What tools or methods can be used to monitor spam rates on a per-user basis within a domain?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests focusing on negative metrics such as unsub rates and negative replies back to the sender.
Email marketer from Stackoverflow suggests user education about writing email that does not look like spam. For example to avoid certain key words.
Email marketer from Gmass shares that while not automated, regularly auditing the email sending practices of individual users can help identify risky behavior. This includes reviewing email content, send frequency, and list management practices.
Email marketer from Reddit r/sales suggests focusing on training your sales team on best practices for outbound sales and cold outreach. Following legal requirements, CAN-SPAM, and privacy best practices reduces your chances of being flagged as spam.
Email marketer from Reddit r/emailmarketing suggests to monitor bounce rates and complaint rates from your ESP or email provider. Some providers offer features to track these metrics on a per-user or per-campaign basis which can highlight problematic sending behavior.
Email marketer from Litmus shares setting up feedback loops (FBLs) with major ISPs can provide valuable data about user complaints. While FBLs often don't provide per-user data directly, analyzing complaint patterns can help identify potential problem areas within your domain.
Email marketer from Mailtrap Blog shares that DMARC reporting tools aggregate data from email receivers and provide insights into sending sources. By analyzing these reports, you can identify which users are sending email that fails authentication checks, potentially indicating spam activity.
Email marketer from SuperOffice answers that monitoring email engagement metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversions can indicate potential issues. Consistently low engagement from emails sent by specific users might suggest they're engaging in spammy practices.
Email marketer from Sendgrid suggests email warming up which is gradually increasing the volume of emails sent from a new IP address or domain to establish a positive reputation with ISPs (Internet Service Providers). This helps avoid being flagged as a spammer. Sendgrid suggests tools like Warm Up Your IP.
What the experts say10Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks responds that if you can’t fire or impact the sales bonuses of employees trashing domain reputation, it's time wasted, and they'll just move to cousin domains.
Expert from Email Geeks says to respond to GDPR data requests to look legit.
Expert from Email Geeks shares to get unsubscribe numbers, actually remove unsubscribed users, and have a policy available for reporting mail.
Expert from Email Geeks shares to have an abuse alias, publish it, and read it to get pointers about bad users.
Expert from Word to the Wise emphasizes that internal monitoring is crucial. Implementing a system to ensure all outbound emails comply with CAN-SPAM regulations can significantly reduce spam complaints. This includes verifying unsubscribe links, physical addresses, and clear identification of the sender.
Expert from Spam Resource shares that if you are doing affiliate marketing be extra careful to monitor affiliates to ensure that they follow best practices and CAN-SPAM requirements, because this is a common source of spam.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that there isn't a tool to give you a dashboard or reports to share with management, as the data isn't available in the B2B spam space.
Expert from Email Geeks shares to comply with CAN SPAM.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that if you're sending mail through Google, track who gets shut down for violating outbound volume numbers.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that companies don't provide data back to the sender regarding individual user spam flags, so there aren't feedback loops for that.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from SparkPost shares that webhooks can be used to receive real-time data about email events like bounces, deliveries, and complaints. By correlating this data with user IDs or sender information, you can gain insights into individual sending behavior.
Documentation from Microsoft Defender for Office 365 explains the Spoof intelligence insight, which helps identify and prevent spoofing attempts. While not directly per-user, it can highlight patterns of potentially malicious outbound email originating from within the domain.
Documentation from Postmark explains that for senders with high email volume, using a dedicated IP address can provide greater control over reputation. Monitoring the reputation of this IP address is crucial for identifying potential spam issues.
Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that admins can use the Email Log Search in the Google Admin console to investigate spam reports. This allows filtering by sender, recipient, and date to identify potential problem users.