Email can be tricky. On one hand, it's easy to write and send an email. But when it comes to cold emails, things can get complicated. One of the biggest challenges is deliverability. What good is all your hard work on a cold email if it doesn’t even land in your recipient’s inbox? The first step to improving cold email deliverability is fixing email reputation. This blog will offer valuable tips on fixing your email reputation and getting your cold emails back on track.

Inframail's email infrastructure can help you fix your email reputation quickly and efficiently, allowing you to reach your goals and get back to what matters: crafting the perfect cold email.

Table of Content

• What are the Ripple Effects of a Poor Email Reputation?

• Why Has Your Email Reputation Gone Down?

• How to Fix Email Reputation and Improve Deliverability

• Start Buying Domains Now and Set Up Your Email Infrastructure Today

What are the Ripple Effects of a Poor Email Reputation?

Every time you press send, your email goes through an obstacle course of deliverability checks—meant to keep spammers and scammers from hurting your subscribers—and sometimes, your innocent email marketing campaigns can get caught. 

Three main factors influence your overall deliverability: 

1. Infrastructure

2. Content

3. Reputation

Your email reputation is like a credit score; the better your reputation, the more likely you’ll have higher email deliverability. ISPs look at several different factors when determining your reputation. 

What Are Sender and Domain Reputation?

Your email sender reputation is a score or measure that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) assign to an organization sending emails. Your email deliverability is a result of your email reputation. The better your reputation, the more likely you’ll have higher email deliverability. ISPs look at several different factors when determining your reputation. 

Your sending domain. It’s the text that follows ‘@’. Your reputation depends on the domain and IP address you’re sending emails from—plus additional factors: “When introduced to the concept, people tend to think that ‘sender reputation’ is an alpha or numeric score assigned by the Internet, easily calculated and cataloged. Both much simpler and much more complicated, sender reputation is the email-specific outcome of what people think about your brand. 

Understanding and Managing Email Sender Reputation for Better Deliverability

“Your reputation is based on your behaviors and users’ responses to them, which influences where mail ends up next time, whether in your subscribers’ inboxes, spam folders, or blocked altogether. If people sincerely like you, their behavior will show it, and you’ll be rewarded with inbox placement. 

But if recipients aren’t that into you, your messages will be relegated as spam or rejected, even if you’re not breaking the law or sending what you consider spam. Reputation isn’t a grade; it’s an ongoing assessment of your brand’s respect for your mutual customers.” Alison Gootee, Compliance and Deliverability Enablement Principal at Braze Your IP reputation matters. 

You’ll have a clearer image of your email-sending reputation if you’re on a dedicated IP address. But if you’re on a shared IP address, your email-sending reputation may be impacted by others on your shared IP.

Factors That Define Your Email Reputation

ISPs evaluate several factors when determining your email reputation. Here are the most impactful: 

• Sender behavior: ISPs closely monitor your email volume and consistency. Sudden spikes can make it look like you’re engaging in spammy behavior. 

“A sharp increase in volume, where you usually send 1,000 emails in a single week, and then one week you send 15,000 is going to make a lot of ISPs look twice,” said Jaina Mistry, Director of Brand and Content Marketing, Litmus. 

It’s okay to send lots of emails (yay for big email lists!), but don’t overload your subscribers. Consistency is key. Stick to a steady cadence, and avoid massive jumps in volume. 

• Subscriber behavior: Your reputation hinges on how your subscribers interact with your emails. Are they opening them, clicking through, replying, or forwarding? Or are they marking them as spam and unsubscribing? ISPs look for positive engagement signals. ISPs regularly look at how many subscribers engage with your emails (based on actions like opening, replying, forwarding, deleting, and clicking) how many recipients mark your emails as spam, and your unsubscribe rate. The more your subscribers engage with your content, the better your reputation. If they’re not engaging, it’s time to rethink your approach—because engagement is a vote of confidence in your emails. 

• List hygiene: Keeping a clean email list is crucial for maintaining a good reputation. Hitting spam traps—those sneaky addresses designed to catch spammers—or being listed on a blocklist can seriously damage your standing. 

