How does sending domain, sending IP, and message content affect sending reputation?

Email marketer from ZeroBounce explains that spam traps are email addresses used by ISPs and blacklist providers to identify spammers. Sending email to spam traps can severely damage your sender reputation and lead to blacklisting. Regular list cleaning is essential to avoid hitting spam traps.

Email marketer from Litmus shares that properly configured SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication are essential for building trust with ISPs and proving that you are who you say you are. Failure to authenticate can lead to deliverability issues.

Email marketer from Campaign Monitor shares that high complaint rates (spam reports) are a major red flag for ISPs. Monitor your complaint rates and take action to address the underlying issues, such as irrelevant content or difficult unsubscribe processes.

Email marketer from GlockApps explains that message content plays a vital role. Avoid spam trigger words, use proper HTML formatting, ensure a good text-to-image ratio, and personalize content to improve engagement and avoid spam filters.

Email marketer from Mailjet explains that your sending domain is a crucial component of your sender reputation, impacting trust with ISPs. Using a dedicated domain, properly authenticating it, and maintaining consistent sending habits are vital.

Marketer from Email Geeks shares that Google does allow poor reputation to move from a sub-domain to the parent domain. They also use other data points from their network, such as their general domain reputation indicators (search engine, Chrome safe browsing URL db etc.). Google certainly establishes reputation as the FQDN/DKIM pair but it doesn't stay there for a bad sender.

Marketer from Email Geeks shares that sending reputation is based on many factors, including sending domain, sending IP, message content, and previous user reaction to your messages. Sending via an SMTP relay (as opposed to via an ESP's API) will not, by itself, cause a problem unless the SMTP relay has an existing bad reputation.

Email marketer from SendPulse shares that message content significantly impacts deliverability. Using spam trigger words, poor HTML coding, or deceptive subject lines will hurt your sender reputation and increase the likelihood of being filtered as spam.

Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum shares that a new IP address requires a warming period. Sending too many emails too quickly from a new IP can negatively impact your reputation and trigger spam filters. Gradually increase sending volume over time.

Email marketer from Reddit explains that using a reputable sending domain is crucial. If your domain is new or has been associated with spam in the past, it can negatively impact your sending reputation and lead to deliverability issues. Authenticating the domain using SPF, DKIM and DMARC is very important too.

Email marketer from ReturnPath explains that maintaining a clean email list is crucial. Regularly remove inactive subscribers, bounce addresses, and spam traps to improve engagement rates and avoid being flagged as a spammer.

Expert from Email Geeks responds he was consulting for a client who offered a third party as a send method and he suggested that they try to move away from it. It’s almost too hard to get right and it puts your corporate mail reputation at risk if done wrong.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that whether a subdomain's reputation affects the root domain is complex. Domain reputation at Gmail might be based on the exact domain/subdomain, possibly even the exact domain/subdomain+dkim selector, so at that level subdomain rep is not likely to “infect” the parent domain. However, in other contexts like other ISPs or Spamhaus, if there is enough bad activity from a subdomain then it will get your domain blocked or blocklisted in a way that affects the parent domain.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that engagement metrics, derived from message content and list management practices, significantly impact sender reputation. Low engagement and high complaint rates signal negative reputation and decrease deliverability.

Expert from Word to the Wise emphasizes the necessity of proper domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) for building and maintaining a positive sending reputation. Properly configured authentication helps ISPs verify sender identity and prevent spoofing, improving deliverability.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that domain reputation carries through regardless of the underlying sending IP address, and that domain reputation is based on the domains in the headers or the body of the message.

Expert from Spam Resource explains that while IP address reputation is important, it's also influenced by the domain reputation. A good domain reputation can help offset a less-than-perfect IP reputation, especially for smaller senders.

Documentation from RFC details that a properly configured reverse DNS (rDNS) record is important for verifying the identity of your sending server. An rDNS record maps an IP address back to a domain name, helping ISPs confirm that the IP is authorized to send email for that domain.

Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools explains that IP address reputation is a key factor for Gmail deliverability. A poor IP reputation can lead to emails being marked as spam or blocked.

Documentation from SparkPost details that engagement is a major factor. High open rates, click-through rates, and low complaint rates signal a positive reputation to ISPs, while low engagement and high complaint rates can hurt your sending reputation.

Documentation from dmarc.org explains that DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is a crucial email authentication protocol that helps prevent email spoofing and phishing attacks. Implementing DMARC allows domain owners to specify how recipient mail servers should handle emails that fail SPF and DKIM checks, enhancing security and deliverability.

Documentation from Microsoft details that sender reputation is calculated from several factors, including sending IP address, domain, authentication, list accuracy, complaint rates, and more. Poor sending habits will negatively impact sender reputation.