What parameters and legal considerations are important when an ESP builds an email reputation database?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign advises that re-engagement campaigns can help maintain a clean email list by identifying and engaging inactive subscribers. By sending targeted emails to these users, it's possible to improve open rates, reduce bounces, and avoid being marked as spam.
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor shares that using segmentation and targeting techniques can boost sender reputation. This is achieved by sending relevant content to engaged subscribers, which leads to improved open rates, click-through rates, and decreased spam complaints.
Email marketer from HubSpot outlines that the CAN-SPAM Act requires clear identification of the sender, a physical postal address, and an easy opt-out mechanism, which needs to be followed to avoid legal consequences. Also keep PII considerations in mind.
Email marketer from Litmus shares that list hygiene involves regularly cleaning email lists to remove inactive, invalid, and spam trap addresses, improving engagement rates, and reducing bounce rates, which contributes to a better sender reputation.
Email marketer from SendGrid explains that IP warmup is a critical process for new IP addresses, gradually increasing sending volume to establish a positive reputation with ISPs, and avoiding being flagged as a spammer.
Email marketer from Stack Overflow mentions that Feedback Loops (FBLs) are an essential tool for identifying and removing users who mark emails as spam, as they send notifications to senders when their emails are marked as spam by recipients, which assists in maintaining a healthy sender reputation. Implementing FBLs demonstrates a commitment to compliant email practices and helps improve deliverability.
Email marketer from Neil Patel Digital explains that sender reputation is vital and involves factors like IP address reputation (avoiding blacklists), domain reputation (authentication with SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and engagement metrics (open rates, click-through rates, spam complaints).
Email marketer from Reddit mentions that reputation scoring includes monitoring bounce rates, engagement (opens and clicks), and spam complaints, combined with factors such as list hygiene and authentication protocols to provide a comprehensive sender reputation.
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that DMARC policy helps protect your domain from being used for email spoofing, preventing phishing attacks, and instructing receiving mail servers on how to handle emails that fail SPF and DKIM checks.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that parameters like complaint rate, trap hits, RBL listings, newness/age of client/domain, domain rotation, and DMARC/DKIM/SPF should be captured.
What the experts say6Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that good permission practices and list hygiene are essential for building a positive sending reputation. They recommend obtaining explicit consent from subscribers, regularly cleaning email lists to remove inactive or invalid addresses, and providing easy opt-out options to avoid being marked as spam.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains the importance of suppressing unsubscribes. You must remove unsubscribed users from your list promptly. Not doing so is both a violation of anti-spam laws and harmful to your reputation.
Expert from SpamResource emphasizes the importance of Complaint Feedback Loops (FBLs) for maintaining sender reputation, explaining that FBLs provide senders with information about recipients who mark their emails as spam, enabling senders to remove these recipients from their lists and improve overall deliverability.
Expert from Email Geeks advises to consult a lawyer regarding PII when dealing with bad actors and suggests needing stats/machine learning expertise for a usable predictive model, or a responsive abuse desk if not focusing on prediction.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that billing address, credit card address, business registration number, phone number, social media, and connecting IP address should be captured.
Expert from SpamResource explains the importance of processing bounces correctly. Invalid addresses can harm your sending reputation, so correctly processing bounces is an important aspect of deliverability.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Microsoft outlines that junk email policies take into account sender authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), list hygiene, complaint rates, and sender reputation metrics to filter incoming messages and protect users from spam and phishing.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools outlines that bulk sender guidelines recommend authenticating email with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, maintaining low spam complaint rates, and providing easy unsubscribe options to improve deliverability to Gmail users.
Documentation from GDPR enforces data protection and privacy for individuals within the European Union and the European Economic Area. It dictates rules for processing and collecting personal data, including consent requirements, the right to access data, and the right to be forgotten. ESPs must comply with GDPR guidelines for EU residents, including when building and managing reputation databases
Documentation from RFC 4408 specifies that SPF records are crucial for authenticating sending domains, preventing spoofing, and improving email deliverability by allowing receiving mail servers to verify that emails originate from authorized sources.
Documentation from PCI Security Standards Council stipulates requirements for securely handling credit card information, and ESPs must comply with PCI DSS if they collect, process, or store credit card data, affecting their data security and reputation management.