How to fix sender reputation issues after accidental email blast and high soft bounce rate?

Email marketer from Litmus explains to analyse your bounce codes. You need to understand the different types of bounces and what causes them. It can help you adjust your sending habits and improve your list hygiene.

Email marketer from Customer.io explains to set up feedback loops. Providers like Gmail and Yahoo give you a feed of users marking your emails as spam. Process this feedback to immediately unsubscribe or suppress those users from your sending lists.

Email marketer from Mailjet shares that one step is to segment your actively engaged users. Create a segment of those who have opened or clicked in your emails within a recent timeframe (e.g., the past 30-90 days). Focus on sending to this group to rebuild your reputation and demonstrate positive engagement.

Email marketer from Reddit advises to gradually reduce the number of emails being sent out per day. You could start by reducing the volume by 50% and then monitor the results before making further reductions. You could also pause all non-transactional emails.

Email marketer from StackExchange explains that one thing you can do is ensure you are properly configured with SPF, DKIM and DMARC to ensure you protect your domain and prove that you're an authenticated sender.

Email marketer from Gmass shares to check your IP and domain against common blocklists. If you find yourself on a blocklist, follow the blocklist's removal process.

Email marketer from Email Hippo explains you should implement a bounce management system to automatically remove hard bounces from your mailing list immediately and suppress soft bounces after a set number of attempts to avoid continued sending to invalid addresses.

Marketer from Email Geeks recommends using Google Postmaster Tools (GPT) to monitor domain reputation, emphasizing the importance of having independent metrics, even if only for Gmail. He says that if complaint rates stay at zero that could be an indication that the email isn't reaching the inboxes so nobody has a chance to complain.

Email marketer from SendGrid answers that when dealing with sender reputation issues, you should warm up your IP address slowly by gradually increasing the volume of emails you send. Start with small batches and progressively increase the quantity over time, monitoring your deliverability metrics closely.

Email marketer from ActiveCampaign shares to first apologize for the mistake and then tell the customers the action you are going to take to remedy it. This could include offering a discount or free service.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that immediate actions include assessing the damage (complaint rates, blocklistings), informing recipients with a sincere apology and plan of action, and suppressing problem recipients.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests that the accidental send likely pushed the sender's reputation into a negative state. They advise that continuing the current sending practices will not resolve the issue. Instead, they recommend restricting recipients to only the engaged ones for a week or two.

Expert from Spam Resource explains that it's crucial to ensure your email list is permission-based, clean (removing hard bounces and unengaged users), and properly segmented before sending any emails, to avoid reputation damage.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that soft bounces don’t really affect your reputation at all initially, but rather indicate that the ISP is slowing down your mail because your reputation is declining. They also state that temporary failures from Verizon Media Group (Yahoo) mean mail is being placed in the bulk folder, and if the issue persists, it escalates to temporary failures to slow mail delivery further. Meaning you are moving down the path to being blocked.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that the long-term recovery involves improving list hygiene, segmenting engaged users, warming up your IP address, and actively monitoring your sender reputation using tools like Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS.

Documentation from Microsoft explains that the Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) program offers data about your sending IP addresses when sending to Outlook.com users. This helps identify if your IP is blocked or throttled and provides insights into complaint rates, so you can take corrective actions.

Documentation from Google explains that Google Postmaster Tools can be used to monitor your sender reputation with Google. It provides insights into spam rates, feedback loop, and authentication to help diagnose and fix issues.

Documentation from SparkPost answers that one key element is ensuring list hygiene through regular removal of unengaged users, bounced addresses and those who have unsubscribed from your mailing list.