4. Engagement Metrics 

Higher engagement rates show ESPs that the emails are highly relevant to the recipients and perform well with them—a higher level of engagement results in a higher quality score. ESPs assess various engagement metrics, such as click-through rates, conversion rates, number of forwards or shares, unsubscriptions, etc. 

5. Open Rate

Open rates refer to the percentage of emails opened by the recipients from the total number of emails sent. A high open rate reflects that the subject lines of your emails are compelling and relevant to your recipients. It may also indicate that your content resonates with your recipients, thus raising my email quality score. 

6. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of emails not delivered to the recipient’s inboxes. This can be due to incorrect email addresses or any other deliverability issues. A high bounce rate can lower your email quality score. 

Email Quality Score Vs. Sender Score Vs. Email Message Quality Score

While ESPs use all three mentioned above to provide a score and determine your efforts' success, they differ in a few key aspects.

Email Quality Score 

Measures the overall performance and relevance of email marketing campaigns. It focuses on holistic email performance and assesses factors like engagement metrics, spam complaints, bounce rates, etc.

Sender Score 

Measures the sender’s reputation. It focuses on sender-specific performance and assesses factors like the sender’s sending history, compliance with anti-spam policies, and previous deliverability performance.

Email Message Quality Score 

Measures the quality of individual email messages. It focuses on content-specific performance and assesses factors like subject lines, email content, personalization, etc.

How to Use Email Quality Score in Email Marketing

By analyzing the performance of email campaigns, marketers can better understand and gather information on various metrics like: 

• Open rates

• Click-through rates

• Bounce rates

• Unsubscribe rates, and so on

These metrics can help understand the areas that need improvement and give an idea of the email quality score so they can work on improving it, too. For instance, if the bounce rate is high, it will contribute to a lower email quality score. This also points to the fact that there’s a requirement to clean the email list. 

Doing that will automatically reduce the bounce rate and raise the overall email quality score. While different ESPs follow different algorithms to calculate the email quality score, you can have a general idea of the calculation. 

How to Calculate Email Quality Score

From Tony’s article, here’s the formula to calculate the Email Quality Score (EQS):

Email Quality Score = 1 – (Unsubscribes / Unique Clicks)

How to read it:

• A perfect score (no unsubscribes) is 1.00

• A positive score (>0.00) means that there are more unique clicks than there are unsubscribes

• A score of 0.00 means that the number of unsubscribes is equal to the number of unique

• A negative score (<0.00) means that there are more unsubscribes than there are unique clicks

Here’s a sample calculation:

Data:

Unique Clicks: 34,120 Unsubscribes: 3,300 EQS = 1 – (Unsubscribes / Unique Clicks)

EQS = 1 – (3,300 / 34,120)

EQS = 1 – (0.0967175)

EQS = +0.90

This (+0.90) would be a good EQS.

Related Reading

• Why Are My Emails Going To Spam
• Email Deliverability Rate
• Email Monitoring
• Email Deliverability Issues
• Bounce Rate in Email Marketing
• How To Avoid Email Going To Spam
• Why Do Emails Bounce
• SPF or DKIM
• How To Check If Your Emails Are Going To Spam

How to Improve Your Email Quality Score

Clean Your Email List

Cleaning your email list should be a recurring task for marketers. An inaccurate email list leads to higher bounce rates and reduces open and click-through rates, lowering the overall email quality score. Checking for and getting rid of inactive and invalid email addresses regularly helps maintain a healthy email list.

Send Personalized Emails

Emails with personalized content and subject lines for individual recipients resonate better with them. When recipients find the content relevant to them and based on their interests, they are more likely to open your emails and engage with them. This would increase the engagement rates and your overall email quality score.

Validate Your Email Lists

First, learn about email list validation, as it’s fundamental to maintaining a high email quality score. In addition to the technical benefits, keeping your email list clean ensures you reach real, engaged users. You remove disposable emails, spam traps, inactive emails, and others, leaving you with a high-quality list of authentic emails.

