What steps can I take to address concerning spikes in user-reported spam rates and improve IP reputation?
Summary
What email marketers say11Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Reddit suggests authenticating your emails (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), monitoring your sender reputation with tools like Google Postmaster Tools, segmenting your lists, and actively removing inactive subscribers. They emphasize the importance of consistent email volume and avoiding sudden large sends.
Email marketer from GMass shares the importance of warming up a new IP address gradually by slowly increasing the volume of emails sent over time. This helps establish a positive sending reputation with ISPs.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum suggests setting up feedback loops (FBLs) with major ISPs. This allows you to receive reports about spam complaints and identify subscribers who are marking your emails as spam. You can then remove these subscribers from your list.
Email marketer from MailerLite suggests segmenting email lists based on subscriber behavior (e.g., engagement, purchase history) to send more targeted and relevant emails. This can reduce spam complaints and improve engagement rates.
Email marketer from HubSpot stresses using double opt-in to build your email list. This requires subscribers to confirm their email address before being added to your list, ensuring that you only send emails to engaged and willing recipients.
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that consistent email volume, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and list hygiene are crucial for building and maintaining a positive IP reputation. They also suggest warming up your IP address and segmenting your email list.
Email marketer from Litmus recommends actively monitoring email deliverability using tools that track inbox placement, spam folder placement, and blocklist status. This helps identify potential issues and take corrective action.
Email marketer from Seth Godin's Blog advocates for permission marketing, which involves only sending emails to people who have explicitly given you permission to do so. This builds trust and reduces the likelihood of spam complaints.
Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests that a reason for users marking emails as spam could be an unsubscribe process that isn't obvious or easy to find.
Email marketer from SendPulse shares that providing value-driven content, honoring unsubscribe requests promptly, segmenting mailing lists for relevant content, using double opt-in subscriptions, and regularly cleaning your email list can reduce spam complaints and improve your sender reputation.
Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that regularly cleaning your email list by removing inactive subscribers, bounced addresses, and spam traps is critical for maintaining a good sender reputation and improving deliverability. They suggest using email verification tools to identify invalid addresses.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource explains feedback loops and their importance in understanding and reducing spam complaints. They explain that they provide valuable data about which campaigns and subscribers are generating complaints, enabling senders to take corrective actions like list cleaning and content optimization.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that spikes on low volume days are normal and often not a cause for concern. Suggests examining the complaint page for more insights and adjusting the time frame to exclude large spikes for a more accurate reading.
Expert from Word to the Wise emphasizes the importance of understanding your sender reputation and taking steps to protect it. They advise monitoring bounce rates, spam complaints, and blocklist status to identify potential issues. They advise using authentication methods such as SPF and DKIM.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that investigating the reasons behind spam complaints is crucial. They recommend analyzing email content, sending frequency, and subscriber demographics to identify potential triggers. They emphasize the importance of providing value to subscribers and making it easy to unsubscribe.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests investigating why people are complaining about the emails, ensuring the content aligns with their expectations based on their signup, and optimizing sending practices. Mentions step-by-step instructions for reputation recovery available in previous discussions.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Microsoft explains that sender reputation is influenced by spam complaints, sending to invalid email addresses, and avoiding being blacklisted. They emphasize the importance of consent and proper email list management.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools Help explains that a spam rate consistently above 0.10% [and even lower] may cause delivery problems. It is important to keep the spam rate low to ensure good deliverability.
Documentation from DMARC.org states that implementing DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) helps prevent email spoofing and phishing attacks. It enables senders to specify how email receivers should handle messages that fail SPF and DKIM checks.
Documentation from RFC details that SPF records authorize sending mail servers for a domain. Implementing a correct SPF record can prevent spammers from forging the sender address and improve email deliverability.