• Other factors ISPs evaluate include: 

• If your organization hits any ISP spam traps or is on any blocklists 

• Email bounces 

• Regularly scrubbing your lists for inactive subscribers and hard bounces will help you avoid these pitfalls. Good list hygiene shows ISPs that you’re sending to a healthy, engaged audience. 

• Email authentication: ISPs want to see that you’re playing by the rules. Setting up proper email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC helps prove your legitimacy. Think of these as the “ID checks” for your emails—showing that you are who you say you are and building trust with ISPs and your audience. Note: All ISPs will weigh these factors differently.

What Is Domain Reputation And Sender Score?

Each email sender has a sending domain. It’s the text that follows ‘@’.

Your sending reputation depends on the domain and IP address you’re sending emails from—plus additional factors:

“When introduced to the concept, people tend to think that ‘sender reputation’ is an alpha or numeric score assigned by the Internet, easily calculated and cataloged. Both much simpler and much more complicated, sender reputation is the email-specific outcome of what people think about your brand. 

“Your reputation is based on your behaviors and users’ responses to them, which influence where mail ends up next time, whether in your subscribers’ inboxes, spam folders, or blocked altogether. If people sincerely like you, their behavior will show it, and you’ll be rewarded with inbox placement. 

“But if recipients just aren’t that into you, your messages will be relegated as spam or rejected, even if you’re not breaking the law or sending what you consider spam. Reputation isn’t a grade. It’s an ongoing assessment of your brand’s respect for your mutual customers.”

Alison Gootee, Compliance and Deliverability Enablement Principal at Braze

Your IP reputation matters. You’ll have a clearer image of your email-sending reputation if you’re on a dedicated IP address. But if you’re on a shared IP address, your email-sending reputation may be impacted by others on your shared IP.

Related Reading

• Blacklist Removal
• IP Address Reputation
• Blacklisted Email

Why Has Your Email Reputation Gone Down?

Before you can fix your email reputation, you need to know what's ailing it. Here are some telltale signs that your reputation might need some TLC:

Bounce Rates: Understanding Their Impact on Email Reputation

Bounce rates refer to the percentage of emails that fail to deliver. A high bounce rate signals poor list hygiene. ISPs interpret frequent bounces as a sign that you’re not maintaining a quality email list, which can lower your reputation.  

Spam Complaints: What They Are and Why They Matter

Spam complaints are the number of times recipients mark your emails as spam. When recipients mark your emails as spam, it’s a red flag for ISPs that your content is unwelcome. High complaint rates quickly erode your sender reputation and lead to lower deliverability. 

Recipient Engagement: Why It Matters for Email Reputation

Recipient engagement is a measure of how recipients interact with your emails, including actions like: 

• Opening

• Clicking

• Reading

Engagement metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and time spent on emails reflect how interested recipients are in your content. Low engagement suggests to ISPs that your emails lack value, which leads to inbox placement issues.  

Sending Practices: How They Impact Your Email Reputation

Sending practices refer to the consistency and quality of your email-sending behavior, such as maintaining a steady volume and avoiding unverified lists, which impacts ISP trust. ISPs monitor the consistency and legitimacy of your email-sending patterns. Sudden spikes in email volume or sending to purchased lists can raise red flags, harming your reputation.  

Authentication Protocols: Why They’re Essential for Email Reputation

Authentication protocols are verification methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC that confirm your identity as a legitimate sender, reducing the risk of being flagged as spam. 

Here’s what each of these acronyms means: 

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): An email authentication protocol that verifies whether a sender’s IP address is authorized to send emails on behalf of a domain.

• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): An email authentication method that uses cryptographic signatures to ensure the email’s content has not been altered during transit.

• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): A policy framework that builds on SPF and DKIM to help email senders and receivers prevent spoofing and phishing while providing visibility through reports.
  
  
  

Missing or misconfigured protocols make your emails appear suspicious and increase the likelihood of being flagged as spam.  