On the other hand, invalid or unverified addresses will not interact with the emails you send them. Thus, this protects you from the negative consequences of bouncing emails, as each rejection lowers deliverability and, over time, can lead to being marked as a spam sender and other potential issues.

Create a Seed List

Creating a seed list is a strategic move to catch and rectify glitches before your email campaign goes live. This is about more than just testing the visual appearance. The main goal is to ensure that your emails arrive where they should. So, discover how many emails recipients will get and how many might end up in the spam folder.

Bouncer Deliverability Kit takes the guesswork out of testing. It offers a comprehensive suite for assessing your email’s journey, from setting up tests to sending emails to automatically generated addresses. It also offers a detailed report of your inbox placement results. The three-step process is simple yet powerful and allows you to monitor deliverability effectively.

Make Sure There Are No HTML Errors

Your emails should be carefully crafted visual experiences. HTML errors can disrupt this experience, lead to rendering issues, and potentially damage your brand’s image.

The errors can manifest in various ways, such as: 

• Misaligned images

• Broken links

• Distorted formatting

They can contribute to your emails appearing unprofessional or, worse, trigger spam filters.

So yes, ensuring your messages are error-free is paramount for consistent communication. Given that users gain more interest in visually appealing content, the aesthetic aspect of your emails directly influences engagement rates and, subsequently, your email quality score.

Do Not Purchase or Rent Email Lists

The allure of a ready-made email list can be tempting, but the risks of purchasing or renting far outweigh the benefits. Purchasing or renting email lists often means inheriting a host of issues. These lists typically contain outdated, invalid, or even fake email addresses.

When you send emails to such addresses, you practically invite bounces, unsubscribes, and, most damagingly, spam complaints. The negative consequences extend beyond the immediate campaign. ESPs track the performance of your emails, and a high bounce rate or spam complaints can tarnish your reputation.

Once your sender score is damaged, regaining the trust of the mail server becomes an uphill battle.

Split Test Different Body Copy and Subject Lines

What resonates with one segment of your audience might not have the same impact on another. Split testing, also known as A/B testing, is the strategic approach of experimenting with different elements of your emails to understand what works best for your readers. It is not a one-time effort but an ongoing plan.

Subject lines and body copy are the first things your recipients see. These elements play a pivotal role in capturing attention and encouraging opens. A compelling subject line can entice recipients to open the email, while engaging body copy keeps them reading and, ideally, clicking through.

You can choose the language and style that maximizes your audience’s attention by systematically testing different variations. 

Monitor Email Deliverability

Actively monitor how your email campaigns are performing. You must keep track of the various metrics involved in measuring the success of your email campaign, like: 

• Open rates

• Bounce rates

• Spam complaint rates, etc. 

Doing this will help you identify any deliverability issues promptly and help you maintain a good email quality score.

Optimize Send Time

If you send your emails to your recipients at random times, you’re doing it wrong. A well-timed email resonates better with the recipients. You may want to keep your emails ready and schedule them to be sent at a later date and time. 

Alternatively, you can use a feature like send-time optimization, which determines the best time to send emails to recipients, to increase the chances of being opened or engaged.

Keep a Clear CTA

Having a clear CTA makes it easier for recipients to act. You should have just one CTA. It also allows you to focus more on compelling that CTA to the recipients. A clear and persuasive CTA increases click-through rates and positively affects your email quality score.

Create Valuable Content

Creating content that resonates with recipients is a key factor in the success of email marketing campaigns. Your content must give your readers some value worth their invested time. High-quality content encourages recipients to open, read, and interact with emails, improving engagement rates and a higher quality score.

Promote Preference Center Updates

Preference centers allow your subscribers to tell you their preferences, what they would like to receive from you, and how often. If you do not have one, you should create one, and if you do have one, you should promote it amongst your recipients so they know they’re important and engage more with your updates. This also helps you define your expectations and guides you to the right path.

Use a Reputable Email Marketing Software

Choosing the right email marketing software is just as important. You need to know the complete list of features the software offers, check out its alternatives, see if the functionalities align with your business needs, and then decide. Use one with a good reputation to keep your data safe, too.