Spam Trap Hits: Identifying Their Impact on Your Email Reputation

Spam traps are email addresses intentionally created by ISPs and anti-spam organizations to identify senders using poor list management practices. Real people do not use these addresses and never sign up for email lists, so if your email lands in a spam trap, it signals that you may be sending to unverified or outdated addresses. Spam trap hits can severely damage your sender reputation.  

Content Quality: The Goal Is to Meet Your Recipients’ Expectations

Content quality refers to the relevance, clarity, and value of the emails you send to your audience. ISPs and spam filters analyze your content to determine whether it meets recipients’ expectations or resembles spam. Poor-quality content, such as misleading subject lines, excessive promotional language, or irrelevant messaging, harms your email sender reputation and reduces deliverability.  

Domain and IP Reputation: What They Are and Why They Matter

Domain and IP reputation reflect the trustworthiness of your sending domain and the IP address used to send emails. ISPs evaluate these reputations to decide whether your emails are delivered, flagged as spam, or blocked entirely. Poor practices or shared IP issues degrade your reputation.  

Related Reading

• How to Improve IP Reputation
• Google Blacklist Removal
• How to Get Off Email Blacklist
• Blacklist Removal Tool

How to Fix Email Reputation and Improve Deliverability

1. Validate Your Email List: Clean Up Your Act

Maintaining a clean email list is one of the most critical steps to improving email deliverability. Sending emails to invalid or outdated addresses wastes resources and results in high bounce rates, damaging your sender reputation and lowering your deliverability over time. 

Invalid emails lead to bounces, and too many bounces signal to email providers that your list is unreliable, reducing the likelihood of future emails reaching inboxes. Regular validation ensures you're only sending emails to active, valid recipients. 

How To Validate Your Email List

Use a trusted list validation tool to clean your database regularly. These tools scan your list, identify invalid or risky addresses (such as those from disposable email services), and remove them automatically. This helps improve deliverability and boosts overall campaign performance, leading to higher engagement rates. 

2. Identify the Problematic ISP

The key here is to identify which ISP you’re having difficulty with and send only to your most engaged audiences for that ISP. While this will drastically reduce the number of people you’re reaching with your emails, it will improve your engagement rates and ensure inbox placement. This step will indicate to your mailbox provider that your emails are not spam and that your readers engage with them.

3. Identify Risky Email Automations and Turn Them Off

Campaigns such as win-back email campaigns are risky. After all, they are reaching out to an already disinterested audience. The chances of them opening your emails and engaging with your content are low. Email automations your subscribers and customers might not engage with include: 

• Cart abandonment emails 

• Re-engagement campaigns

Even though these email flows can sometimes work to revive disengaged customers and subscribers, they have a higher likelihood of going unopened and not being clicked on than transactional or other emails in the promotions tab in Gmail. If these campaign emails do not lead to engagement, they will further harm your email reputation. Turn these campaigns off to improve your engagement rates if you have a reputation crisis.

4. Contact Your Postmasters

Once you’ve taken steps to remedy your deliverability issues, but it’s still not working, you can also contact your ISP postmasters. A postmaster is the administrator of an email service. They deal with spam emails and sender reputation. Once you’ve identified your problematic ISPs, send them a report using these forms: 

• Gmail

• Yahoo Mail

• Outlook

So, until you see an improvement in your inbox placement, keep notifying Gmail of your issues through their postmaster contact form, advisably every week. Outlook and Yahoo Mail, on the other hand, will likely respond to you via email within three to four days. Their response will indicate whether they’ve found issues with your email domain and are working on a fix or haven’t seen any problems. 

5. Start Increasing Send Volume When Engagement Rates Increase

Only once you see an uptick in engagement rates can you start sending emails to more people again. For example, if you previously only sent your campaigns to people who had opened your emails in the last 15 days, you can now raise the bar to 30 days. 

Monitor the new results and then rinse and repeat until you hit your typical, full sending volume. For acquisition-related campaigns (where you’re contacting new/unengaged subscribers), having a secondary dedicated IP address can protect your primary IP address (used for campaigns that drive business goals and need to have reasonable inbox placement rates). 