Related Reading

• DMARC vs DKIM
• Importance Of DMARC
• What Is a Soft Bounce Email
• Email Deliverability Checklist
• What Affects Email Deliverability
• Why Is Email Deliverability Important
• Email Bounce Rate
• Fix Email Reputation
• Improve Sender Reputation
• Email Hard Bounce
• Email Deliverability Tools
• Email Deliverability Best Practices
• Best Email Domains

11 Best Tools to Check Quality Score

1. Inframail - The Ultimate Cold Email Infrastructure  

At Inframail, we are revolutionizing cold email infrastructure with unlimited inboxes at a flat rate. 

We provide: 

• Microsoft-backed deliverability

• Dedicated IP addresses

• Automated technical setup 

It scales its cold email outreach efforts efficiently:

• Agencies

• Recruiters

• SDRs  

The main benefits of using our service: 

• Automated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup

• Dedicated email servers for each user

• 16-hour priority support daily

How InfraMail Simplifies Email Infrastructure for Scalable Outreach

Unlike traditional providers that charge per inbox and leave you wrestling with technical configurations, Inframail streamlines the entire process. We handle the complex infrastructure setup while you focus on reaching more prospects. 

InfraMail provides a robust email infrastructure without the usual technical headaches and per-inbox costs, whether: 

• You're an agency looking to scale outreach

• A recruiter connecting with candidates

• An SDR driving sales

Start buying domains now and set up your email infrastructure today with our email infrastructure tool. 

2. Spamhaus: The Free Tool for Monitoring Your Sender Reputation  

SpamHaus is a robust tool for monitoring sender reputation in email marketing. It’s a go-to resource for many ISPs, email service providers, and corporations looking to safeguard their email practices. It provides real-time updates about IP addresses and domains involved in sending spam emails. 

Unlike other tools, it examines the content of the emails, recipient responses, and adherence to best practices. Its user-friendly interface offers detailed reports and actionable advice to improve the sender score. Spamhaus is an invaluable asset for maintaining a strong sender reputation.   

3. Barracuda Central: A Free and Comprehensive Tool to Check Sender Reputation  

Barracuda Central is a FREE service offered by Barracuda Networks. It operates as a real-time database, providing updates about IP addresses and domains involved in sending spam emails. What sets Barracuda Central apart is its ability to examine not just the volume of emails sent but also the: 

• Emails’ content

• The recipients’ response

• The adherence to email-sending best practices

This provides a more accurate picture of a sender’s reputation. It has a user-friendly interface and detailed reports, which are easy to understand. Overall, Barracuda Central is a comprehensive, reliable, and user-friendly tool for checking sender scores and reputation.   

4. McAfee TrustedSource: Real-Time Data to Help You Maintain a Strong Sender Reputation  

McAfee TrustedSource functions as a real-time database, offering updates about IP addresses and domains involved in sending spam emails. The tool is also recognized for its user-friendly interface and detailed reports, which are easily comprehended. 

This allows users to identify potential issues and take corrective measures. Its detailed reports and actionable advice make it an invaluable asset for anyone serious about maintaining a strong sender reputation in the competitive world of email marketing.   

5. Microsoft Smart Network Data Services (SNDS): A Free Tool for Monitoring Sender Scores  

Microsoft’s Service Delivery Networks (SDNs) are a powerful tool for monitoring sender scores and email reputation. The tool is particularly effective with Microsoft’s email services like Outlook, enhancing deliverability by maintaining a strong sender reputation. Microsoft SDNs are essential for ensuring your emails get sent and reach the intended inboxes.   

6. SendForensics: An All-in-One Tool for Email Deliverability  

SendForensics is a one-stop destination for email deliverability. It uses machine learning to analyze your emails, identifying potential issues that could lead to your emails being marked as spam. The tool provides a dashboard that tracks essential email-related metrics related to your sender reputation, such as spam trap hits and complaint rates. 

It also integrates with various data sources, providing a holistic view of your sender’s reputation. With its real-time monitoring feature, SendForensics informs you about any issues that could impact your email performance. This tool is valuable for anyone looking to optimize their email deliverability and maintain a strong sender reputation.   