6. Improve Sender Reputation

Your sender reputation significantly affects whether your emails land in the inbox or get flagged as spam. A low sender reputation is one of the leading causes of poor deliverability, but improving it can significantly increase your chances of inbox placement. 

Key Factors That Affect Sender Reputation

• Email Content Quality: Sending valuable, relevant, and engaging content is crucial. When recipients interact positively with your emails, such as opening them and clicking on links, it strengthens your sender reputation. 

• Avoid Spammy Language: Words like “free,” “buy now,” and “guaranteed” can raise red flags for spam filters, so it’s important to avoid using language that could trigger these filters. 

• Proper Authentication: Implement email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to prove to email providers that your messages are legitimate and not forged. These protocols add credibility to your emails, improving deliverability.

7. Monitor Bounce Rates and Engagement

High bounce rates and low engagement often signal deliverability issues. Monitoring these metrics closely can help you spot potential problems early and take action before they affect your email strategy. 

Bounce Rates

High bounce rates can indicate problems with your email list. If your emails regularly bounce back because of invalid or inactive addresses, it’s a clear sign that your list needs cleaning. Reducing bounce rates is key to protecting your sender’s reputation. 

Engagement Metrics

Low engagement, such as poor open rates or click-through rates, tells email providers that your content may not be relevant to your audience. Over time, this can lead to your emails being flagged as less critical or even marked as spam. 

How To Improve Engagement

• Segment Your Audience: Send targeted, relevant content to different audience segments based on their preferences and behavior. 

• Personalize Your Emails: Emails that feel personal and tailored to the recipient tend to perform better. Use personalization tokens like names and past behaviors to drive engagement. 

• A/B Test Your Campaigns: Test different subject lines, copy, and CTAs to see what resonates best with your audience.

8. Email Content Optimization

Crafting the right content is key to staying out of the spam folder. Spam filters closely analyze the content of your emails, looking for anything that could be deemed suspicious or spammy. 

Tips for Content Optimization

• Watch Your Language: Avoid using terms that are frequently associated with spam, like “100% free,” “limited-time offer,” or “urgent.” 

• Keep Your Formatting Clean: Spam filters may flag overly formatted emails (such as those with excessive bold, italics, or colored text). Keep your email layout clean and professional. 

• Use a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): Spam filters look for clarity in your emails. A clear, direct CTA improves engagement and can help keep your emails out of the spam folder. 

• Balance Text and Images: Too many images can make your email look suspicious to spam filters. Ensure a good balance between text and visual elements to maintain credibility. 

• Test Before You Send: Before launching any campaign, run your email through deliverability and spam tests to catch any potential issues. These tests will flag problematic content or structural problems that could hurt your chances of landing in the inbox.

Related Reading

• Microsoft Blacklist
• Remove Domain from Blacklist
• Check if Email Is on Blacklist

Start Buying Domains Now and Set Up Your Email Infrastructure Today

Inframail is revolutionizing cold email infrastructure. With unlimited inboxes at a flat rate, we make scaling your cold email outreach efforts easy. 

Inframail provides: 

• Microsoft-backed deliverability

• Dedicated IP addresses

• Automated technical setup 

We help scale their outreach efficiently and fix their email reputation: 

• Agencies

• Recruiters

• SDRs 

Email Reputation Affects Deliverability

Email reputation is much like a credit score; the higher your score, the more trustworthy you appear to inboxes. And, just like a credit score, it’s not a fixed number. Instead, it fluctuates based on your behavior, changing as you send emails. 

If you were to look at a visual representation of an email reputation, it would look like a graph with several peaks and valleys. The better your email reputation, the more emails you can send without triggering spam filters.  

How Inframail Helps You Fix Your Email Reputation

Inframail helps them improve their email reputation in a few ways: 

• Agencies

• Recruiters

• SDRs

We provide dedicated email servers for each user. This means you will no longer share an email server with countless others and suffer the consequences of their lousy email behavior. You’ll get a server that you can use to restore or build your email reputation. 

We automate SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup to help you fix your email reputation quickly and efficiently. We offer 16-hour priority support to help you with any questions or concerns as you work to repair your email reputation.