7. IPvoid: Analyze Your Sender Scores and Reputation for Free 

IPvoid is a versatile platform that provides a detailed analysis of sender scores and reputation. It uses a robust algorithm to evaluate the trustworthiness of an IP address, offering insights into potential blacklisting across multiple databases. 

Its real-time data and comprehensive reports make it a reliable choice for businesses aiming to optimize email marketing strategies.   

8. MailTester: A Comprehensive Solution for Checking Email Sender Scores  

MailTester is a comprehensive solution for checking email sender scores and reputation. It offers an in-depth analysis of your email’s deliverability by examining the sender’s IP against numerous DNS-based blacklists. 

The platform’s strength lies in its ability to provide real-time feedback, helping users to promptly identify and rectify issues that could harm their sender reputation. MailTester’s detailed reports provide valuable insights into the health of your email-sending practices, making it an essential tool for optimizing email marketing efforts.   

9. Google Postmaster Tools: Monitor Your Email Sender Reputation for Free 

Google Postmaster Tools helps you manage your email sender reputation, especially if you use Gmail. It provides a comprehensive view of your IP reputation, allowing you to monitor any fluctuations and address potential issues promptly. 

The tool’s IP lookup feature offers detailed insights into the deliverability of emails from specific IP addresses, helping to identify and rectify problems that could impact the sender score. Google Postmaster Tools provides valuable data on spam complaints and delivery errors. With its user-friendly interface and detailed reporting, Google Postmaster Tools is a must-have for anyone serious about optimizing their email marketing strategy.   

10. Cisco Talos Intelligence: A Powerful Tool for Managing Sender Reputation  

Talos Intelligence by Cisco offers many features for managing sender reputation and ensuring optimal email deliverability. It provides an exhaustive analysis of your IP’s reputation, crucial in maintaining a high sender score. The platform’s real-time threat intelligence is a standout feature. It lets you promptly identify and address any issues that could negatively impact your email deliverability. 

Talos Intelligence offers detailed reports on email and web reputation. These reports provide valuable insights that can help you fine-tune your email marketing strategies. Talos Intelligence has advanced security features that protect your email infrastructure from threats. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy to navigate and utilize these features effectively.   

11. Sender Score: A Free Tool for Analyzing Your Email Sender Reputation 

Sender Score is a powerful tool that comprehensively analyzes your email sender’s reputation. It uses a unique algorithm to assign scores ranging from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating a better sender reputation. 

By providing detailed insights into your email-sending practices, Sender Score allows you to identify potential issues and take corrective measures to improve your email deliverability. It’s an invaluable resource for optimizing email marketing efforts and ensuring their messages reach the intended recipients.

Start Buying Domains Now and Setup Your Email Infrastructure Today

Cold email infrastructure is changing with Inframail. With unlimited inboxes at a single flat rate, we scale its cold email outreach efforts efficiently:

• Agencies

• Recruiters

• SDRs 

You’ll appreciate our: 

• Microsoft-backed deliverability

• Dedicated IP addresses

• Automated technical setup

Automated Technical Setup for Faster Deliverability

Inframail streamlines cold email by automating technical configurations that slow down deliverability and hurt your sender’s reputation. We automate SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup, which improves your email quality score and speeds up reaching the inbox. Dedicated email servers for each user also ensure you won’t get any nasty surprises from a neighbor on a shared server. 

Prioritized Support to Get You Going Faster

Email deliverability can be tricky, and traditional providers leave you to figure it out independently. 

At Inframail, we provide 16-hour priority support daily to get you up and running as quickly as possible. InfraMail provides a robust email infrastructure without the usual technical headaches, whether you’re: 

• An agency looking to scale outreach

• A recruiter connecting with candidates

• An SDR driving sale

Related Reading

• Email Monitoring Software
• Soft Bounce Reasons
• Check Email Deliverability Score
• Soft Bounce vs Hard Bounce Email
• SalesHandy Alternatives
• GlockApps Alternative
• MailGenius Alternative
• MxToolbox Alternative
• Maildoso Alternatives